Thursday, May 14, 2009
In Our Opinion...
Politicians Who Kiss Up To DiFiore Could Care Less About The Harm She Brings To Their Constituents
Two weeks ago, when Janet DiFiore, Darling of Westchester’s Political Fat Cats, made her official announcement outside of the County Courthouse that she was running for a second term as District Attorney, we made several observations with respect to the crowd she brought with her. For one thing, more than half of the roughly 200 individuals present were her recognizable assistant district attorneys, investigators, and support staff. No big surprise; Pirro used to stack her announcements that way too, with staff virtually compelled to show up.
What was very telling, however, was the noticeable lack of police personnel from the 43 Departments across the County. Of course, given her callous handling of decent, hard-working police officers, coupled with her mind-boggling protection of rogue, abusive cops, the unwillingness of the overwhelming majority of Westchester’s Finest to support DiFiore was certainly understandable.
After all, they are the ones who have been dealing with her for some three and a half years now, and they are the ones whose fellow officers have suffered under her heavy-handed vindictiveness, as was the case with Detective Sergeant Steven Bonura of the Pleasantville Police Department.
Bonura, a 27-year veteran of the Department, father of five children, had commented to a reporter from The Journal News how inappropriate he thought it was for DiFiore’s Office to be constantly plea-bargaining with a career criminal with 30 arrests, putting that offender quickly back on the street to commit more thefts, more burglaries, and offenses involving guns, supposedly in exchange for information on other criminals. DiFiore, unable to face constructive criticism, insisted on Detective Bonura’s “head on a silver platter”, which she received from the Village Board at the urging of Police Chief Anthony Chiarlitti.
Then there was Officer George Bubaris, of the Mount Kisco Police Department who DiFiore brought to trial without a stitch of evidence
connecting him to the death of homeless immigrant Rene Perez. We had said at the start of the trial, “DA Comes To Court With Tank On Empty.” Bubaris was acquitted, but not before losing his job and spending a fortune in legal fees. Police departments across Westchester have little use for Janet DiFiore; but, apparently, nobody tipped off Pat Lynch, President of the New York City Police Benevolent Association.
Lynch is a union guy. He’s no police officer. He’s just another politician, one who apparently could care less about DiFiore’s mistreatment of good cops, or prosecution of the innocent victims of police brutality, at the hands of bad ones. Like politician Chuck Lesnick, the Yonkers City Council President who never once publicly spoke out against the brutal beating of Rui Florim, or the body-slamming of Irma Marquez,
or the beatings of dozens of other individuals, all his constituents, including women and children, Lynch showed up to kiss up to Janet DiFiore, who, in fact, prosecuted those innocent victims.
Our Readers Respond....
One More Time, Fourth Amendment Alive And Well
Dear Editor:
Last Friday at 6 p.m. I was perched on a public road in sunny Chappaqua, New York awaiting a passing train or three on the Harlem Line. A patrolling New Castle PD cruiser happened upon me, standing trackside armed with my Nikon D100 digital camera. Before he exited his vehicle, he radioed for back-up. Within one minute, another two police cars come racing down this dead-end street at over 50 MPH.
Now that the whole posse was here the grilling began.
Q. “Why are you here? What are you doing?”
A. “Taking pictures of trains.”
Q. “Why are you taking pictures of trains? What are you going to do with pictures?”
A. “It’s my hobby.”
Q. “Let me see some I.D.”
After he ran my license, checked the tags on my car, and all comes back A-OK, he then explained to me that “All of this is necessary in the
name of post-9/11, transit systems being targeted, subway bombings in Spain and England, etc.”
I explained that I’m taking pictures from a public road, of public transportation, all within my rights. He said, “True, but we still have to make sure, you know?” Actually, I did not know why I needed to be checked out, but ok.
He then asked for permission to search my vehicle. At this point, I knew if I refused, things could get ugly. They could write me a ticket for
parking two feet from the curb, worn left tire, parking the wrong way on the left side of the road, etc. So, knowing that I had nothing to hide in my car I said “Sure, go ahead, search the vehicle.”
They asked me to step away from the car as they conducted their search. They went through my work bag, my laptop computer case, the
trunk, the glove box and everywhere in between.
And then one officer saw my Metro-North Railroad parking permit. He said “Hey, do you have Metro-North ID?” I said “Sure, here it is.” “Oh, you work for Metro-North?” they asked. I said “Yes.” At this point, they ended their search and the ordeal was over. The two
officers who arrived last left the scene. The remaining officer finished his notes, and upon leaving stated again that all of this is “Due to 9/11.”
He thanked me for co-operating and drove off into the sunset.
As you probably know, the MTA photo policy states that any John Q. Public can take a picture of any train, bus or subway car so long as you are not in a RESTRICTED area. So, why do these cops violate me when I am John Q. Public standing on a public road?
Answer - because they can.
Welcome to modern day Communism folks, right here in the U.S. of A. Please note, that I did not want to be “Let o- because I’m an MTA
employee.” But rather, I wanted to simply act within the letter of the law and exercise my rights as a free citizen living in the greatest state in the greatest country on earth. I should not have been violated by these guys like this. Obviously, that was too much to ask for...in New Castle anyway.
But maybe, that is what they do to “justify their jobs” - ya know? As in “extra protection” for the “Billary & Co.” mansion located a few
miles away. i.e. Stop any out-of-towner and give ‘em a good lashing! I am truly saddened by this unfortunate event.
W. Koch
Editor’s Note: Reader Koch would do well to read the “In Our Opinion” column in the May 7, 2009 edition of The Guardian in which we discuss the very recent decision of the United States Supreme Court, authored by Justice Stevens, with respect to police searches of vehicles incident to an occupant’s arrest. In overturning those automatic warrantless searches which dated back to 1981 Stevens declared, “A rule that gives police the power to conduct a search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic offense creates a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals.”
Machiavellian Maneuvers Of Lawyers, Judges And Defendant For Over 20 years
Dear Editor:
The 20 year span of over 20 Judges in one divorce action one would question Why?
Supreme Court of the State of New
York, Index No.90/1972, County of Putnam,
Honorable Andrew P. O’Rourke
Maria Gkanios, Plaintiff
-Against-
Frank A/K/A Fotios Gkanios, Defendant
Selective Prosecution
Why does a divorce take 20 years; Gkanios vs. Gkanios, the longest divorce case in Putnam County? Why was this defendant allowed to operate under a second Social Security number?
Why were charges not filed against this defendant for filing false net worth statements in this divorce action without the new Social Security Number?
Why would Judge Andrew O’ Rourke at one point knowing that the defendant Mr. Gkanios, is a convicted Pedophile having to decide Fault in the divorce. This is an insult. Fault should not have even been a question in this divorce. One would also question the qualifications of Judge Andrew O’ Rourke if he cannot recognize how the law requires him to deal with a convicted Pedophile in a matrimonial action.
How is he sitting on a matrimonial case, failing to follow the rule requirements in matrimonial including discovery, due process, notice, hearing etc…?
Why would Judge Andrew O’Rourke taint himself with the appearance of impropriety by further condoning and rewarding the actions of the defendant by having to think of having to decide fault. It was only after Plaintiff reminded this judge of the heinous acts by the defendant that fault was removed.
Bifurcation of a divorce is illegal in New York. Again Judge Andrew O’Rourke violated the law by bifurcating this divorce from the bench, NO written order, no discovery etc. There should be no question as to fault; the egregious conduct of the defendant being a convicted pedophile under egregious conduct clearly proven in the State of New York!
This divorce belongs under EGREGIOUS CONDUCT not Equitable Distribution. The plaintiff ’s marriage to this defendant from the inception was a lie. Egregious conduct is hard to prove but not in this case. Defendant was found guilty by a jury on December 11, 1991
in Putnam County and, on the same charges, in Westchester County plead guilty to the full indictment on April 14, 1992. In the State of New York under Egregious conduct plaintiff is entitled to all the marital assets, that is the very reason that the courts, the defendant, his attorneys sent plaintiff on a wild goose chase for years because of his crimes!
The question here why the sentence was concurrent and such a minimum sentence? He served a total of four years on such a heinous crime! If it was anyone else they would have served at least 25 years.
Why did Judge Andrew O’ Rourke turn a willful contempt hearing for failure to pay child support into a matrimonial trial, knowing that, to date, there has been no discovery; no note of issue can be filed.
Defendant was hiding in the State of Florida at 2585 South East 9th Street. Pompano Beach under the second Social Security number. Why was this defendant not picked up after reporting it to the DA’s office and the Carmel PD for help? On April 11, 2008 defendant was picked in the State of Florida on the Adam Walsh Law for failure to register as a sex offender. He left the State of New York illegally.
Defendant has lived an elegant life style in New York and in the State of Florida in a multi million dollar home in Pompano Beach. Claiming he works and makes 250.00 a week but testified that he pays 1,200.00 a month rent, what about the food, electric, insurance etc. Red Flag?
Why didn’t Judge Andrew O’ Rourke order the production of the defendants Past and Present Tax returns? Why didn’t Judge Andrew O’
Rourke demand a full accounting from this defendant?
How is it that this defendant continues to falsely claim financial hardship. If that were true than the proper action for the defendant would be to motion the court for Poor Persons relief under CPLR ARTICLE 11 Sec 1101, 1102, 1103, not show up in court with paid attorneys, appraisers, at the same time falsely and frivolously claiming to have no money to pay child support. Adding insult to injury giving the plaintiff two money orders of $25 each just two days before the court hearing for contempt and an additional two more money orders for
$25 each after the court hearing. This is an insult to plaintiff, the court and the laws governing Child Support including every father who has gone to jail for not paying child support arrears. Fathers who pay support and Fathers who have been jailed for non support Mike Kelly,
Doug Higbee, Domenick Lieto, Bret Evans, Allen Ortz, Thomas Butti, Edward Mancini, Tony Nocera and John McKeon the list goes on.
Why?
Why would Judge Andrew O’Rourke violate the law further to wipe out child support arrears totaling over $300,000. Notice of Entry of all orders, properly filed and served along with all the affidavits of service the time for the defendant to appeal has long been gone. Defendant was represented by counsel at all times! Has Judge Andrew O’Rourke now become an appellate judge and appointed himself?
“DRL Section 244, article; that the court NO LONGER has broad discretion in determining whether to grant applications for judgment. Where the arrears are the arrears in child support, the court must enter a money judgment for the amount of arrears, now arrears in child support must be awarded in full.” Judge Andrew O’ Rourke was not appointed by the AIS Part to hear this case why did he continue and appoint himself to this case?
Before Judge Andrew O’ Rourke, Attorney Victor Grossman opened the door on the production of tape recordings that the plaintiff was in possession of. Plaintiff produced the tape recording after court and counsel received the damaging evidence before the court against the defendant, the court has again through deceptive practice conspicuously and deliberately leaving this out of record. This clearly constitutes
continued fraud, and bias. WHY?
Tape one show’s how the plaintiff was fighting with the defendant because the defendant wanted to burn the tore down, a restaurant in Eastchester, and collect the insurance money and plan that it was the plaintiff. The second tape was the day before the second restaurant in Mt Vernon was taken. Defendant’s thugs came in and threatened that plaintiff better give the store to the defendant or they were going to send the boys up.
