Thursday, September 18, 2008
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
At Long Last, Justice For Bobrowsky
Yonkers City Court
Judge Michael A. Martinelli Presiding
Last Tuesday morning, September 9th, in Judge Michael A. Martinelli’s Court, Yonkers City Court, had been essentially unremarkable for the
first two hours; unremarkable in that Judge Martinelli had handled the usual stream of DWI, Drug Possession, Assault, Menacing, etc., cases with the thoughtful judicial temperament and dedication this observer had seen any number of times from him.
At 11:20am, the Judge announced, “The Court will be in recess for 20 minutes. We will be handling the Bobrowsky case.” Assistant District Attorney Paul Stein had been sent down from White Plains and now entered the courtroom. Attorney Anthony John Messina, of White Plains, representing Sherry Bobrowsky, of Yonkers, now addressed the Court. He told Martinelli, “I’m seeking a modification of the Order of Protection issued by this Court. The Order stipulated that my client was to stay away from the house. The question is, who owns the house? It’s been determined that my client does.”
Judge Martinelli asked, “Has there been an eviction?”
Messina responded, “My application is for a modification because this is a family matter that has been blown way out of proportion.” Referring to
Dr. Sherry Bobrowsky, he went on, “She can’t even get her mail. She has no place to live. Her brother, Jacques, doesn’t even live in the house.”
Pausing for a moment, Messina went on, “For two and a half years, Your Honor, the People have, in effect, put this woman out of her home.”
Martinelli then reminded Messina that his client had an open pro se application before the Court, asking, “She’s not withdrawing the motion now?” Messina then turned to Bobrowsky, privately conferenced with her, and turned back to Martinelli, responding, “Your Honor, she’s agreed to withdraw them now.”
Then, Martinelli turned to ADA Stein, asking, “What’s the People’s position on the modification of the Permanent Order of Protection?”
Stein responded, “She was given an Order to stay away from her 82-year old mother. There was a first Criminal Contempt Order, and a second Criminal Contempt Order. The victim in this case is elderly.”
Stein went on, “Ownership is irrelevant to the Order of Protection.” He then tried to make an argument that Sherry Bobrowsky’s relationship with
her mother Lillian was analogous to a relationship between spouses, with elements of domestic violence under one roof. Reading from the Order of Protection, he declared, “This Defendant is to stay away from Lillian Bobrowsky and her home.”
At that point, Mr. Messina came back with, “Your Honor, I think we can call that a jurisdictional defect. This is how we got here, staring at her mother while her brother was sitting right next to her.” Judge Martinelli then observed, “It’s a Misdemeanor Complaint.” Messina followed with, “My first notion.” Martinelli then inquired, “Where are we now with regard to the non-jury trial?” Messina replied, “Judge, you can leave it on for this Thursday if they wish to.”
The Judge replied, “I’m going to withhold my action on the modification of the Order of Protection pending the outcome of the non-jury trial.”
Analysis:
Sherry Bobrowsky was finally before a judge, perhaps the only judge in the City Courts of Yonkers worthy of the title. She had been before Klein
and Wood and Duffy and had not been treated with the proper respect due any citizen in her situation. Her experience in the Yonkers City Courts had been one of callous and, in some instance, belligerent treatment by police, City Corporate Counsel, assistant district attorneys, and judges alike.
It had been clear and unjustifiable prejudice for more than two years, that supported and played into the hands of a brother with serious mental
health issues, represented by an attorney, Herbert N. Posner, who had been disbarred some 20 years ago for fraudulent practices, and this year, had lost his Notary license, also for fraud.
Now things were different; she was before a judge who was clearly a gentleman, Michael A. Martinelli, someone who would actually wield his powers with compassion and fairness; one who would approach her circumstances and those of her brother and 82-year-old incapacitated mother even-handedly, in a genuine effort to hopefully resolve matters.
Dr. Bobrowsky had been to Federal Court, appearing before Judge Stephen C. Robinson several months earlier, in an attempt to prevail upon him to intercede in the series of unconstitutional violations by the Yonkers Police and Corporate Counsel, the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, and Yonkers City Courts, who, acting in concert, had been ganging up on her, aiding and abetting a very transparent effort by Posner to deny her Constitutional Right to enjoy her own property, her home, her disability income, even the privacy and possession of her mail.
Unfortunately, Robinson found that he could not grant her the relief sought, by reason of jurisdictional failure. Bobrowsky had succeeded, however,
in State Supreme Court under Judge Richard Liebowitz, in getting a favorable determination with respect to her ownership and clear title to her Yonkers home, despite a fraudulent attempt by Attorney Posner in connection with Judicial Title Insurance Company, to file a deed outside of the chain of title.
She would be appearing again Wednesday and Thursday, September 10th and 11th, before Judge Martinelli; Thursday to answer to recent
allegations by Yonkers Police that she had violated a Permanent Order of Protection by being in the vicinity of her aged mother on June 2nd, when, in fact, she had been in the company of Attorney Mayo Bartlett, nowhere near her mother.
On Wednesday morning, September 10th, Dr. Bobrowsky was back before Judge Martinelli; this time in answer to an Order To Show Cause
filed by Attorney Posner with regard to a Default Judgment issued against his client, Bobrowsky’s mother Lillian, with respect to an eviction notification. Her mother and brother were present in Court, together with Posner. As he had done once before in State Supreme Court, Posner claimed that he wasn’t served by the Court and that Attorney Messina should have served him.
Martinelli ruled that the responsibility for notice lay with the Court. He asked what Posner’s argument was in light of his failure to show up. Posner declared, “It’s in the papers,” claiming that what Messina verified wasn’t true, asking for a recess to research the Real Property Law.
It turned out that Messina was right.
People v Sherry Bobrowsky
Thursday afternoon, September 11th, Dr. Bobrowsky appeared, once more, in Yonkers City Court before Judge Martinelli; this time to answer
to charges by the Westchester District Attorney’s Office. Martinelli opened, asking, “What’s happening on this?” The Assistant District
Attorney responded, “Judge, I’m serving a superceding Misdemeanor Complaint with respect to the June 2nd incident.”
Attorney Messina replied, “Your Honor, they’ve announced readiness but they don’t provide a certified copy.” Martinelli responded, “You will be
getting a certified copy today.” He then asked Messina, “How do you plan to proceed? You’ve waived the right to a jury trial.”
At that point, Messina asked, “Judge, may we approach?” And Messina and the Assistant District Attorney approached the Bench. Returning from a brief conference, Messina announced, “Judge, we prefer actual notice.” The ADA then indicated to the Court that he would prefer more time.
Martinelli then responded, “Based on what?” The ADA indicated that he wanted to involve the Domestic Violence Unit. Martinelli then set September 25th, at 2pm, for trial. Turning to Bobrowsky, he asked, “Ms. Bobrowsky, do you understand that in requesting a non-jury trial the Judge will sit as Judge and Trier of Fact?” She acknowledged that she understood. Closing the criminal hearing, Martinelli moved right along to handle the civil matter.
Sherry Bobrowsky v Jacques and Lillian Bobrowsky
Judge Martinelli opened with, “Let’s start off by being off-the-record. Is there any hope of resolution of the differences between the parties?”
Posner, speaking in a discouraging tone, told the Court, “We’ve tried.” Martinelli then told Posner, “Let’s assume Ms. Bobrowsky proceeds to
evict your clients.” At that point, Posner began to double- talk about events in Supreme Court under Judge Richard Liebowitz. He emphasized that Lillian had lived in the house for 62 years.
Going back on the record, Martinelli said, “So we are here on the Landlord/Tenant matter, and we will proceed with that.” At that point Attorney
Messina handed papers to Posner. Posner then asked for a “stay to allow sufficient time for Lillian to file a Show Cause Motion.” He went on to tell the Judge, “When the Order of Protection was drawn up in Family Court, there was a subsequent altercation which was established by a jury of her peers.”
Following brief arguments, Martinelli told Attorney Posner, “I’m going to deny your Order To Show Cause. I’m going to issue an Order and sign the warrant, with a 14-day Stay.”
Analysis:
The 14-day Stay was included because they were all scheduled to be back in Court on the 25th of September. Now that Judge Martinelli has effectively consolidated and taken over all of Dr. Bobrowsky’s court issues, there is realistic hope that she will soon reoccupy her home and normalize her life.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Westchester Guardian/Jeffrey Deskovic.
Jeff Deskovic
Incentivized Witnessing: A Cause Of Wrongful Convictions
Incentivized witnessing is defined as when a witness testifies against a defendant either in exchange for money, or in exchange for their release from prison, or in exchange for having charges either dropped against them or to receive a lesser sentence, or for some other benefit.
Sometimes the incentivized witness comes forward on his or her own, looking to receive a benefit for their testimony. In these instances, it
often happens that in order to gain information about a crime, the incentivized witness reads articles that are in a newspaper about a crime, and then weaves his lies around that information.
This can be both when a defendant has been charged and is the subject of the story, or in instances in which nobody has been arrested.
When the latter is the case, the incentivized witness may resort to falsely pointing the finger at a person that they dislike or have a grudge against. At other times, the authorities can approach the incentivized witness, offering either perks for testifying, or consequences if they do not, such as a harsh prison sentence, and sometimes both.
The danger of incentivized witnessing is that when desperate prisoners who have been caught red-handed have no truthful information to trade on, they will resort to lying. Incentivized witnessing has been the cause of wrongful convictions in 15 percent of the 218 DNA-proven wrongful convictions, and in a lot more of the non-DNA exonerations. According to a report by The Center On Wrongful Convictions,
a non profit organization that works to free wrongfully convicted prisoners, incentivized witnessing, at least in part, has sent 38 innocent Americans to death row.
The following cases are taken from the report The Snitch System that was produced by The Center On Wrongful Convictions: “Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were twice convicted of the 1983 abduction, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County. They initially were tried together and sentenced to death in 1985. After their convictions were reversed in 1988 on the ground that their trials should have been severed, separate re-trials ended in another sentence of death for Cruz and 80 years for Hernandez.
In all, six snitches testified at the trials. Four, Stephen Ford, Steven Pecoraro, Dan Fowler, and Robert Turner, claimed Cruz had admitted the crime, and the others, Jackie Estremera and Armindo Marquez Jr., claimed Hernandez had.
After Ford came forward, prosecutors dismissed burglary charges against him. Pecoraro, Fowler, and Turner denied being offered or receiving anything in return for testifying, but one of the prosecutors later testified on Turner’s behalf at a re-sentencing hearing. Estremera was facing contempt sanctions at the time he implicated Hernandez, and Marquez received leniency on pending burglary charges.
Shortly after the first trial, Brian Dugan, a repeat sex offender, confessed that he alone committed the crime. Although his confession was detailed and compelling, prosecutors insisted he and Cruz and Hernandez had committed the crime together. They clung to that theory even after DNA linked Dugan but not Cruz and Hernandez to the rape after the second trial.
In 1995, Cruz and Hernandez were exonerated when it became obvious that sheriff’s deputies had fabricated an inculpatory statement that they attributed to Cruz at both trials. Cruz and Hernandez received pardons based on innocence in 2002.”
One of the most extreme examples of incentivized witnessing leading to a wrongful conviction was that of Larry Peterson, who was convicted based upon the testimony of four incentivized witnesses. Peterson served 16 ½ years in New Jersey for felony murder and aggravated sexual assault. The following account of the Peterson case is taken from The Innocence Project’s website: “On the morning of August 24, 1987, the victim’s body was found on a dirt road in Burlington County, New Jersey, by a woman walking her dog. She had been manually strangled and sexually assaulted. Sticks were in her mouth and vagina and on the ground near her. She was partially nude and some of her clothing had been torn.
Both the victim’s best friend and a former boyfriend called the prosecutor’s office to report that Larry Peterson, who also lived in the area, had fresh “fingernail” scratch marks on his arms.
Peterson went to the police voluntarily and denied committing the murder. Three men interviewed by police said that they were with Peterson at approximately the same time as the victim was found. The three men, after a number of interrogations, told police that Peterson had confessed to them while they were in the car together on the way to work.
In this confession, Peterson allegedly told them that he ripped the victim’s clothing off, had oral and vaginal sex with her, choked her,
and put sticks in her. A jailhouse snitch with charges pending in three counties also testified That trial that he had heard Peterson admit that
he had killed the victim.
A forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police Laboratory System testified that her hair comparison analysis linked Peterson
to the murder. She identified three foreign pubic hairs in the victim’s pubic combings that she said exhibited the same physical and
microscopic characteristics as Peterson’s. She also linked a head hair fragment recovered from the bag that the victim was transported in to Peterson.
Lastly, she examined a stick found 40 feet away from the victim and concluded that there were three of the victim’s pubic hairs, one of her
head hairs, and three of Peterson’s pubic hairs on the stick.
Because the victim had sex with two consensual partners on the night of the murder, the forensic scientist also got samples of the partners’ hairs. She concluded that neither of the consensual partners were the donors of the hairs. Another forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police testified that there was seminal fluid on the victim’s jeans and sperm on her underwear. No seminal fluid or sperm was
found in her rape kit. All tests on these items of evidence were inconclusive at the time of trial.
Peterson testified in his own defense at trial. Alibi witnesses supported his whereabouts during the time of the crime. Work records also
showed that he did not work on the day that the victim was found – the day he supposedly confessed on his way to work. The jury convicted Peterson of felony murder and aggravated sexual assault in March 1989. He was sentenced to Life, plus twenty years, in prison
Peterson sought access to DNA testing in the early 1990s. In 1995, the Innocence Project began working on Peterson’s case.
Peterson won a motion for DNA testing in 2003. The hairs, rape kit, clothing, and fingernail scrapings were sent to the Serological Research Institute (SERI), where STR and mitochondrial DNA tests were performed. In 2005, SERI reported the results of testing: Peterson was excluded as a contributor of any and all of the biological evidence.
The pubic hairs collected from the victim’s pubic combings and stick from the crime scene all matched the victim. Although the New Jersey State Police Laboratory had reported that there was no semen in the victim’s rape kit, SERI identified sperm on her oral, vaginal, and anal swabs. Two different male profiles were found. One of the males was one of the victim’s consensual partners, and his profile was found on her underwear, jeans, and rape kit.
The other unknown male was found on all of the swabs in her rape kit. Significantly, this unknown male profile was not found on the victim’s underwear or jeans, indicating that she did not put these items of clothing back on before she was killed, consistent with the fact that she was found partially nude.
Further, the victim’s fingernail scrapings were subjected to testing and SERI found the profile of the same unknown male that deposited the sperm found in the victim’s mouth, vagina, and anus. Based on this evidence, Peterson’s conviction was vacated in July 2005.
Despite evidence demonstrating that none of the hairs attributed to Peterson belonged to him and the presence of an unknown male’s sperm on the victim’s oral, vaginal, and anal swabs, the prosecution indicated that they would re-try Peterson. Peterson was released in August 2005 after borrowing thousands of dollars to post bail. On May 26, 2006, the prosecution decided to drop all charges against Peterson and his conviction was vacated.”
The problem of incentivized witnessing causing or helping to cause a wrongful conviction is not limited to other states. It has occurred a number of times in New York. Roy Brown was wrongfully convicted of murder and served 15 years until proven innocent by DNA. The details of Brown’s case are taken from The Innocence Proj-ect’s website: “On May 23, 1991, the victim, a social service worker, was found beaten, strangled and stabbed to death near the upstate New York farmhouse where she lived. The victim had been bitten numerous times all over her body.
At the scene, police collected a bloody nightshirt and swabbed the bite marks for saliva. The victim’s farmhouse had also been set on fire. Roy Brown became a suspect because he had recently been released from a short jail term resulting from a series of threatening phone calls to the director of the social services agency where the victim worked. A year earlier, the agency had placed Brown’s daughter into a residential care facility.
The victim was not involved in the case. A man that Brown was incarcerated with testified that, after his release, Brown called him and confessed to the crime over the phone.
The prosecution relied on the testimony of a bite mark analyst who stated that the seven bite marks on the victim’s body were “entirely consistent” with Brown. A defense expert stated that six of the bite marks were insufficient for analysis and the seventh excluded Brown because it had two more upper teeth than he had. Saliva from the nightshirt and bite mark swabs were analyzed with inconclusive results. In 1995, Brown sought testing on the bite mark swabs, but they had been consumed during previous testing. Brown was also told that the saliva from the nightshirt had been consumed.
