Janet Difiore and Christopher Ridley Case.

The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

Four Brave Witnesses Tell The Truth About
Murder Of Officer Christopher Ridley
DA DiFiore’s Deceitful Scheme Exposed

Last Wednesday morning, four courageous individuals came forward at a press conference called by Civil Rights Attorney Jonathan Lovett at the site on Court Street, in White Plains, where Mount Vernon Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life at the hands of brother officers some 15 months earlier, in an effort to reveal to the Westchester community what they had witnessed.

The tone and the content of the questions from News12 reporter Brian Conybeare and Journal News reporters Richard Liebson and Shawn Cohen were such that their pro-DiFiore bias could not have been more obvious. Conybeare insultingly asked Lovett if he had paid the witnesses to come forward.

One would have thought these three reporters were DiFiore’s legal defense team engaged in cross-examination. After all, why shouldn’t we believe her?

• This is the DA whose spouse tried to bribe Attorney Anthony DiCintio, the Right-To-Life candidate for DA to withdraw from
the race in 2005 because she was running as a Republican then, and theorized that most Right-To-Life voters would vote Republican
in the absence of their own candidate;

• This is the DA who lied and said she had prosecuted 2,000 cases as an Assistant DA when she ran for County Court against Les Adler. In truth, she had prosecuted only 12 cases, all misdemeanors;

• This is the DA who covered up rogue cop Wayne Simoes; instead prosecuting his innocent victim, Irma Marquez, who he had brutally body-slammed. She has done the same to Rui Florim, nearly beaten to death by six other rogue Yonkers cops, as well as to countless other victims of Yonkers police brutality. The United States Justice Department has stepped in to the Marquez case and is prosecuting violent Police Officer Simoes despite the DA’s attempt to cover up his criminal assault;

• This is the DA who continued to hide 376 pages, 52 boxes, and miles of secretly audio-taped conversations, all exculpatory to Anthony DiSimone until the federal courts demanded that she turn them over, and released Mr. DiSimone, who had served seven years in prison for a murder he was clearly innocent of, and to which the actual killer had confessed.

• This is the DA from whose Office 72 attorneys and investigators had resigned at last count. And, we are supposed to believe
she is telling the truth about the murder of heroic, young police officer, Christpher Ridley? We think not.

Stanley Ridley, Officer Ridley’s dad, has been very hurt by DiFiore’s cruel effort to discredit his son’s actions. Thanking
the four witnesses who unselfishly came forward to share the truth no matter what reprisal, what retaliation doing so might
bring, Mr. Ridley told them, “My son died taking care of people, and they are trying to make him look reckless. Nothing they put in my way will keep me from getting out the truth.”

One witness, John Fiumara, told reporters, “I told DiFiore shooting Officer Ridley in the head was uneccessary, and an execution; and, she told me ‘Don’t say that in Court.’” Obviously she did not want the grand jurors to know the truth.

Attorney Jonathan Lovett, who has filed federal lawsuits on behalf of Officer Ridley’s dad, Stanley Ridley, as well as on behalf of Efrem Burgos, the witness dubbed ‘The Good Samaritan’, for having gotten violent perpetrator Anthony Jacobs away from his elderly victim, told reporters, “The big lie will not stand. The truth is coming out. It was a polarizing event. A White cop shoots a Black cop.” He went on, “If the DA will release all of the footage from all of the cameras, we might see what really happened.” Each of the four eyewitnesses who came forward on Wednesday were put before a grand jury by Janet DiFiore, and, therefore, were deemed by her to be credible, trustworthy, and knowledgeable witnesses. She can not now attempt to discredit, or impeach what they are saying with respect to the manner in which Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life by an uneccessary shot to his head. She cannot erase what they each witnessed at close range just because when one of them, John Fiumara, told her to her face, “It was an uneccessary execution,” she told him, “Don’t say that in court.”

Neither can she brush off the fact that when asked by a grand juror directly, Efrem Burgos expressed the same opinion, that the shot to the head was uneccessary, but the Assistant DA controlling his appearance, declared, “Strike that.” Janet DiFiore cannot, now, avoid the inconvenient truth, the horrible, traumatic experience of witnessing the murder of a young man, a heroic police officer, at close range, and being compelled to keep that shocking experience bottled up for 15 months because someone who was sworn to search for the truth, used the power of her Office to keep it hidden for political and self-preserving reasons.

Each one of those four witnesses who spoke out publicly on Wednesday, David Boudreau, Kathy Allan, John Fiumara, and Efrem Burgos, expressed to this reporter their relief and their gratitude for the opportunity to publicly reveal what they, and others, have been forced to keep from the family of Officer Ridley and the Westchester community by the District Attorney and her agents.

It’s amazing what lengths certain media persons will go to in order to protect the sitting district attorney from exposure. The handling of the Ridley investigation is but one example. When you have a cable channel such as Cablevision’s News 12 that was not only granted their monopolistic franchise by the County Executive, but was also given a $22.5 million no-bid contract to their Lightpath subsidiary for a failed communication system in March 2000 by that same County Executive, you will do everything that you can, everything that Brian Conybeare and Janine Rose are now doing, to protect and promote the County Executive’s, Andy Spano’s, “partner in crime.” They did it for Jeanine Pirro, and now they’re doing it for Janet DiFiore.

Last Thursday, Conybeare spent hours on Court Street in White Plains searching for someone, anyone, who might contradict what four eyewitnesses to the murder of Police Officer Christopher Ridley revealed at a press conference the day before. They, News12, who had the images from four cameras out of nine that were in range, “exclusively” as they put it, were also in control of the particular clips from each that they showed. Of course they were; they were the only so-called news source that DiFiore knew she could trust to keep her secret.

As far as News 12’s witness, David Hess, is concerned, his claim that they did not see what happened, is totally wrong. Dave Boudreau was standing directly across the street at the time of the shooting. Kathy Allan had a clear view through the window of the van in which she was seated. John Fiumara was right there, behind Hess, outside the passenger side of the van, and Efrem Burgos, in fact, viewed the shooting by Officer Oliveri through the windows of the taxi.