There were numerous and prejudicial statements directed at the plaintiff by Justice Andrew O’ Rourke. The remarks made were not proper and undermining of the public’s trust. I would think that the actions of the court are deliberate violations of the Cannons of Professional Responsibility and his oath of office.
That plaintiff pay for the transcripts and then the defendant will give plaintiff half. Judge O’ Rourke comments: “Call your rich relatives in California, let them give you the money” Plaintiff was granted Poor person in a divorce action years ago. Plaintiff cannot afford the transcript.
Plaintiff does not work. In the interests of justice plaintiff ’s poor person request is accepted and the transcripts produced without further violating plaintiff ’s due process rights and civil rights. There is not just one violation, there are numerous. This case has gone on for quite a number of years.
Compliance with the rules is essential to the integrity of the Judicial Process. In this case there has been no compliance ever!
The Child Support Judgements
1. Dated March 11, 1994 is from week December 18,1990 to February 13,1993 plus interest totaling $71,484, 00 defendant was served at the Correctional Facility along with his counsel.
2. Dated June 24,1994 is from week February 14,1993 to May 8, 1994 plus interest Totaling $36,090.14
3. Dated November 16,1995 is from week May 9, 1994 to June 4, 1995 plus interest Totaling $31,838,68
4. Dated June 16, 1996 is from week June 5, 1995 to November 12,1995 plus interest totaling $12,138.01
5. Dated October 13,1996 is from week November 13,1995 to September 1,1996 plus interest totaling $ 22,822.68
6. Dated October 15, 1999 is from week September 2,1996 to May 31,1999 plus Interest totaling $ 86,654.12
7. Dated March 12,1996 is from December 11,1990 to March 12,1996 plus interest totaling $ 24,671.60. This judgment is for the care of the defendants step-son Peter Cirino Defendant signed a Confession of Judgment.
Machiavellian maneuvers by the Courts, the defendant and Defendant’s counsel should no longer be tolerated by this or any other Court!
As Professor Siegel sets forth: “The present system is too tolerant of the deliberately evasive and dilatory litigant, increasing the expense of
litigation in money, time, trouble, and feeling, and tending as a consequence to undermine public confidence in the courts.” New York Practice, 2d. Ed., David D. Siegel, 367, p. 541 (.1991).
Lets Play Catch
Child Support takes precedence over any claims. Defendant’s former counsel Terrence Dwyer illegally obtained a confession of judgment from the defendant, just two days prior to his incarceration, against marital property in an attempt to defeat any and all my economic claims, and the minor children born of this marriage: in particular, those claims of child support CPLR 5234 (b). “Such executions for child support
shall have priority over any other assignment, levy or process”.
Dwyer violated the Court Orders by obtaining the confession of judgment after JUSTICE SWEENEY’s decision. Dwyer was not awarded attorney’s fees by this court or any other court for his representation of my husband in this matrimonial action or any other action.
The order entered in the Matrimonial matter of Judge Fred Dickenson dated 7/1/91 states: (Paragraph 3, The defendant’s, his agents, employees and representatives are restrained and enjoined, except in the regular course of business and subject to further order of the court, from concealing, dissipating, utilizing, assigning, transferring, or in any way disposing or encumbering the marital assets, unless the plaintiff, in writing consents to such action.) and Further: A second order of Justice Sweeney’s dated October 21, 1991, states:
“This court is most reluctant to award attorney’s fees where child support is outstanding. Therefore, the ‘court Sua Sponte vacates its award of attorney’s fees without prejudice to renew ‘if it is found, specifically in the Supreme Court Action, that Respondent, herein, was not in arrears.”
Upon reading the newspaper to my surprise I found that Dwyer was going to auction off my property through his confession of judgment. Dwyer is not a marital debtor; he cannot enforce judgment against a marital property without the written consent of the creditor. The marital estate is not liable for the debts incurred by husband after the separation.
Contrary to State and Federal statutes regarding child Support as well as prevailing case law authority; and his bad faith attempt to take possession and control of the marital property located in Putnam County through a Sheriff ’s Sale which was scheduled February 4,
1993 without disclosing it to me that there existed a Confession of Judgment secured by him against my husband and without notice to me “CPLR 5236(c) Requires Notice” that he intended to execute upon said judgment; violating NYCRR. 1200. 11[DR 2-106] The rules precluded Defendants Attorney Dwyer from a contingency fee agreement in a criminal matter. Dwyer proceeded knowingly to obtain marital
property although the rights to his property had not yet been determined; CPLR 5239.
Attorney Dwyer failed to provide plaintiff with any and all documents, correspondence, or agreements regarding the procurance of said judgment which he has levied against the property, my property. NYCRR 1200.11 [DR 2-106] prohibits Dwyer from obtaining an agreement upon security interest, Confession of Judgment or other lien without prior notice to the client in a signed retainer agreement which Dwyer has failed to produce to date. There is no privilege where notice has to be of an application for a security interest to the other spouse; A lawyer shall not enter into an agreement for, charge or collect:
(1) A contigent fee for representing my husband in a criminal case; or
(2) Any fee in a Domestic relations matter to which Part 1400 of the joint rules of the Appellate Division is applicable,
(a) The payment or amount of which is Contingent upon the securing of a divorce or upon the amount of maintenance, support, equitable distribution, or property settlement; or
(b) Unless a written retainer agreement is signed t the lawyer and the client setting forth in plain language the nature of the relationship and the details of the fee arrangement.
(c) Based upon a security, interest, Confession of Judgment or other lien without prior notice to the, client in a signed retainer agreement and approval from the Court after NOTICE to the Adversary.
Dwyer proceeded knowingly and unlawfully to obtain a security interest in the marital estate via Confession of Judgment without presenting to the lower court any documents which demonstrates that a fee agreement existed; and that I had been given notice, the adversary in this action; or that the court had granted approval for the “security interest,” after submission of an application for counsel fee [NYCRR
1400.5 a) (1).(2) and (3)].
(A) An attorney may obtain a confession of judgment or promissory note, take a lien on real property, or otherwise obtain a security interest to secure his or her fee only where:
(1) the retainer agreement provides that a security interest may be sought;
(2) Notice of an application for a security interest has been given to the other spouse;
(3) The court grants approval for the security interest after submission of an application for counsel fee
(B) Unless a written retainer agreement is signed by the lawyer and the client etting forth in plain language the ature of the relationship and the details o the fee arrangement.
(C) Based upon a security, interest, confession of Judgment or other lien ithout prior notice to the, client in a signed retainer agreement and approval from the Court after NOTICE to the Adversary
In addition to Defendant and, by his previous counsel, falsifying statements of net worth; dated 8/5/91 defendant and by his counsel failed to include the property in question that was owned by my husband and myself. DRL 236 Pt B, Subd. 1 c provides marital property is all property acquired by either or both parties during, the marriage and before the execution of a separation agreement or the commencement
of a matrimonial action. Defendants counsel executed upon the confession of judgment in Westchester County with full knowledge that said property was the subject to the equitable distribution laws of this state. Further defendants counsel was not a creditor of the marital estate
and his contempt of court orders dated July 3, 1991 and the Honorable Justice Sweeney Dated 10/21/91
Defendant’s former attorney Dwyer attempted to foreclose on me and from attaching any interest in this property his attempts violated my rights to deprive me of my property and to defeat Equitable Distribution. The support issues must be addressed and come before Dwyer’s action but what counsel tried to do was screw you. Courts, I am getting my money.
Foreclosure
Judge O’ Rourke continued to allow an appraisal for my children’s house and property when it was foreclosed on years ago when I continued to object to each and every time on any and all statements made. The defendant, as well as I are FOREVER BARRED.
Judge O’ Rourke is trying to collect half of what the house was worth at foreclosure knowing that the defendant and I were forever barred in an attempt to deduct that from the child support the defendant owes the plaintiff. One would question why there was a span of 20 years and over 30 Judges, in one divorce action.
Maria Gkanios, Mahopac
Citizens Need A Direct Vote On Critical Issues
Dear Editor:
The state produces nothing. It gets all of its money from the disorganized majority and gives it to the organized unions, non-profits, and large corporations. Other state-dependent, un-elected organizations are the public authorities, such as the MTA, the Empire State Development Corporation, and the Dormitory Authority, which sell billions of dollars of bonds without taxpayer approval even though the taxpayers have the responsibility to pay them back, with interest.
Every year when the state budget rip-off is being decided, the MTA’s highly-paid executives and their huge staffs distract the citizens by declaring transit, bus and train fares, and tolls, will face a dramatic increase, but when the budget process is completed, the MTA miraculously finds another billion dollars in its own budget. The distraction is successful, and the fare increases are minimal or postponed.
One difficult solution to the corruption and financial mess in Albany would be to allow citizens to collect the required number of signatures,
and then put critical issues on the ballot for voters to accept or reject (the initiative process), or to give voters the right to reject all
or parts of legislation passed by the politicians, by direct ballot after signatures have been collected (the referendum process).
Acceptable initiative and referendum legislation, introduced by Senator Ranzenhofer (S3525), is extremely difficult to pass because virtually every politician, union, non-profit, and corporation opposes it. Only taxpayer groups support the legislation. Politicians consider themselves upperclass royalty and despise the hardworking citizens since legislators get their power from special interest groups, not the voters. They are arrogant and corrupt as witnessed by indictments for DWI, sex with interns, assault, bribery and kickbacks, and misuse of funds.
Meanwhile, the teachers and health care unions and non-profits suck billions of dollars from these compliant politicians who jam
needles into the veins of taxpayers day after day to satisfy the needs of their blood-thirsty patrons.
Opponents of initiative and referendum legislation, and a state Constitutional amendment, claim it isn’t necessary in a democracy because citizens are represented by elected legislators. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a democratic government in Albany in many decades. The
State Legislature goes to the highest bidder, and the public be damned. Types of legislation that could be passed by the initiative process
include: term limits; court reform; public authority bond debt must be approved by the voters; corporations receiving tax subsidies must
guarantee worker employment and no plant closings/relocations; property tax reform; “sunlight” on all state union contracts, contractor
biddings/awards, and non-profit contracts; all contracts and audited financial reports of non-profits must be online within three months
after agreements are signed; right to cut health benefits for families of state workers; and right to cut the salaries, perks, travel, pensions,
staff, and health care for legislators.
Tell your state senator and assembly member to support the initiative and referendum bill S3525, and not any other useless, smokescreen
bills.
Charles Roda, Mount Vernon
Reader Endorses Candidate For New Rochelle School Board
Dear Editor:
I was glad to learn that Vincent Malfetano has become a candidate for the New Rochelle School Board. With the present School Board proposing a budget that approaches a quarter of a billion dollars, it is urgent that we elect some new people to the Board who have a more reasonable stance on school budgets.
As a parent, homeowner, lawyer and instructor, Mr. Malfetano is well-qualified to serve on the Board. He understands the need to
properly educate all of our children. But he also understands this must be done in a cost-conscious manner that will stop the constant
increases in taxes of double and triple the rate of inflation that is causing many home owners to flee the city.
In addition, Mr. Malfetano would bring a much needed balance to the Board. He is a resident of the South end of the city and would
give the parents of children attending Trinity, Jefferson, Columbus and Isaac E. Young schools a stronger voice on the Board that has too
often been dominated by North end residents.