Brown then took it upon himself to try and find the victim’s true killer. After a fire destroyed all of his court documents at his step-father’s house, he asked for copies of his documents under the Freedom of Information Act. He found documents that had not been disclosed to the defense implicating another man, Barry Bench.
Bench had acted oddly around the time of the murder and was upset at the victim because the farmhouse that she lived in belonged to the Bench family (she had dated Bench’s brother up until two months before the murder). In 2003, Brown wrote to Bench, telling him that DNA would implicate him when Brown finally got testing.
Bench committed suicide by stepping in front of an Amtrak train five days after the letter was mailed. In 2005, the Innocence Project took on Brown’s case and discovered that there were six more saliva stains on the nightshirt that could be tested. In 2006, DNA testing proved that the saliva on the shirt did not match Brown.
After this exclusion, the Innocence Project located Barry Bench’s daughter, who gave a sample of her DNA. Half of her DNA matched the saliva on the shirt: exactly what you would expect from a daughter. Roy Brown was released from prison on January 23, 2007. The prosecution formally dropped all charges on March 5, 2007.”
John Kogut, Dennis Halstead, and John Restivo- co defendants, all served 17 years for a murder which DNA proved that they were innocent of. In addition to the prosecution using a false confession against them, they also used incentivized witnesses.
The Center On Wrongful Convictions suggests the following measures: 1) Snitches be wired to electronically record incriminating statements made by suspects, at least when the relevant conversations occur in jails or prisons. 2) Law enforcement authorities electronically record their discussions with potential snitches and provide copies of the recordings to the defendant. Prosecutors disclose to defendants whether snitches—be they jailhouse informants, purported accomplices, or eyewitnesses— have received or been promised leniency, immunity from prosecution, cash, or anything else of value.
From my perspective, although I could see how the measures advocated for by The Center On Wrongful Convictions could help things, I think that the better way to go would be to eliminate giving rewards in exchange for testimony. People who have knowledge of a crime should come forward on a moral basis, and not for a reward. A reward poses too great a risk that they will fabricate. I don’t think that a jury being told that a witness has been given a benefit in exchange for testimony is enough for the jury to view the testimony with the amount of skepticism that is warranted. As support for that theme, I would like to give some thumbnail sketches of some of the cases in which innocent people were sent to death row based upon incentivized witnessing. I take the details of the cases from the above mentioned report by The Center On Wrongful Convictions:
• Larry Hicks was sentenced to death in 1978 for a double murder in Indiana. Snitches: Two women who claimed to be eyewitnesses. Exonerated By :The women’s recantations Years lost: 2.
• Madison Hobley was sentenced to death in 1990 for an arson fire that claimed seven lives in Chicago. Snitch: A suspect in another arson fire in the same neighborhood. Exonerated by: Pardon based on innocence. Years lost: 13.
• Verneal Jimerson was sentenced to death in 1985 for a double murder in Illinois. Snitch: A purported accomplice promised release for testifying. Exonerated by: DNA and convictions of three actual culprits. Years lost: 11.
• Richard Neal Jones was sentenced to death in 1983 for a murder in Oklahoma. Snitch: One of the actual killers. Exonerated by: Confession of one of the snitch’s confederates. Years lost: 4
• Curtis Kyles was sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder in New Orleans. Snitch :The actual killer. Exonerated by: Evidence that the snitch
lied. Years lost: 14.
•Fredrico M. Macias was sentenced to death in 1984 for a double murder in Texas. Snitch: A purported accomplice who testi-fied pursuant to a plea agreement. Exonerated by: A solid alibi. Years lost: 10
• Steve Manning was sentenced to death in 1993 for a murder and armed robbery in Illinois. Snitch: A jailhouse informant. Exonerated by: Dismissal of charges. Years lost: 10
Walter McMillian was sentenced to death in 1988 for a murder in Alabama. Snitch: The actual killer. Exonerated by: Exculpatory documents
withheld at the trial. Years lost: 10
• Juan Roberto Melendez was sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder and armed robbery in Florida. Snitch: A convicted felon who testified
in anticipation of leniency. Exonerated by: Withheld police reports. Frequently prosecutorial misconduct accompanies incentivized witnessing, in that sometimes witness’s lie by claiming that they have not received or will not receive a benefit in exchange for their testimony when in fact they have. Prosecutors, being aware that they are lying, have a moral obligation to correct that testimony, but too often aid and abet the perjury by allowing the perjured testimony to go uncorrected, or fail to turn over information that the witness has received a benefit in exchange for testifying As already shown, sometimes the persons who are testifying against the defendant are the very people who themselves committed the crime!!! The following are two more cases in which that has happened, taken from the aforementioned report:
• Randall Dale Adams, sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder of a police of-ficer during a traffic stop in Dallas, Texas.
• Gary Beeman, served 3½ years on death row in Ohio.
• Anthony Siliah Brown, sentenced to death in 1983 in Florida.
• Joseph Burrows, sentenced to death in 1989 for the robbery and murder of an elderly farmer in Illinois.
Incentivized Witnessing: A Cause Of Wrongful Convictions
Incentivized witnessing is defined as when a witness testifies against a defendant either in exchange for money, or in exchange for their release from prison, or in exchange for having charges either dropped against them or to receive a lesser sentence, or for some other benefit.
Sometimes the incentivized witness comes forward on his or her own, looking to receive a benefit for their testimony. In these instances, it
often happens that in order to gain information about a crime, the incentivized witness reads articles that are in a newspaper about a crime, and then weaves his lies around that information.
This can be both when a defendant has been charged and is the subject of the story, or in instances in which nobody has been arrested.
When the latter is the case, the incentivized witness may resort to falsely pointing the finger at a person that they dislike or have a grudge against. At other times, the authorities can approach the incentivized witness, offering either perks for testifying, or consequences if they do not, such as a harsh prison sentence, and sometimes both.
The danger of incentivized witnessing is that when desperate prisoners who have been caught red-handed have no truthful information to trade on, they will resort to lying. Incentivized witnessing has been the cause of wrongful convictions in 15 percent of the 218 DNA-proven wrongful convictions, and in a lot more of the non-DNA exonerations. According to a report by The Center On Wrongful Convictions,
a non profit organization that works to free wrongfully convicted prisoners, incentivized witnessing, at least in part, has sent 38 innocent Americans to death row.
The following cases are taken from the report The Snitch System that was produced by The Center On Wrongful Convictions: “Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were twice convicted of the 1983 abduction, rape, and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in DuPage County. They initially were tried together and sentenced to death in 1985. After their convictions were reversed in 1988 on the ground that their trials should have been severed, separate re-trials ended in another sentence of death for Cruz and 80 years for Hernandez.
In all, six snitches testified at the trials. Four, Stephen Ford, Steven Pecoraro, Dan Fowler, and Robert Turner, claimed Cruz had admitted the crime, and the others, Jackie Estremera and Armindo Marquez Jr., claimed Hernandez had.
After Ford came forward, prosecutors dismissed burglary charges against him. Pecoraro, Fowler, and Turner denied being offered or receiving anything in return for testifying, but one of the prosecutors later testified on Turner’s behalf at a re-sentencing hearing. Estremera was facing contempt sanctions at the time he implicated Hernandez, and Marquez received leniency on pending burglary charges.
Shortly after the first trial, Brian Dugan, a repeat sex offender, confessed that he alone committed the crime. Although his confession was detailed and compelling, prosecutors insisted he and Cruz and Hernandez had committed the crime together. They clung to that theory even after DNA linked Dugan but not Cruz and Hernandez to the rape after the second trial.
In 1995, Cruz and Hernandez were exonerated when it became obvious that sheriff’s deputies had fabricated an inculpatory statement that they attributed to Cruz at both trials. Cruz and Hernandez received pardons based on innocence in 2002.”
One of the most extreme examples of incentivized witnessing leading to a wrongful conviction was that of Larry Peterson, who was convicted based upon the testimony of four incentivized witnesses. Peterson served 16 ½ years in New Jersey for felony murder and aggravated sexual assault. The following account of the Peterson case is taken from The Innocence Project’s website: “On the morning of August 24, 1987, the victim’s body was found on a dirt road in Burlington County, New Jersey, by a woman walking her dog. She had been manually strangled and sexually assaulted. Sticks were in her mouth and vagina and on the ground near her. She was partially nude and some of her clothing had been torn.
Both the victim’s best friend and a former boyfriend called the prosecutor’s office to report that Larry Peterson, who also lived in the area, had fresh “fingernail” scratch marks on his arms.
Peterson went to the police voluntarily and denied committing the murder. Three men interviewed by police said that they were with Peterson at approximately the same time as the victim was found. The three men, after a number of interrogations, told police that Peterson had confessed to them while they were in the car together on the way to work.
In this confession, Peterson allegedly told them that he ripped the victim’s clothing off, had oral and vaginal sex with her, choked her,
and put sticks in her. A jailhouse snitch with charges pending in three counties also testified That trial that he had heard Peterson admit that
he had killed the victim.
A forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police Laboratory System testified that her hair comparison analysis linked Peterson
to the murder. She identified three foreign pubic hairs in the victim’s pubic combings that she said exhibited the same physical and
microscopic characteristics as Peterson’s. She also linked a head hair fragment recovered from the bag that the victim was transported in to Peterson.
Lastly, she examined a stick found 40 feet away from the victim and concluded that there were three of the victim’s pubic hairs, one of her
head hairs, and three of Peterson’s pubic hairs on the stick.
Because the victim had sex with two consensual partners on the night of the murder, the forensic scientist also got samples of the partners’ hairs. She concluded that neither of the consensual partners were the donors of the hairs. Another forensic scientist with the New Jersey State Police testified that there was seminal fluid on the victim’s jeans and sperm on her underwear. No seminal fluid or sperm was
found in her rape kit. All tests on these items of evidence were inconclusive at the time of trial.
Peterson testified in his own defense at trial. Alibi witnesses supported his whereabouts during the time of the crime. Work records also
showed that he did not work on the day that the victim was found – the day he supposedly confessed on his way to work. The jury convicted Peterson of felony murder and aggravated sexual assault in March 1989. He was sentenced to Life, plus twenty years, in prison
Peterson sought access to DNA testing in the early 1990s. In 1995, the Innocence Project began working on Peterson’s case.
Peterson won a motion for DNA testing in 2003. The hairs, rape kit, clothing, and fingernail scrapings were sent to the Serological Research Institute (SERI), where STR and mitochondrial DNA tests were performed. In 2005, SERI reported the results of testing: Peterson was excluded as a contributor of any and all of the biological evidence.
The pubic hairs collected from the victim’s pubic combings and stick from the crime scene all matched the victim. Although the New Jersey State Police Laboratory had reported that there was no semen in the victim’s rape kit, SERI identified sperm on her oral, vaginal, and anal swabs. Two different male profiles were found. One of the males was one of the victim’s consensual partners, and his profile was found on her underwear, jeans, and rape kit.
The other unknown male was found on all of the swabs in her rape kit. Significantly, this unknown male profile was not found on the victim’s underwear or jeans, indicating that she did not put these items of clothing back on before she was killed, consistent with the fact that she was found partially nude.
Further, the victim’s fingernail scrapings were subjected to testing and SERI found the profile of the same unknown male that deposited the sperm found in the victim’s mouth, vagina, and anus. Based on this evidence, Peterson’s conviction was vacated in July 2005.
Despite evidence demonstrating that none of the hairs attributed to Peterson belonged to him and the presence of an unknown male’s sperm on the victim’s oral, vaginal, and anal swabs, the prosecution indicated that they would re-try Peterson. Peterson was released in August 2005 after borrowing thousands of dollars to post bail. On May 26, 2006, the prosecution decided to drop all charges against Peterson and his conviction was vacated.”
The problem of incentivized witnessing causing or helping to cause a wrongful conviction is not limited to other states. It has occurred a number of times in New York. Roy Brown was wrongfully convicted of murder and served 15 years until proven innocent by DNA. The details of Brown’s case are taken from The Innocence Proj-ect’s website: “On May 23, 1991, the victim, a social service worker, was found beaten, strangled and stabbed to death near the upstate New York farmhouse where she lived. The victim had been bitten numerous times all over her body.
At the scene, police collected a bloody nightshirt and swabbed the bite marks for saliva. The victim’s farmhouse had also been set on fire. Roy Brown became a suspect because he had recently been released from a short jail term resulting from a series of threatening phone calls to the director of the social services agency where the victim worked. A year earlier, the agency had placed Brown’s daughter into a residential care facility.
The victim was not involved in the case. A man that Brown was incarcerated with testified that, after his release, Brown called him and confessed to the crime over the phone.
The prosecution relied on the testimony of a bite mark analyst who stated that the seven bite marks on the victim’s body were “entirely consistent” with Brown. A defense expert stated that six of the bite marks were insufficient for analysis and the seventh excluded Brown because it had two more upper teeth than he had. Saliva from the nightshirt and bite mark swabs were analyzed with inconclusive results. In 1995, Brown sought testing on the bite mark swabs, but they had been consumed during previous testing. Brown was also told that the saliva from the nightshirt had been consumed.
Brown then took it upon himself to try and find the victim’s true killer. After a fire destroyed all of his court documents at his step-father’s house, he asked for copies of his documents under the Freedom of Information Act. He found documents that had not been disclosed to the defense implicating another man, Barry Bench.
Bench had acted oddly around the time of the murder and was upset at the victim because the farmhouse that she lived in belonged to the Bench family (she had dated Bench’s brother up until two months before the murder). In 2003, Brown wrote to Bench, telling him that DNA would implicate him when Brown finally got testing.
Bench committed suicide by stepping in front of an Amtrak train five days after the letter was mailed. In 2005, the Innocence Project took on Brown’s case and discovered that there were six more saliva stains on the nightshirt that could be tested. In 2006, DNA testing proved that the saliva on the shirt did not match Brown.
After this exclusion, the Innocence Project located Barry Bench’s daughter, who gave a sample of her DNA. Half of her DNA matched the saliva on the shirt: exactly what you would expect from a daughter. Roy Brown was released from prison on January 23, 2007. The prosecution formally dropped all charges on March 5, 2007.”
John Kogut, Dennis Halstead, and John Restivo- co defendants, all served 17 years for a murder which DNA proved that they were innocent of. In addition to the prosecution using a false confession against them, they also used incentivized witnesses.
The Center On Wrongful Convictions suggests the following measures: 1) Snitches be wired to electronically record incriminating statements made by suspects, at least when the relevant conversations occur in jails or prisons. 2) Law enforcement authorities electronically record their discussions with potential snitches and provide copies of the recordings to the defendant. Prosecutors disclose to defendants whether snitches—be they jailhouse informants, purported accomplices, or eyewitnesses— have received or been promised leniency, immunity from prosecution, cash, or anything else of value.
From my perspective, although I could see how the measures advocated for by The Center On Wrongful Convictions could help things, I think that the better way to go would be to eliminate giving rewards in exchange for testimony. People who have knowledge of a crime should come forward on a moral basis, and not for a reward. A reward poses too great a risk that they will fabricate. I don’t think that a jury being told that a witness has been given a benefit in exchange for testimony is enough for the jury to view the testimony with the amount of skepticism that is warranted. As support for that theme, I would like to give some thumbnail sketches of some of the cases in which innocent people were sent to death row based upon incentivized witnessing. I take the details of the cases from the above mentioned report by The Center On Wrongful Convictions:
• Larry Hicks was sentenced to death in 1978 for a double murder in Indiana. Snitches: Two women who claimed to be eyewitnesses. Exonerated By :The women’s recantations Years lost: 2.
• Madison Hobley was sentenced to death in 1990 for an arson fire that claimed seven lives in Chicago. Snitch: A suspect in another arson fire in the same neighborhood. Exonerated by: Pardon based on innocence. Years lost: 13.
• Verneal Jimerson was sentenced to death in 1985 for a double murder in Illinois. Snitch: A purported accomplice promised release for testifying. Exonerated by: DNA and convictions of three actual culprits. Years lost: 11.
