Westchester Guardian/In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

In Our Opinion...

DiFiore: A One-Term DA

Janet DiFiore simply cannot get it right. Upon her installation into the DA’s Office, she had a golden opportunity to do the right thing by the People of Westchester, and thereby, perhaps, cement her future. Of course, having come by the Office by illegitimate tactics, she wasn’t inclined to run it any differently.

In point of fact, Peter Viviano, her Campaign/Field Operations Director, amongst other things, employed mercenaries with box cutters who went around cutting down Tony Castro’s large signs, and pulling up his smaller ones.

Under her “consultant”, Mike Edelman, totally false and malicious, ethnically-divisive, negative campaign literature, was produced against Castro. And, Nick Spano’s hoodlums did with the voting machines what honest, caring voters refused to do despite her flood of signs.

Janet couldn’t wait to tear her robe off the moment Jeanine, just 20 hours before the Republican Convention, announced she would not seek reelection to a fourth term. It wasn’t that Pirro didn’t want to. Nobody steps out of public office, a free political platform, to then run for a higher position a year later. No, Jeanine had conducted an expensive poll that told her she could not beat Tony Castro.

Janet couldn’t beat him, either; not in a legitimate contest, anyway. But Janet knew she had Nick Spano, who had lost to Andrea Stewart-Cousins by 355 votes a year earlier and was finagled back into office by 18 votes, on her side, not to mention his whole crowd of hoodlums with years of experience in election fraud. Yes, operators, both in and out of the Board of Elections, who would vote early and often, who could intimidate honest voters, and who could play games with machines, and with vote counts, and who could produce counterfeit ballots as with the Green Party in 2000.

In any event, upon entering Office, Janet was surely well-aware of the numerous innocent individuals who had been railroaded into State Prison; she knew where the bodies were buried, and, that which she didn’t know would be hers for the asking. She was only too well aware of the Pirro operation, having worked for six years under Carl Vergari, and six more under Jeanine.

But Janet had no intention of cleaning up the ugly operation left behind by Jeanine despite their mutual contempt. For 16 months Janet sat on a mountain of exculpatory information in the Anthony DiSimone case; 52 boxes of exhibits, 376 pages, and miles of audio tape; some of it conversations between Pirro and the United States Attorney’s Office in which Pirro was reminded that DiSimone was innocent and that she had allowed Louis Balancio’s killer, Nick Djonovic, to escape to the Yugoslav Republic despite having a confession just six days after the murder.

Compelled in Federal Court to surrender the huge amount of Brady material, evidence of DiSimone’s innocence, Janet DiFiore continues to attempt to retry him. What could she be thinking about? Similarly, what is she thinking about with respect to Richard DiGuglielmo, who she knows, very well, committed no crime when he saved his middle-aged father from a bat-wielding, notoriously belligerent amateur boxer with
an extensive criminal record and a long history of violent behavior.

Janet is well aware that Pirro’s prosecution, in each of those cases, was a fiction designed to politically promote herself. In DiSimone’s case, she needed an Italian-American defendant to prove she could prosecute the Cosa Nostra; and, a guy named Djonovic just wouldn’t do. In DiGuglielmo’s case, the fact that the perpetrator was a Black man would give her the Minority vote in her upcoming 1997 reelection bid, if only she could twist the three eyewitnesses’ consistent accounts of self-defense.

Pirro would offer the jury the unethical and unlawful choice, “Pick one from Column A or Column B.” By claiming Unconstitutionally that it was either an “intentional” or a “depraved mind” murder; a kind of “heads I win, tails you lose” game.

Does anyone really believe that Janet knew nothing about her husband, Dennis Glazer’s, attempt to bribe Right-To-Life candidate Anthony Di Cintio off the ballot with the offer of a “free hand”, a job in the DA’s Office, if he would drop out of the race?

A prosecutor’s prime requisite is supposed to be to search for the truth. Truth be told, Janet DiFiore is not interested in anything other than remaining in power. Perhaps that fact contributes to the exceptionally low morale, and high resignation rate, in her office. Only the most malicious, most criminally cruel, and consciousless could take any pleasure in what DiFiore demands of her attorneys.

No wonder nearly 60 ADAs and investigators have resigned, and four of her top attorneys are about to abandon her sinking ship. There can be no pride in working for the Office who let Wayne Simoes skate, instead prosecuting Irma Marquez. It took a jury to right Janet’s wrong; and the United States Attorney to step in and deal with Simoes.

Now, she is attempting a similar stunt in the Rui Florem incident. Thankfully, the People of Westchester are growing wise to Janet and her predecessor, and she will be a one-term district attorney.

Our Readers Respond...

Opinions Are Like ........, Everybody Has One

Dear Editor:


The only good part of your rag is the History section. Most of your efforts are dedicated to inflaming and inciting, particularly with regard to your anti-police diatribes.