Ines Candrea, New Rochelle
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Westchester Guardian/The Court Report.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Hillary Fundraiser Pleads Guilty
In Investment Fraud Scheme
Faces Trial On Campaign Finance Fraud Charges
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that NORMAN HSU pleaded guilty to ten counts of mail and wire fraud stemming from his role in an investment fraud scheme that defrauded investors across the United States.
HSU, a resident of New York, New York, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to Counts One through Ten of the superseding Indictment in which he is charged before United States District Judge VICTOR MARRERO.
Four counts of the superseding Indictment, charging campaign finance fraud, remain pending against HSU. According to the superseding Indictment led in Manhattan federal court and statements made during HSU’s guilty plea proceedings:
HSU was the Managing Director of two companies, Components Ltd. and Next Components Ltd. HSU solicited investments in the companies by promising guaranteed short-term high returns.
The companies would supposedly generate funds to pay those attractive returns by providing short-term financing to other businesses. After receiving money from victim investors, HSU, for a time, paid interest and returned principal as promised. Believing HSU to be trustworthy and the companies to be legitimate and potentially pro table, victims often agreed to roll over their invested funds into new investments with HSU; invest more money with HSU; and recruit friends to invest with HSU. In reality, money returned to earlier investors was paid with money received from subsequent investors.
From 2000 through August 2007, HSU convinced victims to invest at least $60 million in his fraudulent scheme. In the end, after making
some payments intended to perpetuate the scheme, HSU swindled his victims out of at least $20 million.
HSU pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud and five counts of wire fraud in connection with the investment fraud scheme. Trial on the remaining campaign finance fraud counts is set to begin on May 11, 2009. As to those charges, HSU is presumed innocent unless and until he is found guilty.
Mr. DASSIN praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the investigation of this case. If you believe you are a victim of the Components Ltd. and Next Components Ltd. investment fraud, including a victim entitled to restitution, and you wish to provide information to law enforcement and/or receive notice of future developments in the case or additional information, please contact Wendy
Olsen-Clancy, the Victim Witness Coordinator at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, at (866)-874-
8900, or Wendy.Olsen@usdoj.gov.
For additional information, go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/victimwitness.html on the Internet. This prosecution is being handled by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys KATHERINE A. LEMIRE, ALEXANDER J. WILLSCHER, and RUA M. KELLY are in charge of the prosecution.
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Hillary Fundraiser Pleads Guilty
In Investment Fraud Scheme
Faces Trial On Campaign Finance Fraud Charges
LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that NORMAN HSU pleaded guilty to ten counts of mail and wire fraud stemming from his role in an investment fraud scheme that defrauded investors across the United States.
HSU, a resident of New York, New York, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to Counts One through Ten of the superseding Indictment in which he is charged before United States District Judge VICTOR MARRERO.
Four counts of the superseding Indictment, charging campaign finance fraud, remain pending against HSU. According to the superseding Indictment led in Manhattan federal court and statements made during HSU’s guilty plea proceedings:
HSU was the Managing Director of two companies, Components Ltd. and Next Components Ltd. HSU solicited investments in the companies by promising guaranteed short-term high returns.
The companies would supposedly generate funds to pay those attractive returns by providing short-term financing to other businesses. After receiving money from victim investors, HSU, for a time, paid interest and returned principal as promised. Believing HSU to be trustworthy and the companies to be legitimate and potentially pro table, victims often agreed to roll over their invested funds into new investments with HSU; invest more money with HSU; and recruit friends to invest with HSU. In reality, money returned to earlier investors was paid with money received from subsequent investors.
From 2000 through August 2007, HSU convinced victims to invest at least $60 million in his fraudulent scheme. In the end, after making
some payments intended to perpetuate the scheme, HSU swindled his victims out of at least $20 million.
HSU pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud and five counts of wire fraud in connection with the investment fraud scheme. Trial on the remaining campaign finance fraud counts is set to begin on May 11, 2009. As to those charges, HSU is presumed innocent unless and until he is found guilty.
Mr. DASSIN praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the investigation of this case. If you believe you are a victim of the Components Ltd. and Next Components Ltd. investment fraud, including a victim entitled to restitution, and you wish to provide information to law enforcement and/or receive notice of future developments in the case or additional information, please contact Wendy
Olsen-Clancy, the Victim Witness Coordinator at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, at (866)-874-
8900, or Wendy.Olsen@usdoj.gov.
For additional information, go to: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/victimwitness.html on the Internet. This prosecution is being handled by the Office’s Public Corruption Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys KATHERINE A. LEMIRE, ALEXANDER J. WILLSCHER, and RUA M. KELLY are in charge of the prosecution.
Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Managing Your Money If
You’ve Lost Your Job
In 2009, the unemployment rate in Westchester County almost doubled from an average of 3% to 4% in prior years to a high of 7.5% in February. Almost 36,000 of our neighbors are now out of work, twice the amount from the same period only two years ago. But that
statistic, from the New York State Department of Labor, only notes the actual number of individuals currently on unemployment. It does not show the number of family members affected by the loss of income, the number of workers who have “maxed out” of unemployment benefits, and the impact on local businesses who now have fewer customers. It is safe to assume, therefore, that more than 100,000 Westchester residents have been significantly affected in some manner by job losses in this recession.
Many local, state, and federal government agencies, as well as several private sector organizations, have stepped up to assist those facing job losses and cutbacks. One of these organizations, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a non-government regulator, has distributed a publication through the New York Better Business Bureau with essential guidelines for anyone who has been laid off or is concerned about the security of their job.
FINRA offers a few initial steps to take when facing a job loss:
• Act quickly to reduce spending and resist the temptation to buy on credit.
• Assess your short-term situation and figure out how much cash you have readily available.
• Ask about employment services your employer may offer.
• Inquire about unemployment insurance.
• Avoid taking out loans or withdrawals against retirement savings.
• Get financial advice, especially when considering withdrawing any company stock bonus or profit-sharing plans, to determine how to use any lump sums and severance pay, and to calculate any tax consequences of withdrawals.
• Ask about how your employee benefits will be affected.
• Sign up for COBRA, if needed.
COBRA is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, which established health care continuation when an employee loses employer-provided health coverage due to termination of employment.
The employer’s group health plan must offer continued health care coverage to the individual who may be required to pay the full cost for the coverage. The maximum COBRA period is 18 or 36 months.
• For those close to retirement age, inquire about qualifying for the company’s pension plan.
• Beware of fraud and con artists attracted to your company’s closing/layoffs.
Trimming spending means prioritizing your bills by separating them into essential expenses and non-essential.
The essential, necessary expenses include:
1. Shelter: Your primary home/rent bills or mortgage payments.
2. Utilities: Heat, electric, water and one phone line.
3. Food: basics only. Junk food is non-essential.
4. Work-related: Car/transportation costs, child/dependent care.
5. Child support, taxes, insurance, and other “must pays”.
Deferring loan payments is tempting but different types of loans have different consequences for late payments. Missing a COBRA health Insurance payment will result in the termination of this coverage; once terminated, it may not be reinstated. One missed mortgage payment usually will not cause you to lose your home but two payments could trigger foreclosure proceedings. Car loan issuers are even less forgiving – they can repossess your vehicle with the first late payment, although most lenders will wait 60 days to act.
Student loans and credit cards allow for more flexibility with payments; most will wait several months before taking action but may impose
higher interest rates on the outstanding balances. Student loans can be deferred for six months or a year as needed.
Consequences of late tax payments vary by collector but most individuals can negotiate a payment schedule with the Internal Revenue Service, New York State and most municipalities to avoid wage garnishments or property seizures.
The consequences of delaying child support can be wage garnishment or even jail time but, of course, the immediate consequence is to the
children for whom the support is needed. So, while delaying support may seem an economic necessity, it is rarely a feasible or justifiable alternative. Assessing your short-term situation is the next critical step. How long can you survive even just paying the essential bills? What other steps might you need to take to survive? If you do not have a lot of non-retirement savings, a prolonged unemployment period will ultimately mean changing your lifestyle.
Younger workers may have to consider moving back in with mom and dad, older workers may have to consider taking lower paying jobs. Unemployment also increases certain expenses that have to be factored into the household’s new budget: COBRA payments, after the federal
economic recovery subsidy is exhausted, will usually be for the actual cost of the health insurance, not the subsidized rates a worker may have had under the company’s benefit plan; and health insurance plans can charge 150% of the premium cost for extended COBRA coverage
past the initial 18 months allowed. Family health coverage alone can cost $20,000 a year. Vision, dental, and prescription coverage could be
extra. Payments for insurance previously provided by employers such as long-term disability, life, and long-term care; Retirement loans and 401K must be paid back in full within 90 days of leaving the company to avoid income taxes and a hefty 10 percent penalty tax on the loan amount, possibly affecting the borrower on two fronts, e.g., a parent who borrowed significant amounts against these accounts for college may not now be able to get a mortgage to cover this loan since they no longer have a job.
Unless you are 55 or older, 401K and retirement loans are no longer available once you are terminated from a job meaning any future costs these loans were expected to cover, such as tuition, will have to be funded elsewhere Getting income is the next important step. While a new job may take time to acquire, unemployment insurance can, and should, be applied for immediately. A claim for unemployment insurance ideally should be filed in the first week that you have been laid off or partially unemployed. The first week is an unpaid waiting week and unemployment benefits are not retroactive so any delay will cost you money.
Many individuals do not apply for unemployment because they believe they do not qualify or that filing will somehow be held against them.
These fears are unfounded. Unemployment benefits do not affect your credit rating nor is it only for lower income individuals.
Companies pay unemployment taxes for every employee so this is an insurance program designed to assist workers when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own. However, unemployment benefits will not replace your full salary. The maximum unemployment insurance benefit in New York State is only $405 a week.
The New York State Department of Labor recommends that you should gather certain critical pieces of information before you file your
claim to ensure receipt of your benefits promptly:
• Your social security number.
• Your New York State driver’s license or Motor vehicle ID card.
• Your full mailing address including zip code.
• A daytime contact telephone number.
• Your alien registration card number for non-citizens.
• The names and addresses for all your employers within the past 18 months.
• The employer registration number or Federal employer identification number of your most recent employer. This
will be on your W-2 year-end tax forms.
• Your copies of the SF8 and SF50 forms if you received Federal unemployment within the past 18 months.
• Your copy of the DD214 form if you are an ex-service member.
• A blank check from your checking account for the bank’s routing and checking account numbers if you choose to have your payments directly deposited to your account.
• Pen and paper to write down important information.
There are several ways for local residents to file a claim: Online at www.ui.labor.state.ny.us between the hours of 7:30 am to 7:30 pm
Monday through Thursday, Eastern Time; Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm, all day Saturday, and Sunday until 7:00pm. Calling the Telephone Claims Center at 1-888-209-8124 for New York State residents, or 1-877-358-5306 for out of state residents, between 8:00am and 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. You may file in English, Spanish, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Creole, or “all other languages”; translation services will be provided. If you have never filed a claim for benefits in New York State, you will be asked to create a Personal Identification Number (PIN).