• Richard Neal Jones was sentenced to death in 1983 for a murder in Oklahoma. Snitch: One of the actual killers. Exonerated by: Confession of one of the snitch’s confederates. Years lost: 4
• Curtis Kyles was sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder in New Orleans. Snitch :The actual killer. Exonerated by: Evidence that the snitch
lied. Years lost: 14.
•Fredrico M. Macias was sentenced to death in 1984 for a double murder in Texas. Snitch: A purported accomplice who testi-fied pursuant to a plea agreement. Exonerated by: A solid alibi. Years lost: 10
• Steve Manning was sentenced to death in 1993 for a murder and armed robbery in Illinois. Snitch: A jailhouse informant. Exonerated by: Dismissal of charges. Years lost: 10
Walter McMillian was sentenced to death in 1988 for a murder in Alabama. Snitch: The actual killer. Exonerated by: Exculpatory documents
withheld at the trial. Years lost: 10
• Juan Roberto Melendez was sentenced to death in 1984 for a murder and armed robbery in Florida. Snitch: A convicted felon who testified
in anticipation of leniency. Exonerated by: Withheld police reports. Frequently prosecutorial misconduct accompanies incentivized witnessing, in that sometimes witness’s lie by claiming that they have not received or will not receive a benefit in exchange for their testimony when in fact they have. Prosecutors, being aware that they are lying, have a moral obligation to correct that testimony, but too often aid and abet the perjury by allowing the perjured testimony to go uncorrected, or fail to turn over information that the witness has received a benefit in exchange for testifying As already shown, sometimes the persons who are testifying against the defendant are the very people who themselves committed the crime!!! The following are two more cases in which that has happened, taken from the aforementioned report:
• Randall Dale Adams, sentenced to death in 1977 for the murder of a police of-ficer during a traffic stop in Dallas, Texas.
• Gary Beeman, served 3½ years on death row in Ohio.
• Anthony Siliah Brown, sentenced to death in 1983 in Florida.
• Joseph Burrows, sentenced to death in 1989 for the robbery and murder of an elderly farmer in Illinois.
Westchester Guardian/Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Losing Our Homes
According to the New York State Court System, since 2005, foreclosures have risen 150% statewide and are expected to increase another 40%
in 2008. Some neighboring counties, such as Suffolk and Queens, have seen their foreclosure rates increase, in this time period, by 269% and 223%,
respectively. Westchester County is not that far behind. In the same period, foreclosures in our county have increased by 184%.
The situation has become so serious that the court system announced on June 18 that it had established a “Residential Foreclosure Program”
designed to specifically assist in case resolutions. This program includes:
• A court notice describing the Residential Foreclosure Program and providing contact information for locally available legal and mortgage
counseling services.
• Information to homeowners and lenders that an early conference is available to explore whether the case can be resolved without further
court action.
• Case information available in automated form for service providers to assist them in contacting the Losing Our Homes parties to provide legal and financial counseling.
• Two rounds of notice to the homeowner: the first provided by the plaintiff as part of the summons and complaint, and the second sent by the
Court when the plaintiff files proof of service and a special Foreclosure Request for Judicial Intervention (RJI).
The Chief Judge of the Court, Judith Kaye, hopes that this program will reduce the length of foreclosure proceedings by as much as 15 months.
As Judge Kaye noted in her press release on June 18, this will ultimately benefit “not only the parties directly involved, but also the neighborhoods
that would otherwise be left destabilized by these vacant properties. The program serves the best interests of all New Yorkers by reducing hardship,
cost and neighborhood blight in our hardest-hit communities”.
Some of Westchester’s communities are indeed hit hard by the housing crisis. A review of the current homes, either in foreclosure or facing foreclosure in Westchester, reveals a total of 806 homes in jeopardy, stemming from a variety of circumstances:
Foreclosures ..........116 properties
Preforeclosure ......117 properties
Bankruptcy ...........447 properties
Other .....................126 properties
But when the above numbers are reviewed by location, an even more alarming picture appears. As expected, those communities with lower
income levels are indeed hardest hit. But one community, which has seen tremendous development in recent years is also experiencing the greatest
number of jeopardized homes, White Plains. The communities with the highest number of these homes alphabetically arranged are:
Mount Vernon ........ 83 properties
New Rochelle .......... 25 properties
Ossining .................. 23 properties
Peekskill .................. 28 properties
Port Chester ............ 28 properties
West Harrison ........ 19 properties
Yonkers ..................101 properties
White Plains .........321 properties
At a time when White Plains has been embracing development from Louis Cappelli and Donald Trump and encouraging multi-million dollar
projects and homes, it has also been experiencing a record-breaking amount of foreclosed properties and bankruptcies. White Plains now has million-dollar penthouse suites in elite towers with Hudson River views. But at what price? How many White Plains families had to lose their homes to accommodate the wealthy? And what is White Plains doing to help their working families stay in their homes?
The reasons for the discrepancies between communities can be partially explained by how each community deals with a property in jeopardy.
Many of our local towns are not reporting a high number of tax-related foreclosures; for example, because it is their policy to work with the homeowner and not toss them out into the street.
Ms. Paula DiSanto, the Village Clerk of the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, reported to the Guardian that it was the Village’s policy not to foreclose on homes. Croton-on-Hudson is seeing an increase in the number of their homeowners unable to pay their property taxes. In 2006 they had 13 defaults on payments for a total of $17,117.66. That rose to 34 so far in 2008, for a total of $76,245.65.
While the homeowners may feel comforted that the Village will work with them, it still means that the Village has lost a total of over $100,000
in tax revenues in the past three years; revenues that will now have to be obtained from other sources.
The Town of Bedford also cooperated with the Guardian’s FOIL request for information on their tax liens and defaults. Likewise, they were
sensitive to their homeowners’ needs. Town Clerk, Lisbeth Fumagalli, specifically informed us that, while the homeowners’ addresses and names
were public record, she was requesting that the Guardian not reveal this information; a request we are happy to honor.
Homeowners can default on payments due to a variety of reasons – medical issues, loss of employment, family changes, death, and economic
and business downturns. While some homeowners are indeed facing foreclosure due to their own foolishness, many are facing other dire situations
as well that have now placed their homes in jeopardy. Many of the communities the Guardian spoke with on this issue were extremely sensitive
to the problems being faced by these homeowners and stressed respect for their privacy. We concur.
Bedford is currently faced with over $954,000 in tax liens, including penalties. As a result, the town has had to take the step of requesting judicial
intervention for payment of the oldest of these liens – the ones dating back to September 1, 2003. After five years, there is little hope the homeowners will be able to pay what is owed the Town, leaving Bedford with little recourse but to request court involvement.
The Town of New Castle has also seen dramatic increases in delinquent taxes in the past three years. In 2005 they had 21 delinquencies totaling $62,511.70. That increased to 40 properties totaling $318,970.04 in 2006 to a dramatic 77 properties totaling $885,378.80 in 2007. Ms. Patricia
Antonucci, the Deputy Receiver of Taxes for the Town of New Castle, noted that the average delinquent tax was $4,583.18 and the Town has not
foreclosed on any property within the last three years. Antonucci provided the Guardian with New Castle’s policy for collecting taxes:
“The current tax year must be paid first and then the delinquent taxes (liens) are paid in reverse chronological order.
A taxpayer may enter into an installment agreement with the Town to pay delinquent tax liens. In order to enter into an agreement, the property must be the taxpayers’ primary residence.
That last sentence is one of the reasons why foreclosures are higher in lower income communities; these communities have a higher concentration
of rental properties. While our local towns and villages are willing to work with homeowners so they may stay in their homes, given the dramatic increase in tax defaults, the local tax collectors cannot afford to extend the same policy to landlords.
Regardless of the nature of the tax defaults, the impact on our communities is the same – there are fewer tax dollars being collected. Foreclosed
and abandoned homes reduce the property values for the remaining homes in the area, thereby reducing the tax base even further and placing
an even greater strain on the remaining homeowners.
Furthermore, when either a landlord or a homeowner defaults on their local tax payments, the children of the homeowners’ or the landlords’
tenants are now attending local schools without contributing to the school tax base, placing another burden on remaining taxpayers.
While the communities can leverage a homeowner’s property to recover taxes owed, there is little a tax collector can do to recover payment
from rental properties owned by a defunct corporation. Those monies are lost forever.
Currently the recovery process can take years, as seen in Bedford’s situation. The Town is only seeking recovery of taxes on payments that
are over five years old; payments that may never be recovered. However, in the case of individual homeowners, the economic impact to the community is limited, especially if the homeowner has no school-aged children.
However, in the situation of rental properties, the economic impact is multiplied due to the size of the property and the number of tenants
involved. The tenants and children of those tenants continue to receive educational and other local benefits while the landlord evades his/her obligation to provide the communities with the portion of their rent that represents local property taxes to pay for those services. In addition, the time frame to deal with the recovery of the taxes due is extended since the courts have to deal with leases and tenants’ rights. As a consequence, the local community goes without payment for services provided even longer.
While Judge Kaye’s Residential Foreclosure Program addresses the tragic situation of individuals losing their homes, it does not address the more critical impact of landlords defaulting on their payment of local taxes from monies they already collected from their tenants. The process
to recover such payments must be speeded up since these foreclosures and defaults have a far greater impact on our local communities. White
Plains is currently dealing with 321 jeopardized properties. How can one small city absorb such a loss of revenue? How will their schools survive?
And how can their remaining homeowners pick up the slack?
One of the major developers of White Plains, Donald Trump, has already noticed this situation and addressed it. He is currently selling a book entitled “Real Estate Goldmine: How to get rich investing in pre-foreclosures,” and teaching foreclosure investment strategies in his “Trump
University”. He has millions earned from his “Real Estate Wealth” expos with the Learning Annex; all while the neighbors of his local developments are losing their homes.
For local homeowners facing the loss of their homes, the court program is only operating in Queens at present. The full program, along with court rules and time frames governing foreclosures, are detailed on the New York State Unified Court System website.
Homeowners should realize that lenders want to avoid foreclosure as much as they do, especially in a poor real estate market. The most important
first step for a homeowner to take is to hire an attorney experienced in dealing with foreclosures, and, secondly, to talk with the mortgage companies and tax assessors.
As we saw with local villages and towns, most want to work with homeowners and are willing to work out installment agreements. Sadly, there are many individuals willing to take advantage of a homeowner facing foreclosure. Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection provides advice to homeowners, along with information for free legal services and counseling services.
That information may be accessed on the County’s website at http://www.westchestergov.com/consumer or by calling the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development at 1-800-569-4287.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Losing Our Homes
According to the New York State Court System, since 2005, foreclosures have risen 150% statewide and are expected to increase another 40%
in 2008. Some neighboring counties, such as Suffolk and Queens, have seen their foreclosure rates increase, in this time period, by 269% and 223%,
respectively. Westchester County is not that far behind. In the same period, foreclosures in our county have increased by 184%.
The situation has become so serious that the court system announced on June 18 that it had established a “Residential Foreclosure Program”
designed to specifically assist in case resolutions. This program includes:
• A court notice describing the Residential Foreclosure Program and providing contact information for locally available legal and mortgage
counseling services.
• Information to homeowners and lenders that an early conference is available to explore whether the case can be resolved without further
court action.
• Case information available in automated form for service providers to assist them in contacting the Losing Our Homes parties to provide legal and financial counseling.
• Two rounds of notice to the homeowner: the first provided by the plaintiff as part of the summons and complaint, and the second sent by the
Court when the plaintiff files proof of service and a special Foreclosure Request for Judicial Intervention (RJI).
The Chief Judge of the Court, Judith Kaye, hopes that this program will reduce the length of foreclosure proceedings by as much as 15 months.
As Judge Kaye noted in her press release on June 18, this will ultimately benefit “not only the parties directly involved, but also the neighborhoods
that would otherwise be left destabilized by these vacant properties. The program serves the best interests of all New Yorkers by reducing hardship,
cost and neighborhood blight in our hardest-hit communities”.
Some of Westchester’s communities are indeed hit hard by the housing crisis. A review of the current homes, either in foreclosure or facing foreclosure in Westchester, reveals a total of 806 homes in jeopardy, stemming from a variety of circumstances:
Foreclosures ..........116 properties
Preforeclosure ......117 properties
Bankruptcy ...........447 properties
Other .....................126 properties
But when the above numbers are reviewed by location, an even more alarming picture appears. As expected, those communities with lower
income levels are indeed hardest hit. But one community, which has seen tremendous development in recent years is also experiencing the greatest
number of jeopardized homes, White Plains. The communities with the highest number of these homes alphabetically arranged are:
Mount Vernon ........ 83 properties
New Rochelle .......... 25 properties
Ossining .................. 23 properties
Peekskill .................. 28 properties
Port Chester ............ 28 properties
West Harrison ........ 19 properties
Yonkers ..................101 properties
White Plains .........321 properties
At a time when White Plains has been embracing development from Louis Cappelli and Donald Trump and encouraging multi-million dollar
projects and homes, it has also been experiencing a record-breaking amount of foreclosed properties and bankruptcies. White Plains now has million-dollar penthouse suites in elite towers with Hudson River views. But at what price? How many White Plains families had to lose their homes to accommodate the wealthy? And what is White Plains doing to help their working families stay in their homes?
The reasons for the discrepancies between communities can be partially explained by how each community deals with a property in jeopardy.
Many of our local towns are not reporting a high number of tax-related foreclosures; for example, because it is their policy to work with the homeowner and not toss them out into the street.
Ms. Paula DiSanto, the Village Clerk of the Village of Croton-on-Hudson, reported to the Guardian that it was the Village’s policy not to foreclose on homes. Croton-on-Hudson is seeing an increase in the number of their homeowners unable to pay their property taxes. In 2006 they had 13 defaults on payments for a total of $17,117.66. That rose to 34 so far in 2008, for a total of $76,245.65.
While the homeowners may feel comforted that the Village will work with them, it still means that the Village has lost a total of over $100,000
in tax revenues in the past three years; revenues that will now have to be obtained from other sources.
The Town of Bedford also cooperated with the Guardian’s FOIL request for information on their tax liens and defaults. Likewise, they were
sensitive to their homeowners’ needs. Town Clerk, Lisbeth Fumagalli, specifically informed us that, while the homeowners’ addresses and names
were public record, she was requesting that the Guardian not reveal this information; a request we are happy to honor.
Homeowners can default on payments due to a variety of reasons – medical issues, loss of employment, family changes, death, and economic
and business downturns. While some homeowners are indeed facing foreclosure due to their own foolishness, many are facing other dire situations
as well that have now placed their homes in jeopardy. Many of the communities the Guardian spoke with on this issue were extremely sensitive
to the problems being faced by these homeowners and stressed respect for their privacy. We concur.
Bedford is currently faced with over $954,000 in tax liens, including penalties. As a result, the town has had to take the step of requesting judicial
intervention for payment of the oldest of these liens – the ones dating back to September 1, 2003. After five years, there is little hope the homeowners will be able to pay what is owed the Town, leaving Bedford with little recourse but to request court involvement.
The Town of New Castle has also seen dramatic increases in delinquent taxes in the past three years. In 2005 they had 21 delinquencies totaling $62,511.70. That increased to 40 properties totaling $318,970.04 in 2006 to a dramatic 77 properties totaling $885,378.80 in 2007. Ms. Patricia
Antonucci, the Deputy Receiver of Taxes for the Town of New Castle, noted that the average delinquent tax was $4,583.18 and the Town has not
foreclosed on any property within the last three years. Antonucci provided the Guardian with New Castle’s policy for collecting taxes:
“The current tax year must be paid first and then the delinquent taxes (liens) are paid in reverse chronological order.
A taxpayer may enter into an installment agreement with the Town to pay delinquent tax liens. In order to enter into an agreement, the property must be the taxpayers’ primary residence.
That last sentence is one of the reasons why foreclosures are higher in lower income communities; these communities have a higher concentration
of rental properties. While our local towns and villages are willing to work with homeowners so they may stay in their homes, given the dramatic increase in tax defaults, the local tax collectors cannot afford to extend the same policy to landlords.
Regardless of the nature of the tax defaults, the impact on our communities is the same – there are fewer tax dollars being collected. Foreclosed
and abandoned homes reduce the property values for the remaining homes in the area, thereby reducing the tax base even further and placing
an even greater strain on the remaining homeowners.