Indeed, you’re hiding behind First Amendment rights brings to mind the justice who said, “Free speech does not give one the right to yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”

As for Fred Polvere, I choose to be mean-spirited; to use a term given birth by the Democrats and raised daily, (witness Sarah Palin’s near-crucifixion); he is as dumb as he looks, and I would waterboard him or any member of his family, or mine, if convinced it would save lives
from a terrorist attack.

A Proud Conservative


Judicial Title Company Offers A Clarification

Dear Editor:


It was with deep dismay and surprise that I read your September 18, 2008 article (The Court Report: At Long Last, Justice For Bobrowsky). In it you made a statement linking Judicial Title with a fraudulent attempt to file a deed. You never contacted, nor attempted to contact, anyone at Judicial Title to learn the role a Title company plays in recording any deed. Judicial Title is presented with approximately 50 documents
per week to record in various County Clerk’s offices. In such matters Judicial Title has not done any searches of the property and causes no policy of insurance to be issued. The service rendered is merely the recording of the deed.

What Judicial does in these instances is no different than what Westchester County does when they record such deeds. They do no research as to who the parties in the deed are, nor do any searches as to the parties’ right to convey the property. That is outside the scope of the recording process.

Indeed, Ms. Bobrowsky joined Judicial Title as a defendant in the lawsuit you mentioned in the article, heard by Judge Liebowitz. The Judge in that action immediately dismissed the case against Judicial Title. In short, there is no basis in fact for you to connect Judicial Title to any fraud whatsoever.

Richard Giliotti, President
The Judicial Title Insurance
Agency LLC


Reader Exposes Yonkers Parking Authority

Dear Editor:


I have tried to alert Yonkers City of-ficials to no avail or results. So I will try your ability to reach the public and willing officials to correct the following problem at the Yonkers Parking Authority. After Robert Jean, Executive Director, retired, the last honest person to run the Authority from 1992-2006, Mike Dalton was put in his position by Mayor Amicone and his cronies, since Dalton is just an Amicone puppet.

Since Dalton’s appointment he has driven the Authority from a well-run business into a chaotic political dump zone that is losing revenue daily due to unchecked spending and the inability by Dalton to run the Authority. His management has led to a loss of public revenue because of unauthorized spending on inter-office affair with a married woman (Sara Gonzolez), giving her $9,000 of Authority money, supposedly for school.

Hiring two of her relatives during the a air and upgrading her position in the office without being quali-fied with various high pay raises. He has hired relatives and employees from City Hall because of their being fired for drugs and lacking education for the jobs, circumventing the Civil Service and proper hiring practice of City & State. Example: Robert Ferrito, Jay McLynn, Jose Gonzales, Maritza Forero, Sean O’Brian, Neim Nezaj. Every name mentioned is associated with or related to someone in City Hall who is working for Amicone.

He has illegally spent money and used men and material to do commercial jobs (signs, repairs, painting) for restaurants and other businesses, at the order of Mayor Amicone, knowing that was both improper and illegal to use public money for commercial businesses.

His latest abuse is sending four employees on the Authority’s charge card to Vegas. All expense-paid trip under the guise of a so-called convention.
Those same people have nothing to do with the subject of the convention. But they are all his (Dalton’s) drinking buddies, all paid for by the Authority charge card account, all public money. This is being condoned by Mayor Amicone and the Board members. It’s time for an investigation and expose.

Solomon Cane, Yonkers


Reader Concerned With Issues Of Fire Safety In Yonkers

Dear Editor:


I am told that the ball park will be built on top of retail stores on what is now known as “Chicken Island”. In light of the presentations by the
Local 628 president and Fire Department Commissioner Tony Pagano, and the fact that months ago I posed similar questions not only about fire but about sanitation, police, schools, medical assistance, emergency services, etc., both for the downtown area and Ridge Hill.

God forbid this should happen, but in the event of a gas leak or fire in the lower portions of a building below the ball park, possibly with 3,000 or more patrons, much help would be needed within and possibly from outside the city. Would we have “mutual aid”? I do not believe we presently participate in this program outside of Yonkers.

And, most important, when talking about fire protection in the new proposed high rises, remember 9/11. Rudy failed to investigate the communication issue before the tragedy and we know what happened. It must not happen in Yonkers.

Communication must be 1,000 percent worked out and tested thoroughly before these buildings go up, no delays, no stalling, no promises that it
will be done. It must be done. The spirits of our brave fire, police and emergency services demand no less.

And, concerning water pressure, we do not want to have firemen drawing water from the Saw Mill/Nepperhan Rivers in Larkin Plaza. Water pressure for a “Hi Riser” must be assured.

Sid Sloves, Yonkers