Hearing-impaired individuals, who have a Telephone Device for the Deaf (TTY/TDD) equipment, may file a claim by calling a relay operator
at 1-800-662-1220 and requesting the operator to call 1-888-783-1370. Unemployment benefits have recently been increased to assist those
affected by the recession. Workers may now collect 33 weeks of benefits, up from 26 in prior years. The federal government is also offering an additional $25 weekly payment, known as Federal Additional Compensation (FAC), to unemployment recipients.
The economic stimulus package signed by President Obama earlier this year, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will also subsidize 65 percent of the cost of COBRA coverage for unemployed workers. The subsidy is available to assist individuals who were involuntarily terminated by their employers between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009.
ARRA will provide the subsidy for nine months or until the beneficiary is eligible for other health insurance coverage. This benefit, however,
is not available to terminated employees who earn more than $145,000 in the year the subsidy is to be paid. Making sure you are covered for
other potential life events is the next step. Health insurance coverage may be continued through COBRA. Unemployed workers have 60 days to sign up for this benefit. Individuals may have to pay the full cost of this insurance plus an additional two percent administrative fee.
According to the United States Department of Labor who oversees this benefit: “Employers or health plan administrators must provide an initial general notice if you are entitled to COBRA benefits. You probably received the initial notice about COBRA coverage when you were hired. When you are no longer eligible for Health coverage, your employer has to provide you with a specific notice regarding your rights to COBRA continuation benefits. Employers must notify their plan administrators within 30 days after an employee’s termination or after a reduction in hours that causes an employee to lose health benefits.
The plan administrator must provide notice to individual employees of their right to elect COBRA coverage within 14 days after the administrator has received notice from the employer. You must respond to this notice and elect COBRA coverage by the 60th day after the written notice is sent or the day health care coverage ceased, whichever is later. Otherwise, you will lose all rights to COBRA benefits.”
In addition to health coverage, workers should also assure that they are fully insured in other areas. Many workers neglect to replace the
life and disability insurance coverage they had under their previous employers, leaving them and their loved ones exposed. Costs for these
policies can be reduced by purchasing all of these policies through one company and increasing the deductibles on all policies, including automobile and homeowners insurance.
Unemployed workers should be aware of scams and pitfalls. According to FINRA “The announcement of your company’s merger, closing,
or mass layoff may have received national or local press coverage. If all of a sudden you find that you are receiving unsolicited offers for an incredible start-up opportunity, or the investment of a lifetime, beware”. FINRA also advises about the treatment of lump sum or severance
payments that may tempt you to buy something you desperately want. According to FINRA “Do yourself a favor and wait. If you face a long unemployment period, these may be the only funds you will have to make ends meet.” FINRA also advises not to tap into retirement funds to make ends meet unless you have no other options; and, to be aware of the tax consequences if you must withdraw from these accounts.
Even those local workers who still have their jobs would do well to heed FINRA’s warnings. Car manufacturers are preying on workers’ fears of losing their jobs by offering special breaks and refunds if a customer loses his job. According to Microsoft’s “Money Central” web site “Hyundai launched its “Assurance” program, which lets customers return any new vehicles if they lose their jobs and absolves them of any remaining car payments up to $7,500”.
Other companies are following suit. JetBlue is offering full-fare refunds to customers who get laid off before their trips; Jos. A. Bank
will give rebates to customers who get laid off after buying suits. Some rental companies are offering several months free rent; Au Pair in
America will refund program fees, and Norwegian Cruise Line will reimburse the full fare of a cruise to unemployed individuals.
While these programs are spiking sales for these companies, the programs come with catches: To qualify for the rental companies’ offers of
free rent, the individual had to have been a paying tenant for a specified amount of time. Therefore, in these uncertain economic times, workers should follow the same sensible purchasing habits as always and not be lulled by offers that seem “too good to be true”. As FINRA notes in its pamphlets for those already suffering from a job loss “if it sounds too good to be true, you know it probably is.”
As for getting that new job, the best approach is to treat your job search as a job in itself! Set a daily schedule, tell everyone you’re “in the
market”, and don’t assume that handing out lots of resumes will land you a job. It won’t. In this tough market, many employers who are hiring are doing so quietly since any job offerings are met with a landslide of applications.
Job seekers need to develop a network of individuals who can provide information about when a company is hiring; joining a professional
organization, volunteering, or taking a professional seminar, are good ways to meet workers in your field. Joining a local support group will keep your spirits up. But there is some good news on the horizon. After months of reporting job losses and closings in Westchester County, the New York State Department of Labor announced several store and restaurant openings in Mount Kisco and Yonkers for this summer. As CNN recently reported, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while 2.5 million people were laid off in January, 4.4 million new workers were hired.” One of those new hires next month could be you.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Managing Your Money If
You’ve Lost Your Job
In 2009, the unemployment rate in Westchester County almost doubled from an average of 3% to 4% in prior years to a high of 7.5% in February. Almost 36,000 of our neighbors are now out of work, twice the amount from the same period only two years ago. But that
statistic, from the New York State Department of Labor, only notes the actual number of individuals currently on unemployment. It does not show the number of family members affected by the loss of income, the number of workers who have “maxed out” of unemployment benefits, and the impact on local businesses who now have fewer customers. It is safe to assume, therefore, that more than 100,000 Westchester residents have been significantly affected in some manner by job losses in this recession.
Many local, state, and federal government agencies, as well as several private sector organizations, have stepped up to assist those facing job losses and cutbacks. One of these organizations, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a non-government regulator, has distributed a publication through the New York Better Business Bureau with essential guidelines for anyone who has been laid off or is concerned about the security of their job.
FINRA offers a few initial steps to take when facing a job loss:
• Act quickly to reduce spending and resist the temptation to buy on credit.
• Assess your short-term situation and figure out how much cash you have readily available.
• Ask about employment services your employer may offer.
• Inquire about unemployment insurance.
• Avoid taking out loans or withdrawals against retirement savings.
• Get financial advice, especially when considering withdrawing any company stock bonus or profit-sharing plans, to determine how to use any lump sums and severance pay, and to calculate any tax consequences of withdrawals.
• Ask about how your employee benefits will be affected.
• Sign up for COBRA, if needed.
COBRA is the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985, which established health care continuation when an employee loses employer-provided health coverage due to termination of employment.
The employer’s group health plan must offer continued health care coverage to the individual who may be required to pay the full cost for the coverage. The maximum COBRA period is 18 or 36 months.
• For those close to retirement age, inquire about qualifying for the company’s pension plan.
• Beware of fraud and con artists attracted to your company’s closing/layoffs.
Trimming spending means prioritizing your bills by separating them into essential expenses and non-essential.
The essential, necessary expenses include:
1. Shelter: Your primary home/rent bills or mortgage payments.
2. Utilities: Heat, electric, water and one phone line.
3. Food: basics only. Junk food is non-essential.
4. Work-related: Car/transportation costs, child/dependent care.
5. Child support, taxes, insurance, and other “must pays”.
Deferring loan payments is tempting but different types of loans have different consequences for late payments. Missing a COBRA health Insurance payment will result in the termination of this coverage; once terminated, it may not be reinstated. One missed mortgage payment usually will not cause you to lose your home but two payments could trigger foreclosure proceedings. Car loan issuers are even less forgiving – they can repossess your vehicle with the first late payment, although most lenders will wait 60 days to act.
Student loans and credit cards allow for more flexibility with payments; most will wait several months before taking action but may impose
higher interest rates on the outstanding balances. Student loans can be deferred for six months or a year as needed.
Consequences of late tax payments vary by collector but most individuals can negotiate a payment schedule with the Internal Revenue Service, New York State and most municipalities to avoid wage garnishments or property seizures.
The consequences of delaying child support can be wage garnishment or even jail time but, of course, the immediate consequence is to the
children for whom the support is needed. So, while delaying support may seem an economic necessity, it is rarely a feasible or justifiable alternative. Assessing your short-term situation is the next critical step. How long can you survive even just paying the essential bills? What other steps might you need to take to survive? If you do not have a lot of non-retirement savings, a prolonged unemployment period will ultimately mean changing your lifestyle.
Younger workers may have to consider moving back in with mom and dad, older workers may have to consider taking lower paying jobs. Unemployment also increases certain expenses that have to be factored into the household’s new budget: COBRA payments, after the federal
economic recovery subsidy is exhausted, will usually be for the actual cost of the health insurance, not the subsidized rates a worker may have had under the company’s benefit plan; and health insurance plans can charge 150% of the premium cost for extended COBRA coverage
past the initial 18 months allowed. Family health coverage alone can cost $20,000 a year. Vision, dental, and prescription coverage could be
extra. Payments for insurance previously provided by employers such as long-term disability, life, and long-term care; Retirement loans and 401K must be paid back in full within 90 days of leaving the company to avoid income taxes and a hefty 10 percent penalty tax on the loan amount, possibly affecting the borrower on two fronts, e.g., a parent who borrowed significant amounts against these accounts for college may not now be able to get a mortgage to cover this loan since they no longer have a job.
Unless you are 55 or older, 401K and retirement loans are no longer available once you are terminated from a job meaning any future costs these loans were expected to cover, such as tuition, will have to be funded elsewhere Getting income is the next important step. While a new job may take time to acquire, unemployment insurance can, and should, be applied for immediately. A claim for unemployment insurance ideally should be filed in the first week that you have been laid off or partially unemployed. The first week is an unpaid waiting week and unemployment benefits are not retroactive so any delay will cost you money.
Many individuals do not apply for unemployment because they believe they do not qualify or that filing will somehow be held against them.
These fears are unfounded. Unemployment benefits do not affect your credit rating nor is it only for lower income individuals.
Companies pay unemployment taxes for every employee so this is an insurance program designed to assist workers when they lose their jobs through no fault of their own. However, unemployment benefits will not replace your full salary. The maximum unemployment insurance benefit in New York State is only $405 a week.
The New York State Department of Labor recommends that you should gather certain critical pieces of information before you file your
claim to ensure receipt of your benefits promptly:
• Your social security number.
• Your New York State driver’s license or Motor vehicle ID card.
• Your full mailing address including zip code.
• A daytime contact telephone number.
• Your alien registration card number for non-citizens.
• The names and addresses for all your employers within the past 18 months.
• The employer registration number or Federal employer identification number of your most recent employer. This
will be on your W-2 year-end tax forms.
• Your copies of the SF8 and SF50 forms if you received Federal unemployment within the past 18 months.
• Your copy of the DD214 form if you are an ex-service member.
• A blank check from your checking account for the bank’s routing and checking account numbers if you choose to have your payments directly deposited to your account.
• Pen and paper to write down important information.
There are several ways for local residents to file a claim: Online at www.ui.labor.state.ny.us between the hours of 7:30 am to 7:30 pm
Monday through Thursday, Eastern Time; Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm, all day Saturday, and Sunday until 7:00pm. Calling the Telephone Claims Center at 1-888-209-8124 for New York State residents, or 1-877-358-5306 for out of state residents, between 8:00am and 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. You may file in English, Spanish, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Creole, or “all other languages”; translation services will be provided. If you have never filed a claim for benefits in New York State, you will be asked to create a Personal Identification Number (PIN).