Furthermore, when either a landlord or a homeowner defaults on their local tax payments, the children of the homeowners’ or the landlords’
tenants are now attending local schools without contributing to the school tax base, placing another burden on remaining taxpayers.
While the communities can leverage a homeowner’s property to recover taxes owed, there is little a tax collector can do to recover payment
from rental properties owned by a defunct corporation. Those monies are lost forever.
Currently the recovery process can take years, as seen in Bedford’s situation. The Town is only seeking recovery of taxes on payments that
are over five years old; payments that may never be recovered. However, in the case of individual homeowners, the economic impact to the community is limited, especially if the homeowner has no school-aged children.
However, in the situation of rental properties, the economic impact is multiplied due to the size of the property and the number of tenants
involved. The tenants and children of those tenants continue to receive educational and other local benefits while the landlord evades his/her obligation to provide the communities with the portion of their rent that represents local property taxes to pay for those services. In addition, the time frame to deal with the recovery of the taxes due is extended since the courts have to deal with leases and tenants’ rights. As a consequence, the local community goes without payment for services provided even longer.
While Judge Kaye’s Residential Foreclosure Program addresses the tragic situation of individuals losing their homes, it does not address the more critical impact of landlords defaulting on their payment of local taxes from monies they already collected from their tenants. The process
to recover such payments must be speeded up since these foreclosures and defaults have a far greater impact on our local communities. White
Plains is currently dealing with 321 jeopardized properties. How can one small city absorb such a loss of revenue? How will their schools survive?
And how can their remaining homeowners pick up the slack?
One of the major developers of White Plains, Donald Trump, has already noticed this situation and addressed it. He is currently selling a book entitled “Real Estate Goldmine: How to get rich investing in pre-foreclosures,” and teaching foreclosure investment strategies in his “Trump
University”. He has millions earned from his “Real Estate Wealth” expos with the Learning Annex; all while the neighbors of his local developments are losing their homes.
For local homeowners facing the loss of their homes, the court program is only operating in Queens at present. The full program, along with court rules and time frames governing foreclosures, are detailed on the New York State Unified Court System website.
Homeowners should realize that lenders want to avoid foreclosure as much as they do, especially in a poor real estate market. The most important
first step for a homeowner to take is to hire an attorney experienced in dealing with foreclosures, and, secondly, to talk with the mortgage companies and tax assessors.
As we saw with local villages and towns, most want to work with homeowners and are willing to work out installment agreements. Sadly, there are many individuals willing to take advantage of a homeowner facing foreclosure. Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection provides advice to homeowners, along with information for free legal services and counseling services.
That information may be accessed on the County’s website at http://www.westchestergov.com/consumer or by calling the federal Department of
Housing and Urban Development at 1-800-569-4287.
Westchester Guardian/The Advocate.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
“Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins”
– William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
Whatever Has Become Of Decency In Yonkers?
For several months now, the People of Westchester and the surrounding area, have been repeatedly exposed to the videotape of Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes bodyslamming Irma Marquez at La Fonda Restaurant, March 3, 2007. The horror of the act by an individual sworn to protect the very person he nearly killed with his unbridled violent action, is worrisome enough. However, we must all recognize the deeper
significance of that tape, particularly in light of what the other police officers who were present told FBI Special Agent Norris.
Those officers who were present in the restaurant, and who are plainly seen on the videotape, told Norris that Simoes’ act was an “unreasonable
and excessive use of force.” Given that consensus, that evaluation of Simoes’ assault on an innocent, unarmed woman, what must any intelligent
observer of that tape conclude with respect to the mindset and the actions of those officers? How can anyone conclude anything other than the fact that each and every officer present was accustomed to seeing that kind of horrific violence; violence without provocation; violence from
fellow of-ficers that was clearly criminal and lifethreatening.
How can one conclude anything other than the fact that they were so used to it that even as close-up as they were, they simply went about
what they were doing without any immediate, appropriate reaction?
We are talking about brutality against women, here, extremely violent acts without any legitimate purpose or prompt; life-threatening brutality to which the response, not only of fellow officers on the scene, but of every superior of-ficer right up through the Police Commissioner, and the Mayor himself, was, “So what?”
But for the public exposure of the videotape, there would be no consequences for Officer Simoes. As it stands, he was routinely cleared of any wrongdoing by Police Department investigation. We must ask, “Did departmental investigators interview the same cops the FBI did?” The simple facts are these:
• An innocent woman was nearly murdered by a Yonkers police officer in the presence of several fellow Yonkers police officers;
• The Police Department, upon review, found no problem with the rogue, violent, cop’s actions, and permitted him to continue carrying a gun and wearing a badge; but no name tag. In point of fact, not one uniformed Yonkers Police Officer wears a name tag!
• Neither Police Commissioner Hartnett, nor Mayor Amicone, were troubled by the “unreasonable, sick, conduct until it was publicly exposed, and therefore continued to condone and thereby encourage, more of same;
• We can instantly name two other cases of severe violence by two other Yonkers cops in the presence of other Yonkers police offi-cers, against women. For example: Mary Bostwick by Yonkers Police Officer Gratzon, and Sherry Bobrowsky, by Yonkers Police Officer Renzi.
Eight years ago, emerging from law school, and working for a solo practitioner, not in Yonkers, but in White Plains, we, alone, in one year, handled three cases of Yonkers police brutality. The District Attorney, then, was Jeanine Pirro.
The District Attorney, now, is Janet DiFiore. Neither prosecuted violent Yonkers police of-ficers. However, DA DiFiore has routinely taken the protection of the Yonkers Police Department’s rogue cops one step further by actively, and aggressively, prosecuting their brutalized victims with
trumped-up charges. With a history of protection and encouragement, from the top down; the DA, the Mayor and the Police Commissioner,
and Precinct Captains, is it any wonder we are facing a routinely violent Yonkers Police Department?
The horrific beating of Rui Florim by six plainclothed Yonkers police officers, acting in concert, out of their jurisdiction, in the Town of Greenburgh, is the ultimate example of the un-lawful lengths to which Yonkers Police believe they can, and in fact, do go. And, in point of fact,
Janet DiFiore continues to prosecute Mr. Florim despite the fact that the details of the unlawful actions of those police officers have been brought to her attention.
We, at The Westchester Guardian, know that it is not merely a lack of decency that accounts for the criminal conduct of Yonkers City
Government, and the Yonkers Police Department, in particular. We are dealing with tyranny. And, as William Pitt observed more than 200 years ago, “Where law ends, tyranny begins.”
Apparently it isn’t enough that the City of Yonkers, and its Police Department, are under a permanent federal injunction not to destroy The Guardian’s distribution boxes, or interfere with our First Amendment freedoms in any way, having previously illegally confiscated, damaged, and
destroyed more than three dozen boxes. Now, because they cannot tolerate the dissemination of the ugly truth about their brutality, they have taken to bashing and wrecking our boxes, on the spot, late at night.
However, they have been caught in the act by decent citizens who do not want to be deprived of the opportunity to read The Guardian and who, furthermore, understand that they are supposed to be living in the United States of America, even though they are in Yonkers, and that they are still protected by those Constitutional guarantees such as Free Speech, Freedom Of The Press, and the Right of Association.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
“Where Law Ends, Tyranny Begins”
– William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
Whatever Has Become Of Decency In Yonkers?
For several months now, the People of Westchester and the surrounding area, have been repeatedly exposed to the videotape of Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes bodyslamming Irma Marquez at La Fonda Restaurant, March 3, 2007. The horror of the act by an individual sworn to protect the very person he nearly killed with his unbridled violent action, is worrisome enough. However, we must all recognize the deeper
significance of that tape, particularly in light of what the other police officers who were present told FBI Special Agent Norris.
Those officers who were present in the restaurant, and who are plainly seen on the videotape, told Norris that Simoes’ act was an “unreasonable
and excessive use of force.” Given that consensus, that evaluation of Simoes’ assault on an innocent, unarmed woman, what must any intelligent
observer of that tape conclude with respect to the mindset and the actions of those officers? How can anyone conclude anything other than the fact that each and every officer present was accustomed to seeing that kind of horrific violence; violence without provocation; violence from
fellow of-ficers that was clearly criminal and lifethreatening.
How can one conclude anything other than the fact that they were so used to it that even as close-up as they were, they simply went about
what they were doing without any immediate, appropriate reaction?
We are talking about brutality against women, here, extremely violent acts without any legitimate purpose or prompt; life-threatening brutality to which the response, not only of fellow officers on the scene, but of every superior of-ficer right up through the Police Commissioner, and the Mayor himself, was, “So what?”
But for the public exposure of the videotape, there would be no consequences for Officer Simoes. As it stands, he was routinely cleared of any wrongdoing by Police Department investigation. We must ask, “Did departmental investigators interview the same cops the FBI did?” The simple facts are these:
• An innocent woman was nearly murdered by a Yonkers police officer in the presence of several fellow Yonkers police officers;
• The Police Department, upon review, found no problem with the rogue, violent, cop’s actions, and permitted him to continue carrying a gun and wearing a badge; but no name tag. In point of fact, not one uniformed Yonkers Police Officer wears a name tag!
• Neither Police Commissioner Hartnett, nor Mayor Amicone, were troubled by the “unreasonable, sick, conduct until it was publicly exposed, and therefore continued to condone and thereby encourage, more of same;
• We can instantly name two other cases of severe violence by two other Yonkers cops in the presence of other Yonkers police offi-cers, against women. For example: Mary Bostwick by Yonkers Police Officer Gratzon, and Sherry Bobrowsky, by Yonkers Police Officer Renzi.
Eight years ago, emerging from law school, and working for a solo practitioner, not in Yonkers, but in White Plains, we, alone, in one year, handled three cases of Yonkers police brutality. The District Attorney, then, was Jeanine Pirro.
The District Attorney, now, is Janet DiFiore. Neither prosecuted violent Yonkers police of-ficers. However, DA DiFiore has routinely taken the protection of the Yonkers Police Department’s rogue cops one step further by actively, and aggressively, prosecuting their brutalized victims with
trumped-up charges. With a history of protection and encouragement, from the top down; the DA, the Mayor and the Police Commissioner,
and Precinct Captains, is it any wonder we are facing a routinely violent Yonkers Police Department?
The horrific beating of Rui Florim by six plainclothed Yonkers police officers, acting in concert, out of their jurisdiction, in the Town of Greenburgh, is the ultimate example of the un-lawful lengths to which Yonkers Police believe they can, and in fact, do go. And, in point of fact,
Janet DiFiore continues to prosecute Mr. Florim despite the fact that the details of the unlawful actions of those police officers have been brought to her attention.
We, at The Westchester Guardian, know that it is not merely a lack of decency that accounts for the criminal conduct of Yonkers City
Government, and the Yonkers Police Department, in particular. We are dealing with tyranny. And, as William Pitt observed more than 200 years ago, “Where law ends, tyranny begins.”
Apparently it isn’t enough that the City of Yonkers, and its Police Department, are under a permanent federal injunction not to destroy The Guardian’s distribution boxes, or interfere with our First Amendment freedoms in any way, having previously illegally confiscated, damaged, and
destroyed more than three dozen boxes. Now, because they cannot tolerate the dissemination of the ugly truth about their brutality, they have taken to bashing and wrecking our boxes, on the spot, late at night.
However, they have been caught in the act by decent citizens who do not want to be deprived of the opportunity to read The Guardian and who, furthermore, understand that they are supposed to be living in the United States of America, even though they are in Yonkers, and that they are still protected by those Constitutional guarantees such as Free Speech, Freedom Of The Press, and the Right of Association.
Westchester Guardian/In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
In Our Opinion...
Hillary’s Finest Moment
Last Tuesday night, in prime time; if 10:30pm Eastern is prime time, we saw what was probably the finest performance, and the best face, Hillary Rodham Clinton has ever shown us. There were no “Bosnia Bullets”, though we knew she was surely biting one. All critics and media wizards notwithstanding, we were treated to the best that one might have hoped for from Hillary.
No question, she had a mission to accomplish, both for herself and for Barack Obama; a mission to both put out a fire, and to ignite one. She knew that she needed to quickly extinguish the embers of her failed, but impassioning, effort in opposition to Obama that had left significant disappointment, and some resentment, amongst the legions of some of her strongest supporters, many of whom might once have been tagged militant feminists. Some Democrats were growing fearful that John McCain’s operatives were profitably turning up the heat against Obama by fanning those embers.
She knew that she needed to throw plenty of cold water over the smouldering residue, politely but firmly. She said, “John McCain is my friend. But, no way, no how, no Mc-Cain. Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our President.” She would later say, “We don’t need four more years of the last eight years.”
Hillary showed the kind of leadership and characteristically female persuasiveness that so-called dominant females possess. She addressed her “Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pantsuits,” instantly commanding the attention not only of those in the arena who had been doing battle for many months in her behalf in the trenches across the country, but also those watching at home. The cheer that went up with the sound of that phrase meant that she was reaching her troops everywhere.
She asked her Sisterhood, “Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for...” and she then proceeded to rattle off all those reasons, all those people and causes, that mothers and wives and community-conscious women are driven into political campaigns to further, in order to protect and to make right. And, then, she broadened her target audience, speaking to everyone, guys included, declaring, “The genius of America depends upon the vitality of the Middle Class.” She reminded her audience, and Democrats everywhere, that straightening out problems was nothing new to them and, in the same breath, put in a plug for her own household, declaring, “As I recall, we did it before. We did it under President Clinton.”
She came back with, “We’re Americans; we’re not big on quitting.” And, just in case they needed a little more motivation, she told the crowd, which by now was sitting in the palm of her hand, “Nothing less than our children and our future hang in the balance.” Finally, along the way, she paid appropriate tribute, not only to her former opponent, Barack Obama, but to Michelle, who she predicted will be a “great First Lady.” She also reached out to Joe Biden and Mrs. Biden, and showed the graciousness and softness that we have seen on too few occasions, but had seen, nonetheless, in a few events around Chappaqua and elsewhere here in Westchester.
Yes, she bit the bullet, but left no doubt in the process that she was, and would continue to be, a team player, even if a tear or two appeared in her eyes and in the eyes of those who so passionately dreamed that a woman would finally be president. She clearly acquitted herself, did herself proud.
Our Readers Respond...
Assemblywoman Galef Seeking Taxpayers’ Opinions
Dear Editor:
The high burden of property taxes in our area is a subject I hear about regularly as I meet and talk to people throughout the 90th Assembly district. For the past several years, I have sponsored circuit breaker legislation to help make sure that taxpayers do not pay a too-large portion of their income in property taxes. The circuit breaker connects total household income to the amount of all property taxes paid in the household and gives a credit on personal state income tax, or a tax rebate if residents pay more than a set percentage of their income in tax payments. In response to a questionnaire in one of my recent newsletters, my constituents supported the circuit breaker as the first choice in helping with the burdensome property tax that many New Yorkers face. In fact, a recent statewide poll has indicated that 75% of state residents also support the circuit breaker, which caps the amount of property taxes paid based on household income.
The State Legislature went back to Albany last week to make over $1 billion in cuts to the state budget over two years. At that same session, I was thrilled that the Assembly voted to approve a circuit breaker bill. Although it was not exactly the same as the circuit breaker bill I have been working on with Senator Betty Little for the past two years, the bill that passed last week followed the concepts in my legislation and provides $1.7 billion in property tax relief. I view this as a first step in starting to cap property taxes for seniors, for those of middle income, and for those who have experienced changes in their earning power.
What is the next step? The Assembly voted for a circuit breaker bill and the Senate voted for the 4% tax cap bill. There must be a compromise so we can finally get real relief for our taxpayers. Personally, I take the position that New Yorkers need both a tax cap and a circuit breaker, as well as mandate relief, in order to lower our education costs and help our struggling taxpayers. I support all three initiatives.
It is a critical time for you to express your views to your elected officials and state leaders on these different tax policies. Please join this important statewide discussion.