Hearing-impaired individuals, who have a Telephone Device for the Deaf (TTY/TDD) equipment, may file a claim by calling a relay operator
at 1-800-662-1220 and requesting the operator to call 1-888-783-1370. Unemployment benefits have recently been increased to assist those
affected by the recession. Workers may now collect 33 weeks of benefits, up from 26 in prior years. The federal government is also offering an additional $25 weekly payment, known as Federal Additional Compensation (FAC), to unemployment recipients.
The economic stimulus package signed by President Obama earlier this year, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), will also subsidize 65 percent of the cost of COBRA coverage for unemployed workers. The subsidy is available to assist individuals who were involuntarily terminated by their employers between September 1, 2008 and December 31, 2009.
ARRA will provide the subsidy for nine months or until the beneficiary is eligible for other health insurance coverage. This benefit, however,
is not available to terminated employees who earn more than $145,000 in the year the subsidy is to be paid. Making sure you are covered for
other potential life events is the next step. Health insurance coverage may be continued through COBRA. Unemployed workers have 60 days to sign up for this benefit. Individuals may have to pay the full cost of this insurance plus an additional two percent administrative fee.
According to the United States Department of Labor who oversees this benefit: “Employers or health plan administrators must provide an initial general notice if you are entitled to COBRA benefits. You probably received the initial notice about COBRA coverage when you were hired. When you are no longer eligible for Health coverage, your employer has to provide you with a specific notice regarding your rights to COBRA continuation benefits. Employers must notify their plan administrators within 30 days after an employee’s termination or after a reduction in hours that causes an employee to lose health benefits.
The plan administrator must provide notice to individual employees of their right to elect COBRA coverage within 14 days after the administrator has received notice from the employer. You must respond to this notice and elect COBRA coverage by the 60th day after the written notice is sent or the day health care coverage ceased, whichever is later. Otherwise, you will lose all rights to COBRA benefits.”
In addition to health coverage, workers should also assure that they are fully insured in other areas. Many workers neglect to replace the
life and disability insurance coverage they had under their previous employers, leaving them and their loved ones exposed. Costs for these
policies can be reduced by purchasing all of these policies through one company and increasing the deductibles on all policies, including automobile and homeowners insurance.
Unemployed workers should be aware of scams and pitfalls. According to FINRA “The announcement of your company’s merger, closing,
or mass layoff may have received national or local press coverage. If all of a sudden you find that you are receiving unsolicited offers for an incredible start-up opportunity, or the investment of a lifetime, beware”. FINRA also advises about the treatment of lump sum or severance
payments that may tempt you to buy something you desperately want. According to FINRA “Do yourself a favor and wait. If you face a long unemployment period, these may be the only funds you will have to make ends meet.” FINRA also advises not to tap into retirement funds to make ends meet unless you have no other options; and, to be aware of the tax consequences if you must withdraw from these accounts.
Even those local workers who still have their jobs would do well to heed FINRA’s warnings. Car manufacturers are preying on workers’ fears of losing their jobs by offering special breaks and refunds if a customer loses his job. According to Microsoft’s “Money Central” web site “Hyundai launched its “Assurance” program, which lets customers return any new vehicles if they lose their jobs and absolves them of any remaining car payments up to $7,500”.
Other companies are following suit. JetBlue is offering full-fare refunds to customers who get laid off before their trips; Jos. A. Bank
will give rebates to customers who get laid off after buying suits. Some rental companies are offering several months free rent; Au Pair in
America will refund program fees, and Norwegian Cruise Line will reimburse the full fare of a cruise to unemployed individuals.
While these programs are spiking sales for these companies, the programs come with catches: To qualify for the rental companies’ offers of
free rent, the individual had to have been a paying tenant for a specified amount of time. Therefore, in these uncertain economic times, workers should follow the same sensible purchasing habits as always and not be lulled by offers that seem “too good to be true”. As FINRA notes in its pamphlets for those already suffering from a job loss “if it sounds too good to be true, you know it probably is.”
As for getting that new job, the best approach is to treat your job search as a job in itself! Set a daily schedule, tell everyone you’re “in the
market”, and don’t assume that handing out lots of resumes will land you a job. It won’t. In this tough market, many employers who are hiring are doing so quietly since any job offerings are met with a landslide of applications.
Job seekers need to develop a network of individuals who can provide information about when a company is hiring; joining a professional
organization, volunteering, or taking a professional seminar, are good ways to meet workers in your field. Joining a local support group will keep your spirits up. But there is some good news on the horizon. After months of reporting job losses and closings in Westchester County, the New York State Department of Labor announced several store and restaurant openings in Mount Kisco and Yonkers for this summer. As CNN recently reported, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while 2.5 million people were laid off in January, 4.4 million new workers were hired.” One of those new hires next month could be you.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Westchester Tea Party.
Some 2,500 Taxpayers Come Out For Westchester Tea Party In Blistering Heat
A week ago this past Saturday, on April 25, the long-awaited Westchester Tea Party got underway around noon, with a bright, sun-filled sky and temperature around 90 degrees. Still, despite News 12’s blatant misreporting, more than 2500 homeowners, busi-nesspeople and taxpayers, some with an occasional infant on their shoulders, came out in the heat to protest the fact that Westchester is the most heavily taxed county in the nation.
Assisted by a dozen canvassers, 2,261 attendees took the time and trouble to fill out contact sheets, four persons to a sheet, for purposes of notification in order to attend and help out at future events. Despite the reality of those numbers, News 12, as has been its modus operandi, bogusly under-reported the attendance by more than two-thirds.
As it turned out, the White Plains Police prevailed upon the demonstration organizers to move the function one block west, down Martine Avenue, to the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, a location that provided no shade from the merciless rays of the sun, unlike the protective shadow provided by the nine-story County Office Building, at the original site.
Tea Party demonstrators were treated to live music and some spirited rhetoric from nearly a dozen speakers, including longtime Greenburgh Supervisor and advocate for the abolishment of County Government, Paul Feiner, Dave Spano, son of the County Executive, and party organizer and underwriter, Publisher Sam Zherka.
Zherka told the crowd, “My father used to tell me how do you know when a politician is lying? He’s lying when his lips are moving.”
Nick DiTomas, of the Cable Access Channel, told the protesters, “The trouble with government is that they attempt to solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them.”
Sam Zherka came back with, “We need to instill fear in those overtaxing, corrupt politicians.” He reminded everyone, “Every person here owns stock in Westchester County. Every person here is the Board of Directors.”
Dr. Guilio Cavallo reminded everybody, “There are 450,000 Independence Party voters in New York State.”
Introduced by Zherka as, “a true public servant,” Supervisor Paul Feiner declared, “We need a referendum initiative. It is catching on now. People realize that we need to reorganize the way government is run.”
A reporter for News12 collared Dave Spano, asking him about the tea bag pinned to his shirt, “What does that tea bag mean to
you?” Spano snapped right back, “It means we’re taxed enough already!”
A week ago this past Saturday, on April 25, the long-awaited Westchester Tea Party got underway around noon, with a bright, sun-filled sky and temperature around 90 degrees. Still, despite News 12’s blatant misreporting, more than 2500 homeowners, busi-nesspeople and taxpayers, some with an occasional infant on their shoulders, came out in the heat to protest the fact that Westchester is the most heavily taxed county in the nation.
Assisted by a dozen canvassers, 2,261 attendees took the time and trouble to fill out contact sheets, four persons to a sheet, for purposes of notification in order to attend and help out at future events. Despite the reality of those numbers, News 12, as has been its modus operandi, bogusly under-reported the attendance by more than two-thirds.
As it turned out, the White Plains Police prevailed upon the demonstration organizers to move the function one block west, down Martine Avenue, to the corner of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard, a location that provided no shade from the merciless rays of the sun, unlike the protective shadow provided by the nine-story County Office Building, at the original site.
Tea Party demonstrators were treated to live music and some spirited rhetoric from nearly a dozen speakers, including longtime Greenburgh Supervisor and advocate for the abolishment of County Government, Paul Feiner, Dave Spano, son of the County Executive, and party organizer and underwriter, Publisher Sam Zherka.
Zherka told the crowd, “My father used to tell me how do you know when a politician is lying? He’s lying when his lips are moving.”
Nick DiTomas, of the Cable Access Channel, told the protesters, “The trouble with government is that they attempt to solve problems with the same kind of thinking that created them.”
Sam Zherka came back with, “We need to instill fear in those overtaxing, corrupt politicians.” He reminded everyone, “Every person here owns stock in Westchester County. Every person here is the Board of Directors.”
Dr. Guilio Cavallo reminded everybody, “There are 450,000 Independence Party voters in New York State.”
Introduced by Zherka as, “a true public servant,” Supervisor Paul Feiner declared, “We need a referendum initiative. It is catching on now. People realize that we need to reorganize the way government is run.”
A reporter for News12 collared Dave Spano, asking him about the tea bag pinned to his shirt, “What does that tea bag mean to
you?” Spano snapped right back, “It means we’re taxed enough already!”
Janet Difiore.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
DiFiore Announcement Fiasco Underscores Her
Unfitness To Be Westchester’s District Attorney
DA Staff Member Cautions Guardian Publisher To Be
Careful Of Frame-Up, Or Other Dirty Tricks
Last Thursday at noon was clearly a defining moment for the People of Westchester, and particularly for those who are genuine Democrats.
What they witnessed was a charade, an attempt by the Fat Cats of the Democratic Party, Andy Spano, Reggie LaFayette, Tim Idoni, and all
those greedy hacks, Bill Ryan included, to shove their unfit candidate, their Counterfeit Democrat, down everybody’s throat. Their problem
was, the People weren’t biting.
The charade, put on by some 200 individuals, more than half of whom were Assistant DAs, investigators, and support staff compelled to be
there; and, the rest mostly the same $155,000-a-year politicos who tried to grab outrageous pay raises from taxpayers last Fall, could not have been more defining with respect to why Janet DiFiore is not, and never has been, the District Attorney of the decent, hard-working citizens of Westchester. The event clearly demonstrated why the recent News12 poll of 999 viewers came back:
• Tony Castro ...............55%
• Dan Schorr ................27%
• Janet DiFiore .............18%
Janet, and her politically connected crowd, weren’t fooling anybody. The People know her for who she really is; a mean-spirited, vindictive
opportunist, who for years used the people and the financial resources of the Republican Party in race after race against the choice of rank
and file Democrats, only to throw her old supporters under the bus and suddenly declare herself a Democrat.
But the People of Westchester, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Conservatives, and Working Families, were not fooled for even
a minute. They know her for the counterfeit she truly is; counterfeit Democrat, counterfeit DA.
The People know that no self-respecting Democrat, and surely no District Attorney worthy of the Office, would ever conduct herself as
Janet DiFiore has for the past three years. They have witnessed her prosecuting the innocent victims of rogue police brutality; Irma Marquez, Rui Florim, Dr. Sherry Bobrowsky, and scores of others in Yonkers. And, they haven’t forgotten the three young boys beaten and mauled in Mount Vernon, nor the victims of excessive force in Sleepy Hollow. Each time she covered up the rogue cops involved, compelling the federal government, the Justice Department, to step in and protect the safety and rights of Westchester citizens.
Several individuals who have been wrongfully handled by her, or whose family have been, showed up carrying signs, calling for her firing,
showing photos of Irma Marquez in an effort to speak Truth to Power.
During the event, a staff person from the DA’s Office, attempting not to be noticed by others from the Office, approached Guardian publisher Sam Zherka, standing at the event, and warned him, in a caring tone, to be both cautious and on the lookout for dirty tricks from DiFiore operatives rumored about in the Office. If, in fact, that possibility should materialize, it would simply be one of several vindictive
and retaliatory acts already carried out by Janet DiFiore in fulfillment of threats she made two years ago.
Perhaps the most defining moment came when Party Boss, and part-time $155,000-a-year Election Commissioner, Reggie LaFayette,
rattled by sign-carrying protesters, declared, “This isn’t about these people; it’s about Janet DiFiore.” He was so right; for Janet, it’s never been about the People at all.
Janet’s only comfort to be drawn from the fiasco was the fact that News 12 was the only television coverage that she got. All of the major
networks stayed away, apparently deciding she was a low-level priority.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
DiFiore Announcement Fiasco Underscores Her
Unfitness To Be Westchester’s District Attorney
DA Staff Member Cautions Guardian Publisher To Be
Careful Of Frame-Up, Or Other Dirty Tricks
Last Thursday at noon was clearly a defining moment for the People of Westchester, and particularly for those who are genuine Democrats.
What they witnessed was a charade, an attempt by the Fat Cats of the Democratic Party, Andy Spano, Reggie LaFayette, Tim Idoni, and all
those greedy hacks, Bill Ryan included, to shove their unfit candidate, their Counterfeit Democrat, down everybody’s throat. Their problem
was, the People weren’t biting.
The charade, put on by some 200 individuals, more than half of whom were Assistant DAs, investigators, and support staff compelled to be
there; and, the rest mostly the same $155,000-a-year politicos who tried to grab outrageous pay raises from taxpayers last Fall, could not have been more defining with respect to why Janet DiFiore is not, and never has been, the District Attorney of the decent, hard-working citizens of Westchester. The event clearly demonstrated why the recent News12 poll of 999 viewers came back:
• Tony Castro ...............55%
• Dan Schorr ................27%
• Janet DiFiore .............18%
Janet, and her politically connected crowd, weren’t fooling anybody. The People know her for who she really is; a mean-spirited, vindictive
opportunist, who for years used the people and the financial resources of the Republican Party in race after race against the choice of rank
and file Democrats, only to throw her old supporters under the bus and suddenly declare herself a Democrat.
But the People of Westchester, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Conservatives, and Working Families, were not fooled for even
a minute. They know her for the counterfeit she truly is; counterfeit Democrat, counterfeit DA.
The People know that no self-respecting Democrat, and surely no District Attorney worthy of the Office, would ever conduct herself as
Janet DiFiore has for the past three years. They have witnessed her prosecuting the innocent victims of rogue police brutality; Irma Marquez, Rui Florim, Dr. Sherry Bobrowsky, and scores of others in Yonkers. And, they haven’t forgotten the three young boys beaten and mauled in Mount Vernon, nor the victims of excessive force in Sleepy Hollow. Each time she covered up the rogue cops involved, compelling the federal government, the Justice Department, to step in and protect the safety and rights of Westchester citizens.
Several individuals who have been wrongfully handled by her, or whose family have been, showed up carrying signs, calling for her firing,
showing photos of Irma Marquez in an effort to speak Truth to Power.
During the event, a staff person from the DA’s Office, attempting not to be noticed by others from the Office, approached Guardian publisher Sam Zherka, standing at the event, and warned him, in a caring tone, to be both cautious and on the lookout for dirty tricks from DiFiore operatives rumored about in the Office. If, in fact, that possibility should materialize, it would simply be one of several vindictive
and retaliatory acts already carried out by Janet DiFiore in fulfillment of threats she made two years ago.
Perhaps the most defining moment came when Party Boss, and part-time $155,000-a-year Election Commissioner, Reggie LaFayette,
rattled by sign-carrying protesters, declared, “This isn’t about these people; it’s about Janet DiFiore.” He was so right; for Janet, it’s never been about the People at all.
Janet’s only comfort to be drawn from the fiasco was the fact that News 12 was the only television coverage that she got. All of the major
networks stayed away, apparently deciding she was a low-level priority.
In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
In Our Opinion...
Fourth Amendment: Alive And Well Once More
“The Right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Such is the guarantee embodied in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution for those who choose to live in these United States.
Unfortunately, for many years, prior to two weeks ago, the Constitutional promise held out by the Fourth Amendment had been eroded, particularly in the context of automobile operation, to the point where routine traffic stops, with, or without, infraction, or justification had become an automatic “pretext” for warrantless searches, as far back as 1981, when the United States Supreme Court found: “When a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.”
That ruling, which grew out of a case that involved the discovery of a quantity of cocaine in a jacket pocket, would ultimately impact Fourth Amendment guarantees far beyond anything intended by the High Court whose concerns ran to the limited issue of protecting the safety of arresting officers from possible weapons within reach of arrested vehicle occupants, and/or hidden evidence of a crime.
However, as a practical matter, in the nearly three decades since the Court’s ruling, arrested suspects have invariably been handcuffed and/or locked up prior to such vehicular scrutiny. In short, the overwhelming number of vehicle searches had been conducted without connection to their Constitutional justification.
Under the revised rules, as of two weeks ago, “Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.” Of course, a search may still be conducted if police are looking for evidence of the crime that led to the arrest.
The opinion, authored by Justice Stevens, for the 5-4 majority, declared, “A rule that gives police the power to conduct such a search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic offense creates a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals.”
Justice Anton Scalia pleasantly surprised many when, in his concurring opinion, he labeled so-called routine car searches “plainly Unconstitutional”, referring to the Court’s prior safety concerns for arresting officers as a “charade”, noting that police can always restrain arrestees.
We are particularly pleased with the High Court’s apparent turn-around on the vital issues of privacy and personal security, and while it represents a restoration of rights with respect to one Amendment in the Bill of Rights, still it is a very fundamental package of guarantees, and would seem to suggest possible further restorations of freedoms wrongfully curtailed under
Our Readers Respond..
Unionized County Employee Chastises Union Heads
Dear Editor:
T.J. Mallon and McKillop, both Union Presidents, were called by District Attorney Janet DiFiore to attend the rally on April 30; they both attended. Yet, on April 28, when the Courthouse was unsafe and unhealthy for all employees and the public because of the heat, both President T.J. Mallon, Court Employees Association and McKillop, President of Court Officers Union, said they could not help their court
employees. They didn’t have the time, yet they both found the time today, April 30, to assist Janet DiFiore in front of the
Courthouse.
We thought it was against Court rules to campaign in the Westchester County Courthouse, yet several union members represented by T.J. Mallon’s union were seen with Janet DiFiore signs right after the rally.
Concerned Union Member
Reader Expresses Urgent Need To Audit Federal Reserve
Dear Editor:
We need your assistance in getting the word out to the public, your readers, that we need to audit the federal reserve. What they may not know is that in addition to our $11 trillion national debt Congress, the Treasury Dept. and the Federal Reserve have put us on the hook for almost $10 trillion in bailouts and loans.
Despite the demand for transparency, the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, recently flat-out said NO to Congress when asked to name which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars in these loans from the Fed.
The Federal Reserve, the unelected central bank of the United States, refused to fully disclose its operations and agreements to Congress, including its deals with foreign central banks and governments.
To end this secrecy and deliver answers to the American people, my hero Congressman Dr. Ron Paul has introduced HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. HR 1207 will: Require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to perform a complete audit of the fed by the end of 2010; Reveal the details of agreements the Fed has made with foreign central banks and governments; Show which banks and Wall Street firms have received our money from the Fed.
Congressman Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill will bring transparency and accountability to an institution that has reduced the value of our dollar by 95 percent since its creation in 1913.
We count on your unique publication to raise important and very often uncomfortable issues and to bring facts to your readership which will allow them to be armed with the tools to make important decisions and take appropriate action to preserve their civil rights, their livelihoods,
their savings and their legacy to future generations.
Irene Ferrara, Armonk
The Taxpayers’ Stimulus Plan (Main Street Takes Control)
Dear Editor:
The current movement to eliminate County Government is a long overdue and a natural response from taxpayers seeking to cut down on government waste and mismanagement. This movement is not personal, but rather an effort to bring to the attention of our elected leaders to act more honestly in their fiduciary responsibilities and stewardship of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.
The elimination of redundant government agencies is one way to help stimulate the economy. Just a casual review of basic economics will make manifest how politicians waste taxpayers’ dollars by maintaining redundant inefficient agencies and governments.
The marginal benefits the taxpayers receive from the County Government are far less the marginal costs collected via taxes collected. In simple terms the costs paid for these services is far less than the benefits received.
The dollars saved by the elimination of the County Government would result in lower taxes and/or using these tax dollars to cover budget shortfalls currently experienced by a number of Westchester County municipalities.
White Plains is a good example; with its massive shortfall in its budget, the City will need to cut back on services and jobs. This is not the way to stimulate the economy. With the County Government eliminated, the savings can be passed on to the local governments to maintain their current level of services and not having to place a hold on hiring or eliminating positions.
Also, from the perspective of basic economics, for every tax dollar collected by government, the taxpayer has one less dollar to spend. This is not the way to promote a healthy local economy. Economically speaking, this concept is referred to as the production possibility curve. In layman’s terms, guns or butter? In this case of the need for a County Government, it simply means taxes or personal spending/savings.
When taxpayers are forced to finance an excessive tax burden they have less income available for consumer spending; which is one of the reasons we are in this current recession.
If one has doubts about the marginal benefits of maintaining a county government, one must simply look across the border to the State of Connecticut which has eliminated county governments years ago.
Dr. Richard Cirulli,
White Plains
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
I have been following the case of Paul Cote and I find it a very troubling case. Mr. Cote, a veteran corrections officer coming to the aid of his colleague, was indicted and convicted of severely injuring a prisoner both officers were trying to subdue. Though there were two officers involved, it is strange that only Mr. Cote was indicted and convicted.
After serving a prison sentence, losing his job, benefits and pension, Mr. Cote is indicted and convicted again in Federal Court, but an experienced and respected judge, the late Charles L. Brieant, granted Mr. Cote a Judgment of Acquittal.
Now I read Mr. Cote is convicted a third time for the same case and was remanded to prison awaiting sentencing in May. After reading the articles and letters about this case, I know that the truth will eventually come out and Mr. Cote will be vindicated.
Truth and justice always prevail. I hope it will be sooner, rather than later, for Paul Cote and his family.
Larry Bibb, Mount Vernon
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
I have been keeping up with the letters about the correction officer (Paul Cote) who was put behind bars for a situation that happened while going to the aid of a fellow employee. It is a very interesting yet sad story, and your coverage has been very informative.
Thank you for it.
I have a friend whose husband was wrongly convicted some years ago and served time for a crime he did not commit. When DNA came into play, he was proven innocent. The conviction ruined his life, his career, caused serious emotional issues for his son and as a result split up
his family. I am not sure, from all that I have read, that the prosecutor in this case, investigated this to the fullest. If this was investigated
to the fullest, the judge who recently passed away would not have made the decision to strike out the jury conviction.