Sandra R. Galef, 90th Assembly District
Reader Reveals Her Experiences With James Montagnino; Praises Judge Francis Nicolai
Dear Editor:
I am writing to you because I have learned that Mr. James Montagnino, a former Special Referee for the New York State Courts, is now attempting to run for a judgeship in Saratoga. I am very familiar with Mr. Montagnino’s professional character and ethics because Mr. Montagnino presided over my matrimonial proceeding here in Westchester.
I see from reading your paper, that Mr. Montagnino is attempting to portray himself to the people of Saratoga as some sort of ethical candidate who will bring justice to the County Court. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is trying to hide who he really is and obtain the position of Judge in the Saratoga Court so that he can then obtain an appointment to the higher State Court System and continue his illegal and unethical actions.
I am one of the litigants who James Montagnino, admitted to case fixing in Westchester. (See The Saratogian June 3, 2008 and The Westchester Guardian July 3, 2008) I am also the litigant who attended his Pace Law School CLE lecture, which he titled ‘Spousal Maintenance: Entitlement or Enslavement’ and during which he discussed his “10583” Syndrome. (His reference to “10583” refers to the zip code for Scarsdale, NY. His “syndrome” was created to imply that women who live there are selfish, self-centered parasites who divorce their husbands to free themselves from
any responsibility to their ex-husband so they can then carry on with their childrens’ drum instructor and live a country club life while the ex-husband has to slave away at work just so that he can support her.)
As an example of how Mr. Montagnino viewed his responsibility as an adjudicator in the matrimonial courts, at the Pace Law School CLE lecture that Mr. Montagnino gave on the issue of Spousal Maintenance (formally known as alimony) Mr. Montagnino titled his lecture, “Spousal Maintenance: Entitlement or Enslavement” and presented this to a lecture hall full of matrimonial attorneys who were there to obtain
mandatory Continuing Legal Education credits.
The issue of Spousal Maintenance is neither an “entitlement” nor an “enslavement” as he so derisively describes it, but is a matter that the elected representatives of this State have determined that a spouse is entitled to as part of the economic partnership that a couple enter into upon marriage. For Mr. Montagnino to characterize it as anything other than a valid component of the termination of a marriage, is in direct contrast to the laws and decided court cases, as well as against public policy. As a “Special Referee” who presided over cases as a “quasi-judicial” official, he was under his sworn duty to uphold the laws of the State as they were written, not as he saw fit. His characterization of maintenance being an “entitlement” or “enslavement” clearly shows the prejudice he has against the “non-monied” spouse, who is usually the wife.
As a “Special Referee” Mr. Montagnino was supposed to preside in a fair and unbiased manner, and this is what I had expected when I was told he was going to preside over my case. Yet, it was clear during the first proceeding that just the opposite is what I would be receiving. It was only after
his “Decision and Order” and entry of the Judgment, that I learned why I had been subjected to the abuse during the proceedings and the egregious denial of the martial assets. Shortly after the Judgment was entered, I attended his CLE lecture where I learned of his “10583” Syndrome. I was
shocked and appalled that anyone, let alone someone who sat a a judge, would create such an insulting concept. While I live in this zip code, neither I nor anyone I know lives the type of life he described nor expects to receive an equitable distribution from the marital estate. Women and mothers, whether they work outside the home or not, contribute to the marriage in many ways which provide substantial economic benefits to the marriage, the family and to society in general and do not get paid to do this work. To suggest that being a wife and mother is some sort of cozy do nothing job, is anachronistic and something I thought went out with the dinosaurs.
While this lecture took place in 2004, I wasn’t able to get the actual proof of Mr. Montagnino’s statements until over a year later. I then filed a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the New York State Courts. I, along with many other women who were victimized by Mr.
Montagnino were interviewed by the Inspector General during their investigation into his bias. During the investigation, Mr. Montagnino was relieved of his duties as a Special Referee in the Westchester Supreme Court, and upon completion of their investigation, he was sent up to Saratoga. I received a letter from Justice Jan Plumadore, who advised me that as a result of their investigation, the Court Administration had
taken corrective action.
It wasn’t until this past June when I read Mr. Montagnino’s letters in the Saratogian and The Westchester Guardian, that I learned that Mr. Montagnino was admitting to fixing my matrimonial case. Upon learning this, it now made sense to me as to why and how Mr. Montagnino came to preside over my matrimonial case despite the fact that there was never any signed Order from any Court or any Judge authorizing him to do so.
Mr. Montagnino conducted a “trial” and issued a “Decision and Order” and entered a “Judgment” without ever having been authorized to do so by a Court or a Judge as required by the laws of this State or the Rules of the Court. Mr. Montagnino left me with hundreds of thousands of dollars
of debt by waiving over four years of child support for my ex-husband by allowing him to present to the court some hand written notes on expenses he supposedly paid for “child support” which included purchasing and providing to our 15 year of daughter, liquor and cigarettes, as well as
other improper and inappropriate expenditures.
The malicious rulings and financial devastation to my family is hard to comprehend but will last the lifetimes of my children and their children. I was left to raise three children who have disabilities with minimal support and crushing debt. All while my ex-husband retired from a civil service job, and with the two degrees he earned during the marriage, including a Master’s, has obtained a new job at the New York Medical College as the Director of Safety and Security.
My ex-husband has now taken me back to Court to have me and my children evicted from the marital home. A home which has been in my family for over 55 years and a home my children had expected would always be their home. Besides giving my ex-husband all the financial assets, Mr.
Montagnino’s decision includes having me and the children evicted.
Ironically, the judge we are appearing before is Justice Nicolai, the same Judge that Mr. Montagnino has accused of case fixing. I am forced to represent myself in Court as I have no assets and even more debt which I have amassed in attempting to support the children. I have found that Justice Nicolai is making every effort to ensure that my legal rights are protected in these proceedings, something that I was denied by Mr. Montagnino.
One thing I am sure of is that Justice Nicolai is a real Judge and is legally presiding over my case. I know that he is complying with the Laws of this State and the Rules of the Court. Something Mr. Montagnino never did.
While Mr. Montagnino moved to Saratoga, he did not do so voluntarily. He was forced to move there as a result of the disciplinary action taken against him by the New York State Court Administration. The Court Administration transferred Mr. Montagnino as a result of their investigation
into his bias against litigants. Mr. Montagnino has admitted to case fixing while in Westchester. While Mr. Montagnino accused Justice Nicolai of case fixing, he did so only after the investigation into his bias had already begun.
The people of Saratoga should closely inspect Mr. Montagnino’s history and his inconsistent and untrue statements. Mr. Montagnino did not just decide to move up to his vacation home, he was removed from his job in Westchester and obtained a different, lower level position upstate. He did
not come forward with complaints against the Westchester Administrative Judge until after numerous litigants and filed complaints of bias against him with the Office of Court Administration. However, there is one thing he did say that was correct, he did improperly fix my matrimonial case,
and my children and I are still suffering the devastating consequences to our lives which can never be repaired.
Katharine Allison, Scarsdale
Reader Questions Cuomo’s Theory
Dear Editor:
Your article “Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Stops Internet Child Porn At Its Source” is completely wrong. It says that websites and newsgroups are suppliers of illegal images. They are not; the Internet is not a source, it is just a medium. Shutting off law-abiding citizens’ access to legitimate newsgroups makes as little sense as shutting off a road because bank robbers used it to make their get-away, or suing the US Postal Service because
child pornographers have used it to send illegal photos.
The source is people taking and posting such pictures, and the people downloading them share in the blame. If you take away one website, they’ll just start another one. But Cuomo’s idea is to make innocent people suffer because of these criminals. This is just another case of a politician trying to get headlines by appearing to do something about a problem without actually doing anything.
Cliff Blau, White Plains
Editor’s Note:
Mr. Blau, neither Attorney General Cuomo, nor The Guardian, are suggesting that websites and newsgroups are suppliers in the sense of originators. We recognize that they are, in fact, the conduits through which the actual suppliers achieve contact. However, they are the “source” in the same sense that a faucet which supplies cold water in your kitchen may be considered the source of tap water, for all practical purposes, as opposed to the Croton or Catskill Reservoir systems, from the standpoint of one who desires a glass of water.
This is not about blame; this is about shutting off child pornography in the most effective and efficient manner possible. No right-headed website or newsgroup would feel put upon, or in any way denied their First Amendment guarantees, as evidenced by their willing and rapid compliance
with the Attorney General’s requests.
Thank you very much for your serious consideration of the material.
Ed.
In Our Opinion...
Hillary’s Finest Moment
Last Tuesday night, in prime time; if 10:30pm Eastern is prime time, we saw what was probably the finest performance, and the best face, Hillary Rodham Clinton has ever shown us. There were no “Bosnia Bullets”, though we knew she was surely biting one. All critics and media wizards notwithstanding, we were treated to the best that one might have hoped for from Hillary.
No question, she had a mission to accomplish, both for herself and for Barack Obama; a mission to both put out a fire, and to ignite one. She knew that she needed to quickly extinguish the embers of her failed, but impassioning, effort in opposition to Obama that had left significant disappointment, and some resentment, amongst the legions of some of her strongest supporters, many of whom might once have been tagged militant feminists. Some Democrats were growing fearful that John McCain’s operatives were profitably turning up the heat against Obama by fanning those embers.
She knew that she needed to throw plenty of cold water over the smouldering residue, politely but firmly. She said, “John McCain is my friend. But, no way, no how, no Mc-Cain. Barack Obama is my candidate, and he must be our President.” She would later say, “We don’t need four more years of the last eight years.”
Hillary showed the kind of leadership and characteristically female persuasiveness that so-called dominant females possess. She addressed her “Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pantsuits,” instantly commanding the attention not only of those in the arena who had been doing battle for many months in her behalf in the trenches across the country, but also those watching at home. The cheer that went up with the sound of that phrase meant that she was reaching her troops everywhere.
She asked her Sisterhood, “Were you in this campaign just for me, or were you in it for...” and she then proceeded to rattle off all those reasons, all those people and causes, that mothers and wives and community-conscious women are driven into political campaigns to further, in order to protect and to make right. And, then, she broadened her target audience, speaking to everyone, guys included, declaring, “The genius of America depends upon the vitality of the Middle Class.” She reminded her audience, and Democrats everywhere, that straightening out problems was nothing new to them and, in the same breath, put in a plug for her own household, declaring, “As I recall, we did it before. We did it under President Clinton.”
She came back with, “We’re Americans; we’re not big on quitting.” And, just in case they needed a little more motivation, she told the crowd, which by now was sitting in the palm of her hand, “Nothing less than our children and our future hang in the balance.” Finally, along the way, she paid appropriate tribute, not only to her former opponent, Barack Obama, but to Michelle, who she predicted will be a “great First Lady.” She also reached out to Joe Biden and Mrs. Biden, and showed the graciousness and softness that we have seen on too few occasions, but had seen, nonetheless, in a few events around Chappaqua and elsewhere here in Westchester.
Yes, she bit the bullet, but left no doubt in the process that she was, and would continue to be, a team player, even if a tear or two appeared in her eyes and in the eyes of those who so passionately dreamed that a woman would finally be president. She clearly acquitted herself, did herself proud.
Our Readers Respond...
Assemblywoman Galef Seeking Taxpayers’ Opinions
Dear Editor:
The high burden of property taxes in our area is a subject I hear about regularly as I meet and talk to people throughout the 90th Assembly district. For the past several years, I have sponsored circuit breaker legislation to help make sure that taxpayers do not pay a too-large portion of their income in property taxes. The circuit breaker connects total household income to the amount of all property taxes paid in the household and gives a credit on personal state income tax, or a tax rebate if residents pay more than a set percentage of their income in tax payments. In response to a questionnaire in one of my recent newsletters, my constituents supported the circuit breaker as the first choice in helping with the burdensome property tax that many New Yorkers face. In fact, a recent statewide poll has indicated that 75% of state residents also support the circuit breaker, which caps the amount of property taxes paid based on household income.
The State Legislature went back to Albany last week to make over $1 billion in cuts to the state budget over two years. At that same session, I was thrilled that the Assembly voted to approve a circuit breaker bill. Although it was not exactly the same as the circuit breaker bill I have been working on with Senator Betty Little for the past two years, the bill that passed last week followed the concepts in my legislation and provides $1.7 billion in property tax relief. I view this as a first step in starting to cap property taxes for seniors, for those of middle income, and for those who have experienced changes in their earning power.
What is the next step? The Assembly voted for a circuit breaker bill and the Senate voted for the 4% tax cap bill. There must be a compromise so we can finally get real relief for our taxpayers. Personally, I take the position that New Yorkers need both a tax cap and a circuit breaker, as well as mandate relief, in order to lower our education costs and help our struggling taxpayers. I support all three initiatives.
It is a critical time for you to express your views to your elected officials and state leaders on these different tax policies. Please join this important statewide discussion.
Sandra R. Galef, 90th Assembly District
Reader Reveals Her Experiences With James Montagnino; Praises Judge Francis Nicolai
Dear Editor:
I am writing to you because I have learned that Mr. James Montagnino, a former Special Referee for the New York State Courts, is now attempting to run for a judgeship in Saratoga. I am very familiar with Mr. Montagnino’s professional character and ethics because Mr. Montagnino presided over my matrimonial proceeding here in Westchester.
I see from reading your paper, that Mr. Montagnino is attempting to portray himself to the people of Saratoga as some sort of ethical candidate who will bring justice to the County Court. Nothing could be further from the truth. He is trying to hide who he really is and obtain the position of Judge in the Saratoga Court so that he can then obtain an appointment to the higher State Court System and continue his illegal and unethical actions.
I am one of the litigants who James Montagnino, admitted to case fixing in Westchester. (See The Saratogian June 3, 2008 and The Westchester Guardian July 3, 2008) I am also the litigant who attended his Pace Law School CLE lecture, which he titled ‘Spousal Maintenance: Entitlement or Enslavement’ and during which he discussed his “10583” Syndrome. (His reference to “10583” refers to the zip code for Scarsdale, NY. His “syndrome” was created to imply that women who live there are selfish, self-centered parasites who divorce their husbands to free themselves from
any responsibility to their ex-husband so they can then carry on with their childrens’ drum instructor and live a country club life while the ex-husband has to slave away at work just so that he can support her.)
As an example of how Mr. Montagnino viewed his responsibility as an adjudicator in the matrimonial courts, at the Pace Law School CLE lecture that Mr. Montagnino gave on the issue of Spousal Maintenance (formally known as alimony) Mr. Montagnino titled his lecture, “Spousal Maintenance: Entitlement or Enslavement” and presented this to a lecture hall full of matrimonial attorneys who were there to obtain
mandatory Continuing Legal Education credits.
The issue of Spousal Maintenance is neither an “entitlement” nor an “enslavement” as he so derisively describes it, but is a matter that the elected representatives of this State have determined that a spouse is entitled to as part of the economic partnership that a couple enter into upon marriage. For Mr. Montagnino to characterize it as anything other than a valid component of the termination of a marriage, is in direct contrast to the laws and decided court cases, as well as against public policy. As a “Special Referee” who presided over cases as a “quasi-judicial” official, he was under his sworn duty to uphold the laws of the State as they were written, not as he saw fit. His characterization of maintenance being an “entitlement” or “enslavement” clearly shows the prejudice he has against the “non-monied” spouse, who is usually the wife.
As a “Special Referee” Mr. Montagnino was supposed to preside in a fair and unbiased manner, and this is what I had expected when I was told he was going to preside over my case. Yet, it was clear during the first proceeding that just the opposite is what I would be receiving. It was only after
his “Decision and Order” and entry of the Judgment, that I learned why I had been subjected to the abuse during the proceedings and the egregious denial of the martial assets. Shortly after the Judgment was entered, I attended his CLE lecture where I learned of his “10583” Syndrome. I was
shocked and appalled that anyone, let alone someone who sat a a judge, would create such an insulting concept. While I live in this zip code, neither I nor anyone I know lives the type of life he described nor expects to receive an equitable distribution from the marital estate. Women and mothers, whether they work outside the home or not, contribute to the marriage in many ways which provide substantial economic benefits to the marriage, the family and to society in general and do not get paid to do this work. To suggest that being a wife and mother is some sort of cozy do nothing job, is anachronistic and something I thought went out with the dinosaurs.
While this lecture took place in 2004, I wasn’t able to get the actual proof of Mr. Montagnino’s statements until over a year later. I then filed a complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the New York State Courts. I, along with many other women who were victimized by Mr.
Montagnino were interviewed by the Inspector General during their investigation into his bias. During the investigation, Mr. Montagnino was relieved of his duties as a Special Referee in the Westchester Supreme Court, and upon completion of their investigation, he was sent up to Saratoga. I received a letter from Justice Jan Plumadore, who advised me that as a result of their investigation, the Court Administration had
taken corrective action.
It wasn’t until this past June when I read Mr. Montagnino’s letters in the Saratogian and The Westchester Guardian, that I learned that Mr. Montagnino was admitting to fixing my matrimonial case. Upon learning this, it now made sense to me as to why and how Mr. Montagnino came to preside over my matrimonial case despite the fact that there was never any signed Order from any Court or any Judge authorizing him to do so.
Mr. Montagnino conducted a “trial” and issued a “Decision and Order” and entered a “Judgment” without ever having been authorized to do so by a Court or a Judge as required by the laws of this State or the Rules of the Court. Mr. Montagnino left me with hundreds of thousands of dollars
of debt by waiving over four years of child support for my ex-husband by allowing him to present to the court some hand written notes on expenses he supposedly paid for “child support” which included purchasing and providing to our 15 year of daughter, liquor and cigarettes, as well as
other improper and inappropriate expenditures.
The malicious rulings and financial devastation to my family is hard to comprehend but will last the lifetimes of my children and their children. I was left to raise three children who have disabilities with minimal support and crushing debt. All while my ex-husband retired from a civil service job, and with the two degrees he earned during the marriage, including a Master’s, has obtained a new job at the New York Medical College as the Director of Safety and Security.
My ex-husband has now taken me back to Court to have me and my children evicted from the marital home. A home which has been in my family for over 55 years and a home my children had expected would always be their home. Besides giving my ex-husband all the financial assets, Mr.
Montagnino’s decision includes having me and the children evicted.
Ironically, the judge we are appearing before is Justice Nicolai, the same Judge that Mr. Montagnino has accused of case fixing. I am forced to represent myself in Court as I have no assets and even more debt which I have amassed in attempting to support the children. I have found that Justice Nicolai is making every effort to ensure that my legal rights are protected in these proceedings, something that I was denied by Mr. Montagnino.
One thing I am sure of is that Justice Nicolai is a real Judge and is legally presiding over my case. I know that he is complying with the Laws of this State and the Rules of the Court. Something Mr. Montagnino never did.
While Mr. Montagnino moved to Saratoga, he did not do so voluntarily. He was forced to move there as a result of the disciplinary action taken against him by the New York State Court Administration. The Court Administration transferred Mr. Montagnino as a result of their investigation
into his bias against litigants. Mr. Montagnino has admitted to case fixing while in Westchester. While Mr. Montagnino accused Justice Nicolai of case fixing, he did so only after the investigation into his bias had already begun.
The people of Saratoga should closely inspect Mr. Montagnino’s history and his inconsistent and untrue statements. Mr. Montagnino did not just decide to move up to his vacation home, he was removed from his job in Westchester and obtained a different, lower level position upstate. He did
not come forward with complaints against the Westchester Administrative Judge until after numerous litigants and filed complaints of bias against him with the Office of Court Administration. However, there is one thing he did say that was correct, he did improperly fix my matrimonial case,
and my children and I are still suffering the devastating consequences to our lives which can never be repaired.
Katharine Allison, Scarsdale
Reader Questions Cuomo’s Theory
Dear Editor:
Your article “Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Stops Internet Child Porn At Its Source” is completely wrong. It says that websites and newsgroups are suppliers of illegal images. They are not; the Internet is not a source, it is just a medium. Shutting off law-abiding citizens’ access to legitimate newsgroups makes as little sense as shutting off a road because bank robbers used it to make their get-away, or suing the US Postal Service because
child pornographers have used it to send illegal photos.
The source is people taking and posting such pictures, and the people downloading them share in the blame. If you take away one website, they’ll just start another one. But Cuomo’s idea is to make innocent people suffer because of these criminals. This is just another case of a politician trying to get headlines by appearing to do something about a problem without actually doing anything.
Cliff Blau, White Plains
Editor’s Note:
Mr. Blau, neither Attorney General Cuomo, nor The Guardian, are suggesting that websites and newsgroups are suppliers in the sense of originators. We recognize that they are, in fact, the conduits through which the actual suppliers achieve contact. However, they are the “source” in the same sense that a faucet which supplies cold water in your kitchen may be considered the source of tap water, for all practical purposes, as opposed to the Croton or Catskill Reservoir systems, from the standpoint of one who desires a glass of water.
This is not about blame; this is about shutting off child pornography in the most effective and efficient manner possible. No right-headed website or newsgroup would feel put upon, or in any way denied their First Amendment guarantees, as evidenced by their willing and rapid compliance
with the Attorney General’s requests.
Thank you very much for your serious consideration of the material.
Ed.
Westchester Guardian/The Court Report.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Simoes’ Attorneys Have Hard Sell
Videotape And Fellow Officers Condemn Rogue Cop’s Brutal Conduct
United States Federal District Court, White Plains
Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis Presiding
Last Wednesday morning, August 27th, Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes appeared in United States District Court before Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis for arraignment. Officer Simoes, 38, was indicted on August 19, 2008 by a federal grand jury on charges of violating the civil rights of one Irma Marquez by having used excessive force against her in the City of Yonkers on March 3, 2007.
Arrested on June 27, 2008 on a federal criminal complaint, Simoes was released on bond awaiting trial. He continues to be employed, at full pay, by the Yonkers Police Department, engaged in modified duty. Standing before Judge Yanthis, Simoes was accompanied by Attorneys Andrew Quinn, of White Plains, and John Patton, of New York City.
Assistant United States Attorney Jason Halperin represented the Government. Judge Yanthis opened the proceeding, declaring, “We are here
for the arraignment of the Defendant.” He then inquired of Attorney Quinn, “Counsel, how does Defendant plead?” Mr. Quinn responded,
“Defendant pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”
Yanthis then announced, “This case has been assigned to Judge Karas.” Then, making reference to Simoes’ bail and liberty, he said, “Conditions previously set will be continued.” Simoes remains free on $300,000 bond.
Emerging from the courthouse, accompanied by his attorneys and Yonkers Police Benevolent Association President Detective Eddy Armour, Simoes remained silent as Andrew Quinn briefly fielded questions from reporters.
Quinn opened his remarks with, “My client was trying to effect an arrest.” He continued, “With respect to the charges, the tape does not show intent. And, under the applicable statute, it’s necessary that the Government show intent.” Quinn then attempted to portray his client as having been very concerned about the victim, Irma Marquez, who he had body-slammed without any apparent provocation, and had dropped face-first onto the hard floor of La Fonda Restaurant on Palisade Ave., Yonkers. He told reporters, “Officer Simoes went to the hospital the night of the incident. He was very concerned about Ms. Marquez’ well-being.”
Analysis:
Mr. Quinn would appear to have been attempting to make a very difficult argument on behalf of his client. Although the frequently-aired videotape of the incident speaks clearly about what actually occurred, the investigative report issued by Kristina Norris, Special Agent for the FBI,
in Paragraphs 5 and 5a, is particularly corroborative, and condemning, of Officer Simoes’ actions.
Agent Norris reported, in Paragraph 5, “I spoke with, among others, officers who were present at the restaurant on that date, who indicated that the video was an accurate and true depiction of the events that occurred at the restaurant, and that Simoes was the person who picked up Marquez and threw her to the floor.”
In Paragraph 5a, Agent Norris further reported, “Several officers stated that, based on their training and experience, Simoes’ use of force against Marquez was unreasonable and excessive.”
If convicted, following a trial, of having deprived Irma Marquez of the rights secured, and protected, by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to be secure in her person and free from the use of unreasonable force by one acting under Color of Law, Title 18, United States Code, Section 242, Wayne Simoes faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Simoes’ Attorneys Have Hard Sell
Videotape And Fellow Officers Condemn Rogue Cop’s Brutal Conduct
United States Federal District Court, White Plains
Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis Presiding
Last Wednesday morning, August 27th, Yonkers Police Officer Wayne Simoes appeared in United States District Court before Magistrate Judge George A. Yanthis for arraignment. Officer Simoes, 38, was indicted on August 19, 2008 by a federal grand jury on charges of violating the civil rights of one Irma Marquez by having used excessive force against her in the City of Yonkers on March 3, 2007.
Arrested on June 27, 2008 on a federal criminal complaint, Simoes was released on bond awaiting trial. He continues to be employed, at full pay, by the Yonkers Police Department, engaged in modified duty. Standing before Judge Yanthis, Simoes was accompanied by Attorneys Andrew Quinn, of White Plains, and John Patton, of New York City.
Assistant United States Attorney Jason Halperin represented the Government. Judge Yanthis opened the proceeding, declaring, “We are here
for the arraignment of the Defendant.” He then inquired of Attorney Quinn, “Counsel, how does Defendant plead?” Mr. Quinn responded,
“Defendant pleads not guilty, Your Honor.”
Yanthis then announced, “This case has been assigned to Judge Karas.” Then, making reference to Simoes’ bail and liberty, he said, “Conditions previously set will be continued.” Simoes remains free on $300,000 bond.
Emerging from the courthouse, accompanied by his attorneys and Yonkers Police Benevolent Association President Detective Eddy Armour, Simoes remained silent as Andrew Quinn briefly fielded questions from reporters.
Quinn opened his remarks with, “My client was trying to effect an arrest.” He continued, “With respect to the charges, the tape does not show intent. And, under the applicable statute, it’s necessary that the Government show intent.” Quinn then attempted to portray his client as having been very concerned about the victim, Irma Marquez, who he had body-slammed without any apparent provocation, and had dropped face-first onto the hard floor of La Fonda Restaurant on Palisade Ave., Yonkers. He told reporters, “Officer Simoes went to the hospital the night of the incident. He was very concerned about Ms. Marquez’ well-being.”
Analysis:
Mr. Quinn would appear to have been attempting to make a very difficult argument on behalf of his client. Although the frequently-aired videotape of the incident speaks clearly about what actually occurred, the investigative report issued by Kristina Norris, Special Agent for the FBI,
in Paragraphs 5 and 5a, is particularly corroborative, and condemning, of Officer Simoes’ actions.
Agent Norris reported, in Paragraph 5, “I spoke with, among others, officers who were present at the restaurant on that date, who indicated that the video was an accurate and true depiction of the events that occurred at the restaurant, and that Simoes was the person who picked up Marquez and threw her to the floor.”
In Paragraph 5a, Agent Norris further reported, “Several officers stated that, based on their training and experience, Simoes’ use of force against Marquez was unreasonable and excessive.”
If convicted, following a trial, of having deprived Irma Marquez of the rights secured, and protected, by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to be secure in her person and free from the use of unreasonable force by one acting under Color of Law, Title 18, United States Code, Section 242, Wayne Simoes faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Westchester Guardian/Jeffrey Deskovic.
Jeff Deskovic
When Women Are
Wrongfully Convicted, Part 2
Last week, in Part 1, I wrote about the subject of women being wrongfully convicted, hoping to raise awareness about the subject. I analyzed the cases, and spoke about some of the hardships that are peculiar to women when they are wrongfully imprisoned. In Part 2, it is my intention to explore a few more cases, in order to provide evidence that women are wrongfully convicted more often than most of us would believe.
Paula Gray
Paula Gray was wrongfully convicted of Murder, Rape, and Perjury in Illinois and served 9 years in prison before being exonerated in 2002. The facts of her case are taken from The Center On Wrongful Conviction’s website: “Paula Gray was the key figure in the prosecution of the men known as the Ford Heights Four, who were convicted of the 1978 abduction and murder of Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal and the rape of Ms. Schmal. Gray and the men became suspects in the case after Cook County Sheriff’s Police received a tip from Charles McCraney, a man who lived in a run-down public housing development in East Chicago Heights, a poor south suburb of Chicago. Based on McCraney’s claim, police questioned Gray, who was only 17 and borderline mentally retarded, over two nights in motels before she confessed. Then she was taken before a grand jury, where she testified that she had been present when Kenneth Adams, Verneal Jimerson, Willie Rainge, and Dennis Williams repeatedly raped Ms. Schmal and then shot both victims to death.
Gray soon recanted her confession, which contained only two purported facts that were not known to the police — and both of those assertions ultimately were shown to have been false. Upon her recantation, however, Gray was charged both with the rape and murders and with perjury. She was tried simultaneously with Adams, Rainge, and Williams in the same courtroom before the same judge, but by a separate jury.
The charges against Jimerson could not be pursued at that time because without Gray’s testimony there was no evidence against him. McCraney had not placed Jimerson at the scene. The convictions of the remaining defendants rested primarily on McCraney’s testimony and the testimony of an informant, David Jackson, who falsely claimed to have heard Williams and Rainge talking in jail about how they committed the crime.
Forensic evidence — later shown to have been false in one regard and unreliable in another — also was presented by the prosecution. Adams was sentenced to 75 years, Rainge to life, Williams to death, and Gray to 50 years for the murders and 10 years, concurrently, for perjury.
After Rainge and Williams, but not Adams, won new trials in 1982 based on ineffective assistance of counsel, Gray agreed to testify against them and Jimerson in exchange for her release from prison. Jimerson was then charged, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Although McCraney originally had not placed Jimerson at the scene, he did so at the trial. Rainge and Williams then were retried and convicted based on the false testimony of Gray and McCraney.
Rainge was sentenced to life without parole, Williams to death. Jimerson’s conviction was reversed in 1995 based on prosecutorial misconduct; the prosecutors had failed to correct perjury by Gray, who had falsely stated that she had been promised nothing in exchange for her testimony. Now lacking credible evidence against Jimerson, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office agreed to DNA testing.
Meanwhile, Northwestern University journalism students working under Professor David Protess found a police file showing that, within a week of the crime, a witness had told the Sheriff's Police they had arrested the wrong men. The witness said he knew who committed the crime because he heard shots, saw four men run away from the scene, and the next day saw them selling items taken from the robbery of the
victims. As a result of police and prosecutorial misconduct, however, the report had not been turned over to the defense prior to trial as required by Brady v. Maryland, 373 US 83 (1963). One of the men identified by that witness was by then dead, but the other three ultimately confessed. Then the results of the DNA testing conclusively established the innocence of the Ford Heights Four and corroborated the confessions.
The Ford Heights Four then filed civil rights suits against the Cook County Sheriff’s Police. rough the discovery process in that litigation, it became apparent that Gray’s false confession had been coerced. The police misconduct prompted Cook County to settle the men’s claims for $36 million, the largest such settlement in U.S. history. In July 2001, Gray’s conviction was thrown out with a lengthy opinion by Circuit Court Judge William D. O’Neal.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office appealed the ruling, but the appeal was rendered moot in November 2002 when Illinois Governor George H. Ryan granted her a pardon.”
Marci Stein
Marci Stein was wrongfully convicted in 2001 of engaging in sexual relations with three teenage students in Westchester New York and served four years in prison before being freed.
Ms. Stein was a teacher at Hendrick Hudson High School in Montrose in 2000, when allegations surfaced that she had had sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old student and had performed oral sex on two other boys during tutoring sessions at her home between April 1999 and January 2000. She was found guilty of felony charges that included statutory rape, sodomy and sexual abuse.
Her conviction was overturned because then Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office failed to turn over evidence to her lawyers of the fact that two of the teenagers were seeking damages against the school district, which went to the matter of credibility, in that the witnesses had a motivation to a lie which Stein had the right to have the jury consider, because this went directly to the matter of guilt and innocence.
Speaking to the information’s relevance, The Appellate Division wrote that the information was “highly relevant’’ to their credibility. In fact, the two students collected $220,000 in a civil action against the school district. "The failure to turn over this evidence
was aggravated by the prosecutor’s argument during summation that there was no evidence that the complainants were bringing civil lawsuits as a result of the defendant’s conduct. There is a reasonable probability that this failure to disclose affected the outcome of the trial.’’
Traumatized and unwilling to trust her fate to a jury system that had already wrongfully convicted her once, and desperate to regain her freedom and move on with her life, Stein pled guilty to endangering a child and was immediately released.