I read that Cote will be sentenced sometime in May. I hope this new judge Cote will be standing before does the right thing. I
don’t know this man, like some of the others who have written, but I know he deserves to be protected by the law with a full investigation
of the situation. I don’t believe this was done, since I don’t think it was proven that Cote caused the inmate’s death. Like my friend, I believe
this was a political conviction. Very sad!
I might add that I was quite touched by the post sent in by the Catholic priest. I hope to read something positive for Cote when you
cover the sentencing.
Frank Campanille,
White Plains
We Need Initiative And Referendum Legislation
Dear Editor:
Citizens need a direct vote on critical issues if they are to deal with the problems of State finances, corruption, special interest groups, and the public authorities that control the politicians. One solution offered is Initiative and Legislation Referendum legislation often spoken about by Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, along with some types of ballot proposals that could be decided by the voters.
I have been writing about Initiative and Referendum legislation for 31 years; but now I believe people might just be angry enough to fight for it. I’m about to read a book on tax protests during the Depression, which failed because of no political organization and New Deal propaganda.
I got the 2007 Annual Report for Friends of Westchester Parks. However, it doesn’t mention that the Executive Director is Deputy Parks Commissioner Kathleen O’Connor, and that her secretary is a County employee too. Playland is listed as a subsidiary of Friends of Westchester Parks, not owned by the County and taxpayers. Seventeen board members are listed but not their corporate, law firm, or
contractor connections.
I have asked the Charities Bureau Chief to investigate my complaints. The Deputy Comptroller For Municipalities should do an audit; but he has claimed that the Charities Bureau has the authority, and so nothing will change.The 2008 report won’t be out until mid-October or after the elections.
After reading Catherine Wilson’s article on Dimentia, I thought she might be interested in knowing that I suggested the CareTrak System in Putnam County to Commissioner D’Aliso, and he wrote back, on January 31, 2003, expressing interest in it for seniors and Alzheimer’s patients. I guess Spano probably forgot to invite me to the press conference when it was introduced.
I read a quote by Voltaire, last week, that could be your motto: “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Have a good day.
Charles Roda, Mount Vernon
In Our Opinion...
Fourth Amendment: Alive And Well Once More
“The Right of the People to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Such is the guarantee embodied in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution for those who choose to live in these United States.
Unfortunately, for many years, prior to two weeks ago, the Constitutional promise held out by the Fourth Amendment had been eroded, particularly in the context of automobile operation, to the point where routine traffic stops, with, or without, infraction, or justification had become an automatic “pretext” for warrantless searches, as far back as 1981, when the United States Supreme Court found: “When a policeman has made a lawful custodial arrest of the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of that automobile.”
That ruling, which grew out of a case that involved the discovery of a quantity of cocaine in a jacket pocket, would ultimately impact Fourth Amendment guarantees far beyond anything intended by the High Court whose concerns ran to the limited issue of protecting the safety of arresting officers from possible weapons within reach of arrested vehicle occupants, and/or hidden evidence of a crime.
However, as a practical matter, in the nearly three decades since the Court’s ruling, arrested suspects have invariably been handcuffed and/or locked up prior to such vehicular scrutiny. In short, the overwhelming number of vehicle searches had been conducted without connection to their Constitutional justification.
Under the revised rules, as of two weeks ago, “Police may search a vehicle incident to a recent occupant’s arrest only when the arrestee is unsecured and within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search.” Of course, a search may still be conducted if police are looking for evidence of the crime that led to the arrest.
The opinion, authored by Justice Stevens, for the 5-4 majority, declared, “A rule that gives police the power to conduct such a search whenever an individual is caught committing a traffic offense creates a serious and recurring threat to the privacy of countless individuals.”
Justice Anton Scalia pleasantly surprised many when, in his concurring opinion, he labeled so-called routine car searches “plainly Unconstitutional”, referring to the Court’s prior safety concerns for arresting officers as a “charade”, noting that police can always restrain arrestees.
We are particularly pleased with the High Court’s apparent turn-around on the vital issues of privacy and personal security, and while it represents a restoration of rights with respect to one Amendment in the Bill of Rights, still it is a very fundamental package of guarantees, and would seem to suggest possible further restorations of freedoms wrongfully curtailed under
Our Readers Respond..
Unionized County Employee Chastises Union Heads
Dear Editor:
T.J. Mallon and McKillop, both Union Presidents, were called by District Attorney Janet DiFiore to attend the rally on April 30; they both attended. Yet, on April 28, when the Courthouse was unsafe and unhealthy for all employees and the public because of the heat, both President T.J. Mallon, Court Employees Association and McKillop, President of Court Officers Union, said they could not help their court
employees. They didn’t have the time, yet they both found the time today, April 30, to assist Janet DiFiore in front of the
Courthouse.
We thought it was against Court rules to campaign in the Westchester County Courthouse, yet several union members represented by T.J. Mallon’s union were seen with Janet DiFiore signs right after the rally.
Concerned Union Member
Reader Expresses Urgent Need To Audit Federal Reserve
Dear Editor:
We need your assistance in getting the word out to the public, your readers, that we need to audit the federal reserve. What they may not know is that in addition to our $11 trillion national debt Congress, the Treasury Dept. and the Federal Reserve have put us on the hook for almost $10 trillion in bailouts and loans.
Despite the demand for transparency, the Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, recently flat-out said NO to Congress when asked to name which financial institutions have received trillions of dollars in these loans from the Fed.
The Federal Reserve, the unelected central bank of the United States, refused to fully disclose its operations and agreements to Congress, including its deals with foreign central banks and governments.
To end this secrecy and deliver answers to the American people, my hero Congressman Dr. Ron Paul has introduced HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act. HR 1207 will: Require the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to perform a complete audit of the fed by the end of 2010; Reveal the details of agreements the Fed has made with foreign central banks and governments; Show which banks and Wall Street firms have received our money from the Fed.
Congressman Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill will bring transparency and accountability to an institution that has reduced the value of our dollar by 95 percent since its creation in 1913.
We count on your unique publication to raise important and very often uncomfortable issues and to bring facts to your readership which will allow them to be armed with the tools to make important decisions and take appropriate action to preserve their civil rights, their livelihoods,
their savings and their legacy to future generations.
Irene Ferrara, Armonk
The Taxpayers’ Stimulus Plan (Main Street Takes Control)
Dear Editor:
The current movement to eliminate County Government is a long overdue and a natural response from taxpayers seeking to cut down on government waste and mismanagement. This movement is not personal, but rather an effort to bring to the attention of our elected leaders to act more honestly in their fiduciary responsibilities and stewardship of taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars.
The elimination of redundant government agencies is one way to help stimulate the economy. Just a casual review of basic economics will make manifest how politicians waste taxpayers’ dollars by maintaining redundant inefficient agencies and governments.
The marginal benefits the taxpayers receive from the County Government are far less the marginal costs collected via taxes collected. In simple terms the costs paid for these services is far less than the benefits received.
The dollars saved by the elimination of the County Government would result in lower taxes and/or using these tax dollars to cover budget shortfalls currently experienced by a number of Westchester County municipalities.
White Plains is a good example; with its massive shortfall in its budget, the City will need to cut back on services and jobs. This is not the way to stimulate the economy. With the County Government eliminated, the savings can be passed on to the local governments to maintain their current level of services and not having to place a hold on hiring or eliminating positions.
Also, from the perspective of basic economics, for every tax dollar collected by government, the taxpayer has one less dollar to spend. This is not the way to promote a healthy local economy. Economically speaking, this concept is referred to as the production possibility curve. In layman’s terms, guns or butter? In this case of the need for a County Government, it simply means taxes or personal spending/savings.
When taxpayers are forced to finance an excessive tax burden they have less income available for consumer spending; which is one of the reasons we are in this current recession.
If one has doubts about the marginal benefits of maintaining a county government, one must simply look across the border to the State of Connecticut which has eliminated county governments years ago.
Dr. Richard Cirulli,
White Plains
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
I have been following the case of Paul Cote and I find it a very troubling case. Mr. Cote, a veteran corrections officer coming to the aid of his colleague, was indicted and convicted of severely injuring a prisoner both officers were trying to subdue. Though there were two officers involved, it is strange that only Mr. Cote was indicted and convicted.
After serving a prison sentence, losing his job, benefits and pension, Mr. Cote is indicted and convicted again in Federal Court, but an experienced and respected judge, the late Charles L. Brieant, granted Mr. Cote a Judgment of Acquittal.
Now I read Mr. Cote is convicted a third time for the same case and was remanded to prison awaiting sentencing in May. After reading the articles and letters about this case, I know that the truth will eventually come out and Mr. Cote will be vindicated.
Truth and justice always prevail. I hope it will be sooner, rather than later, for Paul Cote and his family.
Larry Bibb, Mount Vernon
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
I have been keeping up with the letters about the correction officer (Paul Cote) who was put behind bars for a situation that happened while going to the aid of a fellow employee. It is a very interesting yet sad story, and your coverage has been very informative.
Thank you for it.
I have a friend whose husband was wrongly convicted some years ago and served time for a crime he did not commit. When DNA came into play, he was proven innocent. The conviction ruined his life, his career, caused serious emotional issues for his son and as a result split up
his family. I am not sure, from all that I have read, that the prosecutor in this case, investigated this to the fullest. If this was investigated
to the fullest, the judge who recently passed away would not have made the decision to strike out the jury conviction.
I read that Cote will be sentenced sometime in May. I hope this new judge Cote will be standing before does the right thing. I
don’t know this man, like some of the others who have written, but I know he deserves to be protected by the law with a full investigation
of the situation. I don’t believe this was done, since I don’t think it was proven that Cote caused the inmate’s death. Like my friend, I believe
this was a political conviction. Very sad!
I might add that I was quite touched by the post sent in by the Catholic priest. I hope to read something positive for Cote when you
cover the sentencing.
Frank Campanille,
White Plains
We Need Initiative And Referendum Legislation
Dear Editor:
Citizens need a direct vote on critical issues if they are to deal with the problems of State finances, corruption, special interest groups, and the public authorities that control the politicians. One solution offered is Initiative and Legislation Referendum legislation often spoken about by Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, along with some types of ballot proposals that could be decided by the voters.
I have been writing about Initiative and Referendum legislation for 31 years; but now I believe people might just be angry enough to fight for it. I’m about to read a book on tax protests during the Depression, which failed because of no political organization and New Deal propaganda.
I got the 2007 Annual Report for Friends of Westchester Parks. However, it doesn’t mention that the Executive Director is Deputy Parks Commissioner Kathleen O’Connor, and that her secretary is a County employee too. Playland is listed as a subsidiary of Friends of Westchester Parks, not owned by the County and taxpayers. Seventeen board members are listed but not their corporate, law firm, or
contractor connections.
I have asked the Charities Bureau Chief to investigate my complaints. The Deputy Comptroller For Municipalities should do an audit; but he has claimed that the Charities Bureau has the authority, and so nothing will change.The 2008 report won’t be out until mid-October or after the elections.
After reading Catherine Wilson’s article on Dimentia, I thought she might be interested in knowing that I suggested the CareTrak System in Putnam County to Commissioner D’Aliso, and he wrote back, on January 31, 2003, expressing interest in it for seniors and Alzheimer’s patients. I guess Spano probably forgot to invite me to the press conference when it was introduced.