Gloria Killian
Gloria Killian was wrongfully convicted of murder and served 18 years in prison before being released in 2002. The facts of her case are taken from a March 2008 report by Death Penalty Focus, published on www.deathpenalty.org.
“In 1986, Gloria Killian was convicted of “master-minding” the 1981 First degree robbery-murder of Ed Davies and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. The district attorney intended to seek the death penalty for Killian– as he had successfully won a death sentence for her co-defendant Stephen DeSantis. in 1983.
But because of the California Supreme Court ruling in Carlos v. Superior Court the maximum sentence he could seek was 32 years to life. Carlos was reversed soon after Killian was sentenced. The charges were based solely on the testimony of career criminal Gary Masse,
who had just been sentenced to life without possibility of parole for his role in the same murder-robbery. In a deal with the District Attorney, Masse named Killian as the mastermind of the robbery in exchange for a reduced sentence. The co-defendant, De-Santis, testified in his 1983 trial that Killian had nothing to do with the crime, and that he had never even met her. At Killian’s trial, Masse denied making a deal with the District Attorney and the prosecutor reinforced Masse’s untruthful testimony during his closing argument. Shortly after the
trial, Masse wrote a letter to the prosecutor demanding that his sentence be reduced - as promised - because he had successfully
lied for him. Masse then in fact had his sentence reduced from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole. The letter from Masse was never disclosed to the defense.
It was discovered years later by attorneys for DeSantis. In 2000, Masse admitted to federal magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows that he had lied during Killian’s trial, but shortly thereafter Judge Hollows recommended to U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell that Killian’s conviction be upheld; and Burrell agreed saying that the perjurious statements were harmless.
In 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Killian’s conviction saying that it was improperly based on the false testimony of Gary Masse. Ninth Circuit Judge Michael D. Hawkins called his testimony “thoroughly discredited.” Killian was released in 2002 after serving over eighteen years- five of those years after the letter from Masse had been discovered.”
Analysis Of The Wrongful Convictions
I prefer to review the causes of the wrongful conviction, as cases in point as to why we need legislation to prevent future wrongful convictions.
False confessions, which are far more common than people realize-being the cause of 25% of the now 218 DNA proven wrongful convictions, was the cause of Gray’s wrongful conviction, as well as those of her co-defendants.
Prosecutorial Misconduct and the withholding of evidence favorable to the defense, in legal jargon referred to as Brady material, which often is related to guilt and innocence, again rears it’s ugly head in the Stein case. The habit of engaging in misconduct and withholding of Brady material, has gone on in the Westchester District Attorney’s office for quite a long time. I would like to know why prosecutor Laura Murphy, who withheld the evidence from Stein’s Attorneys, and lied to the jury in her closing remarks, still remains employed as a prosecutor in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. In any other line of work, an employee who was found to have broken the
law while working at the job would have been fired. Why should their status as Of-ficers Of The Court entitle them to different treatment? In my view, any district attorney looking to make a clean break with prosecutorial misconduct of the past would fire them based upon their proven conduct, due to their being unworthy of future public trust. This is no game; this is people’s lives we are talking about here.
Of course, the Stein case is by no means the only instance of this type of lawbreaking, occurring in that Office. My sense of justice is offended, and I am still stunned, by the brazen withholding by former prosecutor Clement Patti of the 52 boxes of exculpatory evidence that
was withheld from Anthony DiSimone’s attorneys, showing that another person committed the stabbing murder for which he served seven years in prison. It is morally wrong that prosecutors such as these will get away with their crimes, as will other prosecutors who do this in
the future, because there currently is no law allowing the prosecution of those who break the law and inreperably alter the lives of people as a result.
In the Killian case, we see that incentivized witnessing, which is when a person receives a reduced sentence or a reward in exchange for testimony against another person, is the cause of this wrongful conviction. As I have mentioned before, this has caused wrongful convictions in 15% of the now 218 DNA proven wrongful convictions. We also see just how slow the wheels of justice are to release people by her remaining in prison for five more years after the proof that the witness was allowed to lie on the witness stand surfaced, and how often
appeals are rubber stamp denied. What was the federal magistrate thinking who recommended that the withholding of the information was “harmless”, not to mention the district judge who accepted this recommendation?
I really wish that federal judges would take a lesson from this case and please pay careful attention to the issues raised in front of them,
and not simply find ways to uphold convictions by any means necessary.
Conclusion
These cases round out six that I have reviewed recently pertaining to incidents of women being wrongfully convicted. As mentioned above, I wrote this two-part series to illustrate that women are, in fact, wrongfully convicted. The words of Lynn DeJac, who served 12 ½ years, haunt my mind: “You know that I am not the only woman who has been wrongfully convicted. I am just one of the lucky ones.”
Her point is that there are other women who have been wrongfully convicted, whose cases we simply don’t know about and may never know about, because they have not been cleared. Usually there is no DNA to test in cases where a woman is a defendant, and it is infinitely harder to prove innocence through other means, especially considering that it is difficult for the poor to obtain quality legal representation,
given that public defenders are generally not that good, and that the number of attorneys willing to take cases for free is limited.
The women mentioned came from a variety of different backgrounds. Stein was a schoolteacher, Killian was a paralegal who was on her way to becoming an attorney, Gray was 17 and borderline retarded; Joyce Brown, whose case was covered in the previous issue of The Guardian, worked in a fur company; Ellen Reasonver was a would-be good Samaritan who reported possibly seeing the people who committed the
murder that she was ultimately wrongfully convicted of; Betty Tyson was a prostitute. My point is that it can and does happen to women of all walks of life. There is no path of life that one can go down which will guarantee that this could never happen to you, regardless of your gender.
When Women Are
Wrongfully Convicted, Part 2
Last week, in Part 1, I wrote about the subject of women being wrongfully convicted, hoping to raise awareness about the subject. I analyzed the cases, and spoke about some of the hardships that are peculiar to women when they are wrongfully imprisoned. In Part 2, it is my intention to explore a few more cases, in order to provide evidence that women are wrongfully convicted more often than most of us would believe.
Paula Gray
Paula Gray was wrongfully convicted of Murder, Rape, and Perjury in Illinois and served 9 years in prison before being exonerated in 2002. The facts of her case are taken from The Center On Wrongful Conviction’s website: “Paula Gray was the key figure in the prosecution of the men known as the Ford Heights Four, who were convicted of the 1978 abduction and murder of Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal and the rape of Ms. Schmal. Gray and the men became suspects in the case after Cook County Sheriff’s Police received a tip from Charles McCraney, a man who lived in a run-down public housing development in East Chicago Heights, a poor south suburb of Chicago. Based on McCraney’s claim, police questioned Gray, who was only 17 and borderline mentally retarded, over two nights in motels before she confessed. Then she was taken before a grand jury, where she testified that she had been present when Kenneth Adams, Verneal Jimerson, Willie Rainge, and Dennis Williams repeatedly raped Ms. Schmal and then shot both victims to death.
Gray soon recanted her confession, which contained only two purported facts that were not known to the police — and both of those assertions ultimately were shown to have been false. Upon her recantation, however, Gray was charged both with the rape and murders and with perjury. She was tried simultaneously with Adams, Rainge, and Williams in the same courtroom before the same judge, but by a separate jury.
The charges against Jimerson could not be pursued at that time because without Gray’s testimony there was no evidence against him. McCraney had not placed Jimerson at the scene. The convictions of the remaining defendants rested primarily on McCraney’s testimony and the testimony of an informant, David Jackson, who falsely claimed to have heard Williams and Rainge talking in jail about how they committed the crime.
Forensic evidence — later shown to have been false in one regard and unreliable in another — also was presented by the prosecution. Adams was sentenced to 75 years, Rainge to life, Williams to death, and Gray to 50 years for the murders and 10 years, concurrently, for perjury.
After Rainge and Williams, but not Adams, won new trials in 1982 based on ineffective assistance of counsel, Gray agreed to testify against them and Jimerson in exchange for her release from prison. Jimerson was then charged, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Although McCraney originally had not placed Jimerson at the scene, he did so at the trial. Rainge and Williams then were retried and convicted based on the false testimony of Gray and McCraney.
Rainge was sentenced to life without parole, Williams to death. Jimerson’s conviction was reversed in 1995 based on prosecutorial misconduct; the prosecutors had failed to correct perjury by Gray, who had falsely stated that she had been promised nothing in exchange for her testimony. Now lacking credible evidence against Jimerson, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office agreed to DNA testing.
Meanwhile, Northwestern University journalism students working under Professor David Protess found a police file showing that, within a week of the crime, a witness had told the Sheriff's Police they had arrested the wrong men. The witness said he knew who committed the crime because he heard shots, saw four men run away from the scene, and the next day saw them selling items taken from the robbery of the
victims. As a result of police and prosecutorial misconduct, however, the report had not been turned over to the defense prior to trial as required by Brady v. Maryland, 373 US 83 (1963). One of the men identified by that witness was by then dead, but the other three ultimately confessed. Then the results of the DNA testing conclusively established the innocence of the Ford Heights Four and corroborated the confessions.
The Ford Heights Four then filed civil rights suits against the Cook County Sheriff’s Police. rough the discovery process in that litigation, it became apparent that Gray’s false confession had been coerced. The police misconduct prompted Cook County to settle the men’s claims for $36 million, the largest such settlement in U.S. history. In July 2001, Gray’s conviction was thrown out with a lengthy opinion by Circuit Court Judge William D. O’Neal.
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office appealed the ruling, but the appeal was rendered moot in November 2002 when Illinois Governor George H. Ryan granted her a pardon.”
Marci Stein
Marci Stein was wrongfully convicted in 2001 of engaging in sexual relations with three teenage students in Westchester New York and served four years in prison before being freed.
Ms. Stein was a teacher at Hendrick Hudson High School in Montrose in 2000, when allegations surfaced that she had had sexual intercourse with a 16-year-old student and had performed oral sex on two other boys during tutoring sessions at her home between April 1999 and January 2000. She was found guilty of felony charges that included statutory rape, sodomy and sexual abuse.
Her conviction was overturned because then Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office failed to turn over evidence to her lawyers of the fact that two of the teenagers were seeking damages against the school district, which went to the matter of credibility, in that the witnesses had a motivation to a lie which Stein had the right to have the jury consider, because this went directly to the matter of guilt and innocence.
Speaking to the information’s relevance, The Appellate Division wrote that the information was “highly relevant’’ to their credibility. In fact, the two students collected $220,000 in a civil action against the school district. "The failure to turn over this evidence
was aggravated by the prosecutor’s argument during summation that there was no evidence that the complainants were bringing civil lawsuits as a result of the defendant’s conduct. There is a reasonable probability that this failure to disclose affected the outcome of the trial.’’
Traumatized and unwilling to trust her fate to a jury system that had already wrongfully convicted her once, and desperate to regain her freedom and move on with her life, Stein pled guilty to endangering a child and was immediately released.
Gloria Killian
Gloria Killian was wrongfully convicted of murder and served 18 years in prison before being released in 2002. The facts of her case are taken from a March 2008 report by Death Penalty Focus, published on www.deathpenalty.org.
“In 1986, Gloria Killian was convicted of “master-minding” the 1981 First degree robbery-murder of Ed Davies and was sentenced to 32 years to life in prison. The district attorney intended to seek the death penalty for Killian– as he had successfully won a death sentence for her co-defendant Stephen DeSantis. in 1983.
But because of the California Supreme Court ruling in Carlos v. Superior Court the maximum sentence he could seek was 32 years to life. Carlos was reversed soon after Killian was sentenced. The charges were based solely on the testimony of career criminal Gary Masse,
who had just been sentenced to life without possibility of parole for his role in the same murder-robbery. In a deal with the District Attorney, Masse named Killian as the mastermind of the robbery in exchange for a reduced sentence. The co-defendant, De-Santis, testified in his 1983 trial that Killian had nothing to do with the crime, and that he had never even met her. At Killian’s trial, Masse denied making a deal with the District Attorney and the prosecutor reinforced Masse’s untruthful testimony during his closing argument. Shortly after the
trial, Masse wrote a letter to the prosecutor demanding that his sentence be reduced - as promised - because he had successfully
lied for him. Masse then in fact had his sentence reduced from life without parole to life with the possibility of parole. The letter from Masse was never disclosed to the defense.
It was discovered years later by attorneys for DeSantis. In 2000, Masse admitted to federal magistrate Judge Gregory Hollows that he had lied during Killian’s trial, but shortly thereafter Judge Hollows recommended to U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell that Killian’s conviction be upheld; and Burrell agreed saying that the perjurious statements were harmless.
In 2002, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Killian’s conviction saying that it was improperly based on the false testimony of Gary Masse. Ninth Circuit Judge Michael D. Hawkins called his testimony “thoroughly discredited.” Killian was released in 2002 after serving over eighteen years- five of those years after the letter from Masse had been discovered.”
Analysis Of The Wrongful Convictions
I prefer to review the causes of the wrongful conviction, as cases in point as to why we need legislation to prevent future wrongful convictions.
False confessions, which are far more common than people realize-being the cause of 25% of the now 218 DNA proven wrongful convictions, was the cause of Gray’s wrongful conviction, as well as those of her co-defendants.
Prosecutorial Misconduct and the withholding of evidence favorable to the defense, in legal jargon referred to as Brady material, which often is related to guilt and innocence, again rears it’s ugly head in the Stein case. The habit of engaging in misconduct and withholding of Brady material, has gone on in the Westchester District Attorney’s office for quite a long time. I would like to know why prosecutor Laura Murphy, who withheld the evidence from Stein’s Attorneys, and lied to the jury in her closing remarks, still remains employed as a prosecutor in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. In any other line of work, an employee who was found to have broken the
law while working at the job would have been fired. Why should their status as Of-ficers Of The Court entitle them to different treatment? In my view, any district attorney looking to make a clean break with prosecutorial misconduct of the past would fire them based upon their proven conduct, due to their being unworthy of future public trust. This is no game; this is people’s lives we are talking about here.
Of course, the Stein case is by no means the only instance of this type of lawbreaking, occurring in that Office. My sense of justice is offended, and I am still stunned, by the brazen withholding by former prosecutor Clement Patti of the 52 boxes of exculpatory evidence that
was withheld from Anthony DiSimone’s attorneys, showing that another person committed the stabbing murder for which he served seven years in prison. It is morally wrong that prosecutors such as these will get away with their crimes, as will other prosecutors who do this in
the future, because there currently is no law allowing the prosecution of those who break the law and inreperably alter the lives of people as a result.
In the Killian case, we see that incentivized witnessing, which is when a person receives a reduced sentence or a reward in exchange for testimony against another person, is the cause of this wrongful conviction. As I have mentioned before, this has caused wrongful convictions in 15% of the now 218 DNA proven wrongful convictions. We also see just how slow the wheels of justice are to release people by her remaining in prison for five more years after the proof that the witness was allowed to lie on the witness stand surfaced, and how often
appeals are rubber stamp denied. What was the federal magistrate thinking who recommended that the withholding of the information was “harmless”, not to mention the district judge who accepted this recommendation?
I really wish that federal judges would take a lesson from this case and please pay careful attention to the issues raised in front of them,
and not simply find ways to uphold convictions by any means necessary.
Conclusion
These cases round out six that I have reviewed recently pertaining to incidents of women being wrongfully convicted. As mentioned above, I wrote this two-part series to illustrate that women are, in fact, wrongfully convicted. The words of Lynn DeJac, who served 12 ½ years, haunt my mind: “You know that I am not the only woman who has been wrongfully convicted. I am just one of the lucky ones.”
Her point is that there are other women who have been wrongfully convicted, whose cases we simply don’t know about and may never know about, because they have not been cleared. Usually there is no DNA to test in cases where a woman is a defendant, and it is infinitely harder to prove innocence through other means, especially considering that it is difficult for the poor to obtain quality legal representation,
given that public defenders are generally not that good, and that the number of attorneys willing to take cases for free is limited.
The women mentioned came from a variety of different backgrounds. Stein was a schoolteacher, Killian was a paralegal who was on her way to becoming an attorney, Gray was 17 and borderline retarded; Joyce Brown, whose case was covered in the previous issue of The Guardian, worked in a fur company; Ellen Reasonver was a would-be good Samaritan who reported possibly seeing the people who committed the
murder that she was ultimately wrongfully convicted of; Betty Tyson was a prostitute. My point is that it can and does happen to women of all walks of life. There is no path of life that one can go down which will guarantee that this could never happen to you, regardless of your gender.
Westchester Guardian/David Chong/City of Mount Vernon.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Guardian Speaks With Mount Vernon
Police Commissioner David Chong
In light of the spate of violent street crime, shootings and stabbings, over recent months on the South Side of the City of Mount Vernon, we asked to meet with Mount Vernon Police Commissioner David Chong to discuss current policing concerns and to get his take on problems and solutions. We posed the question, “The City, for its size, 4.4 square miles, would seem to present a management problem with respect to street violence and killings. What is particularly unique about the City, from a policing perspective?”
Commissioner Chong quickly said, “We have more youth per capita than anybody else. We are eighty thousand-plus people on top of each
other, and with economic conditions what they are right now, I see an ever-rapidly-increasing number of youngsters on the streets.” To emphasize his point, Chong said, “No good can occur when young people are on the street between 1am and 5am.” He went on to point out the fact that, under New York State law, police cannot treat groups of young people, milling about on the street, as they might treat adults; they cannot be charged with violations such as Disorderly Conduct in cases of street gatherings and disorder.
He went on, “We are dealing with lots of social and economic issues outside the scope of police authority. If they cannot be apprehended
for gathering on the streets, where do I put them?”
We then asked, “Since most of the killings seem to involve young Black men, is it a gang turf conflict; Bloods v. Crypts thing, or have the
knifings and shootings been unrelated, independent incidents?”
Chong responded, “It’s a little bit of each. Unfortunately, among today’s youth, guns are a fashion statement.” Changing gears slightly, he said, “Young people are not turning in their guns.” The Commissioner was referring to the dismal results achieved by so-called gun-buyback programs run by the County, and some Westchester municipalities, including Mount Vernon.
Focusing more on recent developments, we asked, “How has placement of your Mobile Command Unit aided specifically on the South
Side?” Chong confided, “Basically it gives the people a sense of security and closeness to the police because it is so large and so visible.” He added, “Our mounted patrols tend to be noticed as well.”
Then, pausing momentarily, he explained, “We want to stabilize the community and, at the same time, send a message to those who would continue to cause problems that we are out there, and we will apprehend them.”
He went on, “The message is, ‘If you commit a crime of violence in the City of Mount Vernon, you will be brought to justice.’” The Guardian then turned to specific serious concerns that demand long-term planning and persistent attention, asking, “What is your fundamental strategy for controlling gun traffic into the City, as well as drugs? How are you interdicting them?”
The Commissioner smiled, and said, “Without being too specific, let me say our message, in this regard, is, ‘If you are caught with a gun or felony drugs, you will be sent away for a long time.’”
Reflecting for a moment, he added, “Guns have no conscience, and there is no recovery. Also, guns kill twice; the victim and the shooter.
Our young people, over the smallest disrespect, come too quickly to horrendous violence. They possess no skills in conflict resolution.”
We then observed, “Many urban youths behave as though they can squander their future,” to which Chong responded, “There is a common
urban experience that we are seeing in cities across the state and the country. Kids today are living their future. Please understand it gives me no pleasure to put felony records on these young people. What some of them do today forecloses their options for the rest of their lives.”
Guardian publisher Sam Zherka had passed along a question for Police Commissioner Chong: “Would a large-scale program, perhaps funded by the federal and/or state government, that would place street-monitoring cameras in high-crime areas make a significant difference?”
The Commissioner responded, with a resounding “Yes! Tell Sam it’s a great idea.” He then explained, “With the latest ShotSpotter Technology, six units, strategically mounted, would be great.”
ShotSpotter is a network of noise sensors that responds to gunfire, identifying and pinpointing the source and location, guiding police
on patrol to the crime scene quickly enough to more effectively deal with victims and shooters alike. Presently in use in Washington, D.C.,
the sensors are about the size of a coffee can, easily hidden atop buildings.
It can identify gun-fire as far as two miles away and pinpoint the location within a few feet. The Commissioner explained that six such units, and all of the patrol car and base equipment connected with them, might cost about $1 million and would be an excellent project for a federal grant. He indicated that, once up and operating, ShotSpotter would become a “great deterrent to gun-related violence.”
Turning in a different direction, The Guardian asked, “Does your Department sponsor a P.A.L. program?” The Commissioner’s answer was, “It doesn’t exist now, but I would like funding to do it.” He acknowledged that part of the problem is that such a program would
also require a lot of volunteer personnel, something in short supply these days.
Commissioner Chong, who came on board to lead the present 207-member Mount Vernon Police Force, in May of 2006, explained that he had committed himself, at the time, to four principle goals:
• Reduction of crime;
• Bringing back police department morale;
• Professionalizing and modernizing operations;
• Community outreach.
Chong indicated that he felt the Department has made significant progress in each of those areas, but that there is still much to be done. David Chong is clearly a man with a mission. Coming along on the heels of several rapidly-failed predecessors, he has already achieved numerous
significant departmental innovations and improvements while elevating the morale of the Department in little more than two years.
Most significantly, he is a Commissioner who was a real cop, one who believes in Constitutionally-sound law enforcement. Chong’s appointment by Ernie Davis, we suppose, proves Ernie wasn’t all bad. Most importantly, in Mount Vernon, a City hanging in through difficult times, Commissioner Chong just doesn’t talk the talk; he walks the walk as well. He is there at every major crime scene, every event,
hands-on and thoughtful. And, he likes nothing better than walking the beat, meeting and speaking with older and young folks alike; showing respect and earning it.
The Guardian Speaks With Mount Vernon
Police Commissioner David Chong
In light of the spate of violent street crime, shootings and stabbings, over recent months on the South Side of the City of Mount Vernon, we asked to meet with Mount Vernon Police Commissioner David Chong to discuss current policing concerns and to get his take on problems and solutions. We posed the question, “The City, for its size, 4.4 square miles, would seem to present a management problem with respect to street violence and killings. What is particularly unique about the City, from a policing perspective?”
Commissioner Chong quickly said, “We have more youth per capita than anybody else. We are eighty thousand-plus people on top of each
other, and with economic conditions what they are right now, I see an ever-rapidly-increasing number of youngsters on the streets.” To emphasize his point, Chong said, “No good can occur when young people are on the street between 1am and 5am.” He went on to point out the fact that, under New York State law, police cannot treat groups of young people, milling about on the street, as they might treat adults; they cannot be charged with violations such as Disorderly Conduct in cases of street gatherings and disorder.
He went on, “We are dealing with lots of social and economic issues outside the scope of police authority. If they cannot be apprehended
for gathering on the streets, where do I put them?”
We then asked, “Since most of the killings seem to involve young Black men, is it a gang turf conflict; Bloods v. Crypts thing, or have the
knifings and shootings been unrelated, independent incidents?”
Chong responded, “It’s a little bit of each. Unfortunately, among today’s youth, guns are a fashion statement.” Changing gears slightly, he said, “Young people are not turning in their guns.” The Commissioner was referring to the dismal results achieved by so-called gun-buyback programs run by the County, and some Westchester municipalities, including Mount Vernon.
Focusing more on recent developments, we asked, “How has placement of your Mobile Command Unit aided specifically on the South
Side?” Chong confided, “Basically it gives the people a sense of security and closeness to the police because it is so large and so visible.” He added, “Our mounted patrols tend to be noticed as well.”
Then, pausing momentarily, he explained, “We want to stabilize the community and, at the same time, send a message to those who would continue to cause problems that we are out there, and we will apprehend them.”
He went on, “The message is, ‘If you commit a crime of violence in the City of Mount Vernon, you will be brought to justice.’” The Guardian then turned to specific serious concerns that demand long-term planning and persistent attention, asking, “What is your fundamental strategy for controlling gun traffic into the City, as well as drugs? How are you interdicting them?”
The Commissioner smiled, and said, “Without being too specific, let me say our message, in this regard, is, ‘If you are caught with a gun or felony drugs, you will be sent away for a long time.’”
Reflecting for a moment, he added, “Guns have no conscience, and there is no recovery. Also, guns kill twice; the victim and the shooter.
Our young people, over the smallest disrespect, come too quickly to horrendous violence. They possess no skills in conflict resolution.”
We then observed, “Many urban youths behave as though they can squander their future,” to which Chong responded, “There is a common
urban experience that we are seeing in cities across the state and the country. Kids today are living their future. Please understand it gives me no pleasure to put felony records on these young people. What some of them do today forecloses their options for the rest of their lives.”
Guardian publisher Sam Zherka had passed along a question for Police Commissioner Chong: “Would a large-scale program, perhaps funded by the federal and/or state government, that would place street-monitoring cameras in high-crime areas make a significant difference?”
The Commissioner responded, with a resounding “Yes! Tell Sam it’s a great idea.” He then explained, “With the latest ShotSpotter Technology, six units, strategically mounted, would be great.”
ShotSpotter is a network of noise sensors that responds to gunfire, identifying and pinpointing the source and location, guiding police
on patrol to the crime scene quickly enough to more effectively deal with victims and shooters alike. Presently in use in Washington, D.C.,
the sensors are about the size of a coffee can, easily hidden atop buildings.
It can identify gun-fire as far as two miles away and pinpoint the location within a few feet. The Commissioner explained that six such units, and all of the patrol car and base equipment connected with them, might cost about $1 million and would be an excellent project for a federal grant. He indicated that, once up and operating, ShotSpotter would become a “great deterrent to gun-related violence.”
Turning in a different direction, The Guardian asked, “Does your Department sponsor a P.A.L. program?” The Commissioner’s answer was, “It doesn’t exist now, but I would like funding to do it.” He acknowledged that part of the problem is that such a program would
also require a lot of volunteer personnel, something in short supply these days.
Commissioner Chong, who came on board to lead the present 207-member Mount Vernon Police Force, in May of 2006, explained that he had committed himself, at the time, to four principle goals:
• Reduction of crime;
• Bringing back police department morale;
• Professionalizing and modernizing operations;
• Community outreach.
Chong indicated that he felt the Department has made significant progress in each of those areas, but that there is still much to be done. David Chong is clearly a man with a mission. Coming along on the heels of several rapidly-failed predecessors, he has already achieved numerous
significant departmental innovations and improvements while elevating the morale of the Department in little more than two years.
Most significantly, he is a Commissioner who was a real cop, one who believes in Constitutionally-sound law enforcement. Chong’s appointment by Ernie Davis, we suppose, proves Ernie wasn’t all bad. Most importantly, in Mount Vernon, a City hanging in through difficult times, Commissioner Chong just doesn’t talk the talk; he walks the walk as well. He is there at every major crime scene, every event,
hands-on and thoughtful. And, he likes nothing better than walking the beat, meeting and speaking with older and young folks alike; showing respect and earning it.
Westchester Guardian/Tony Sayegh.
Thrusday, August 28, 2008
Tony Sayegh Seeks Seat on
Eastchester Town Council
Tony Sayegh Seeks Seat on
Eastchester Town Council
By Marike
Tony Sayegh is running in the Republican primary on Tuesday, Sept. 9, for the opportunity to run for a seat on the Eastchester Town Council in he general election. Sayegh believes the Board needs an independent voice, along with the perspective of someone who owns and manages a small business, on issues confronting the community. “I will vote for what I believe is best for the community, even if it means going against my colleagues,” he says.
“I think it is time to give voters the choice, and not restrict choice, to a group of four people. I’m running against someone who is the third handpicked member of the board. He is a nice and decent person,” Sayegh explained, “but he has not shown any independence on the Board. This is the third person who has been appointed to the board in five years. Over 8000 Republican voters should at least have a choice of who represents our party on the ticket.” Frederick Salanitro, Esq., filled the seat vacated when Rocco Cacciola become the Tax Receiver for Eastchester.
“We need a board that is talking about creating efficiencies in government; that will create savings for taxpayers along with cuts in some discretionary spending, rather than finding ways to spend more money,” he stated. “If elected, I would be the only small business owner on the
Board. And, I think the Board needs the input of someone who owns and manages a small business. In government, if you start treating taxpayers money like your money, you have completely lost sight of the role of government.”
Sayegh first became a candidate for public office in 2002, when he ran for the 88th Assembly District, receiving the largest percentage total of any Republican in the district in over a decade. Democrat Amy Paulin currently represents the 88th Assembly District. Sayegh subsequently ran for Trustee in the Village of Tuckahoe and was eventually named Deputy Mayor. He won a second term, garnering over 65% of the vote.
“The most important thing that happened in Tuckahoe, while I served on the Board, that I would like to bring to Eastchester, was public dialogue, to add transparency, that I believe is critical to good government,” he said. One innovation that Sayegh is especially proud of was taking the Village Board meeting out of Village Hall, to venues that drew greater attendance, such as churches and community centers. On a few occasions, attendance reached 100 persons or more, a dramatic increase over the more usual 6-10 regulars at Village Hall.
Sayegh believes the success of his two terms in Tuckahoe was the result of running as an advocate of “good government” and implementing “best practices,” rather than following a partisan agenda. His slate re-instituted Fireworks at the Parkway Oval, and controlled operating costs by working with department heads to economize; enhancing revenue while holding the line on taxes. Sayegh served on a board that secured over $1 million in grants to improve streetscapes in Crestwood and village parks. They also obtained traffic safety devices, successfully lobbying the State DOT for a traffic light on Route 22 and Winter Hill Road.
Tony Sayegh, who will be 32 in October, grew up in Eastchester, and graduated from The George Washington University, with a BA in Political Science and a Masters of Public Administration, with a concentration in state and local government. Sayegh completed his graduate work as a Presidential Administrative Fellow, the highest fellowship honor GWU confers. He has worked for Jack Kemp, Susan Molinari and Nick Spano.
From Jack Kemp, Sayegh learned, “That politics is really about ideas and when you run for office, it should be with a set of core principals guiding you. Jack Kemp has real clarity and purpose. Kemp feels that America should be the country of hope and growth and opportunity, and that coincides with the principals I learned, growing up as a first generation American.
That is what America is all about.” “I interned for Nick Spano when Eastchester was a part of his district. I learned, from Nick, the importance of constituent service as an integral part of being an effective public servant. People are truly putting their trust and hope in you as an elected of-ficial. You need to be accessible to people and responsive to their needs,” Sayegh said.
“Working with Susan Molinari was a great combination of the experiences with Nick and Jack Kemp. Susan was someone who understood the power of communication,” he added. “It was wonderful to see how Susan connected the dots for people, how she translated them into something people could understand. She had a real sensitivity to people. Susan never forgot that people back home were being affected by her decisions.”
Sayegh believes, “Government, on a local level, needs to provide the services most necessary to preserve the safety and quality of life of all residents while supporting other goals including improving infrastructure, and enhancing programs, for our children and our senior citizens. But, as a council member, my primary job will be to respect my fiduciary responsibility while coming up with budgets that support your goals.”
He further stated that, “Another responsibility of government is to hold other elected bodies responsible. Westchester County government needs to down sized, not necessarily eliminated; but put on a very strict diet. I can’t comment on specific numbers, but most of the budget is not discretionary.
It comes down from the state to be distributed to the municipalities. So why do we need so much government, to act as a conduit to the municipalities?” “You need a County Executive, you need a County Clerk and you need a District Attorney, but what is the role of the County Legislator? They are injecting themselves into the role of a ‘big brother’ and telling people how to conduct their lives. I prefer that they keep their eye on the bloated budget.”
Sayegh concluded, “Here’s the bottom line: We have to start remembering that tax revenue comes from real people, not a blind trust. Someone’s life is being affected every time we raise taxes. Couple that with what we know about the direction of the economy and our obligation to taxpayers
is to spend the next year protecting them. I don’t see anyone doing that, and I will. We need more than a watchdog. We need someone who will actively take the lead in bringing needed change to government.”
If elected, Sayegh would campaign to market Eastchester as a vibrant, charming community and lobby the state for money to enhance the business
district. Tony and his wife Maria were both raised in Eastchester, and their four children are enrolled in Tuckahoe public schools. The Sayeghs attend St. Joseph’s Church in Bronxville.
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