I read a quote by Voltaire, last week, that could be your motto: “It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Have a good day.
Charles Roda, Mount Vernon
The Court Report/Janet Difiore.
Thursday, May 7,2009
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
District Attorney Who Repeatedly Prosecutes
Victims Of Police Brutality Recognizes
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week
Last week, motivated by the fact that it was National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, DA Janet DiFiore placed a table and poster, with literature, in the lobby of the Westchester County Courthouse, ostensibly for the purpose of disseminating information to Westchester victims of crime.
Having gone to court on Thursday to cover ongoing developments in a 15-year-old murder case, this reporter spotted the table upon leaving, and wished to photograph and publicize its existence.
We were informed by court officers that we would need to obtain explicit permission from the Administrative Judge, Francis Nicolai, in order to take any photographs within the courthouse. We went looking for Judge Nicolai, who was in the midst of dealing with calendar issues, with a long line of attorneys and judges awaiting his attention.
However, to his credit, when he emerged from a conference with one of those judges, he graciously took a moment to listen to our request, and granted permission within ten minutes, notifying us of his decision and informing the court officers
in control of the lobby floor through his assistant, Joe Ranieri. We were pleased with the Judge’s promptness and courtesy.
We were particularly anxious to photograph the DA’s display in light of her appalling record, over the last three years, actually prosecuting several innocent victims of police brutality such as Irma Marquez, Rui Florim, Sherry Bobrowsky, Tina and Mary Bostwick, and, literally, dozens of other similarly abused victims who have come forward in Yonkers since The Guardian first began exposing cases of police brutality in that city back in September of 2006.
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
District Attorney Who Repeatedly Prosecutes
Victims Of Police Brutality Recognizes
National Crime Victims’ Rights Week
Last week, motivated by the fact that it was National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, DA Janet DiFiore placed a table and poster, with literature, in the lobby of the Westchester County Courthouse, ostensibly for the purpose of disseminating information to Westchester victims of crime.
Having gone to court on Thursday to cover ongoing developments in a 15-year-old murder case, this reporter spotted the table upon leaving, and wished to photograph and publicize its existence.
We were informed by court officers that we would need to obtain explicit permission from the Administrative Judge, Francis Nicolai, in order to take any photographs within the courthouse. We went looking for Judge Nicolai, who was in the midst of dealing with calendar issues, with a long line of attorneys and judges awaiting his attention.
However, to his credit, when he emerged from a conference with one of those judges, he graciously took a moment to listen to our request, and granted permission within ten minutes, notifying us of his decision and informing the court officers
in control of the lobby floor through his assistant, Joe Ranieri. We were pleased with the Judge’s promptness and courtesy.
We were particularly anxious to photograph the DA’s display in light of her appalling record, over the last three years, actually prosecuting several innocent victims of police brutality such as Irma Marquez, Rui Florim, Sherry Bobrowsky, Tina and Mary Bostwick, and, literally, dozens of other similarly abused victims who have come forward in Yonkers since The Guardian first began exposing cases of police brutality in that city back in September of 2006.
Jeff Deskovic.
Jeff Deskovic
Exposing The Death Penalty, Part 1
In my effort to raise awareness about the problem of wrongful convictions, as well as seeking legislative changes to make the criminal justice
system more accurate, I have always included abolishing the death penalty amongst the reforms I advocate. My reasoning is simple: any system of justice that results in wrongful convictions will, if it has a death penalty as a sentencing option, inevitably execute innocent people.
This past March 17 New Mexico legislatively abolished the death penalty citing, amongst other issues, that very real possibility. In this threepart series I will review likely wrongful executions, near-misses, ongoing cases of potential wrongful execution, systemic deficiencies, along with one case example wherein innocent people were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death before being cleared. And then, I will look at modern-day recognition that the death penalty risks the execution of innocent people.
Likely Wrongful Executions
There are a variety of cases wherein it is very likely that innocent people have been executed, as established by facts, circumstances, and statements from people involved, in one way or another, which can show a reasonable basis upon which to believe that the executed individual was likely innocent. These case summaries are taken from the Death Penalty Information Center.
Ruben Cantu
A two-part investigative series by the Houston Chronicle casts serious doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was executed in 1993. Ruben Cantu had persistently proclaimed his innocence and was only 17 when he was charged with capital murder for the shooting death of a San Antonio man during an attempted robbery. Now, the prosecutor and the jury forewoman have expressed doubts about the case.
Moreover, both a key eyewitness in the state’s case against Cantu, and Cantu’s co-defendant, have come forward to say that Texas executed an innocent man. Juan Moreno, who was wounded during the attempted robbery and was a key eyewitness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only identified Cantu as the shooter because he felt pressured, and was afraid of the authorities.
Moreno said that he twice told police that Cantu was not his assailant, but that the authorities continued to pressure him to identify Cantu as the shooter after Cantu was involved in an unrelated wounding of a police officer.
“The police were sure it was (Cantu) because he had hurt a police officer. They told me they were certain it was him, and that’s why I testified. . . . That was bad to blame someone that was not there,” Moreno told the Chronicle.
In addition, David Garza, Cantu’s co-defendant during his 1985 trial, recently signed a sworn affidavit saying that he allowed Cantu to be accused and executed even though he wasn’t with him on the night of the killing. Garza stated, “Part of me died when he died.
You’ve got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for something he did not do. Texas murdered an innocent person.” Furthermore, Sam D. Millsap, Jr., the Bexar County District Attorney who charged Cantu with capital murder, said he never should have sought the death penalty in a case based on testimony from an eyewitness who identified a suspect only after police showed him Cantu’s photo three separate times.
And, Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu, said the jury’s decision was the best they could do based on the information
presented during the trial. She noted, “With a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we’d have gotten the right information. The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that.”
Larry Griffin
A year-long investigation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has uncovered evidence that Larry Griffin may have been innocent of the crime for which he was executed by the State of Missouri on June 21, 1995. Griffin maintained his innocence until his death, and investigators say his case is the strongest demonstration yet of an execution of an innocent man. The report notes that a man injured in the same drive-by shooting that claimed the life of Quintin Moss says Griffin was not involved in the crime, and the first police officer on the scene has given a new account that undermines the trial testimony of the only witness who identified Griffin as the murderer.
Based on its findings, the NAACP has supplied the prosecution with the names of three men it suspects committed the crime, and all three of the suspects are currently in jail for other murders. Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said she has reopened the investigation and will conduct a comprehensive review of the case over the next few months. “There is no real doubt that we have an innocent person. If we could go to trial on this case, if there was a forum where we could take this to trial, we would win hands down,” stated University of Michigan law professor
Samuel Gross, who supervised the investigation into Griffin’s case.
Joseph O’Dell
New DNA blood evidence has thrown considerable doubt on the murder and rape conviction of O’Dell. In reviewing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices said they had doubts about O’Dell’s guilt and whether he should have been allowed to represent himself. Without
the blood evidence, there is little linking O’Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his death sentence and upheld his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O’Dell’s claims of innocence and held that its decision regarding juries being told about the alternative sentence of life-without-parole was not retroactive to his case. O’Dell asked the state to conduct DNA tests on other pieces of evidence to demonstrate his innocence but was refused.
David Spence
Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: “I do not think David Spence committed this crime.”
Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: “My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved.” No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return
for testimony.
Leo Jones
Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida, and was executed. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an “enforcer” who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.
Gary Graham
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer’s face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30-40 feet away.
Two other witnesses, who both worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer, but
were never interviewed by Graham’s court-appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.
Cameron Willingham
After examining evidence from the capital prosecution of Cameron Willingham, four national arson experts have concluded that the original investigation of Willingham’s case was flawed and it is possible the fire was accidental. The independent investigation, reported by the Chicago
Tribune, found that prosecutors and arson investigators used arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances.
Willingham was executed earlier this year in Texas despite his consistent claims of innocence. He was convicted of murdering his three children in a
1991 house fire. Arson expert Gerald Hurst said, “There’s nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire.” Former Louisiana State University fire instructor Kendall Ryland added, “[It] made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation....
They executed this guy and they’ve just got no idea - at least not scientifically - if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.” Willingham was convicted of capital murder after arson investigators concluded that 20 indicators of arson led them to believe that an accelerant had been used to set three separate fires inside his home. Among the only other evidence presented by prosecutors during the trial was testimony from jailhouse snitch Johnny E. Webb, a drug addict on psychiatric medication, who claimed Willingham had confessed to him in the county jail.
Some of the jurors who convicted Willingham were troubled when told of the new case review. Juror Dorinda Brokofsky asked, “Did anybody know
about this prior to his execution? Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent.” Prior to the execution, Willingham’s defense attorneys presented expert testimony regarding the new arson investigation to the state’s highest court, as well as to Texas Governor Rick Perry.
No relief was granted and Willingham was executed February 17, 2004. Coincidentally, less than a year after Willingham’s execution, arson evidence presented by some of the same experts who had appealed for relief in Willingham’s case helped free Ernest Willis from Texas’ death row. The experts noted that the evidence in the Willingham case was nearly identical to the evidence used to exonerate Willis.
Near Misses
There have been a variety of cases where innocent people have come frighteningly close to being executed. These cases also show, clearly, how
innocent people can be wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death and executed.
Kenneth Foster
Foster and several of his friends went on a crime spree in Texas in 1997. Eventually the crime spree ended, but Foster never parted company with one of his friends, Maurecio Brown. On the way home, Brown left the car to talk to a woman. An argument ensued that soon involved her boyfriend. Brown claimed that the victim reached into his jeans, which he interpreted as reaching for a gun. Brown pulled out his gun and killed
the victim some 100 yards in front of the car that Foster was in.
Foster had no idea that Brown would do this and the crime was not a part of their criminal conduct; he had simply made the mistake of not parting company with him. Nonetheless, he had been sentenced to death. Based upon a groundswell of grass roots support, extensive media coverage and editorials, national and international support, Foster’s death sentence was commuted on noon of the day that he was scheduled to be executed, August 30, 2007.
Ron Williamson
Ron Williamson was wrongfully convicted of murder in Oklahoma in 1998, along with his co-defendant Dennis Fritz. Williamson received the
death penalty, whereas Fritz received life in prison. The Innocence Project summarizes his case this way: An inmate that Fritz was paired with eventually came forward and stated that Fritz had confessed to the murder. This jailhouse snitch gave a two hour taped interview revealing what Fritz had allegedly confessed to him. This confession came one day before the prosecution would have been forced to drop the charges against
Fritz. Another informant testified that she had heard Williamson threaten to harm his mother as he had the victim.
Williamson was also seen at the bar the night of the murder, according to a witness named Glenn Gore. Additionally, police had statements from
Williamson regarding a dream he had about the crime.
Forensic testing was performed on various items of evidence. Seventeen hairs were recovered and were “matched” to both Fritz and Williamson.
The semen evidence suggested that the perpetrator(s) were non-secretors, as Fritz and Williamson are. Fritz could not remember his exact thereabouts during the day of the crime due to the amount of time, five years, that had passed. DNA testing revealed that neither Fritz nor Williamson deposited the spermatozoa found in the victim. Further testing proved that none of the many hairs that were labeled “matches”
belonged to them. The profile obtained from the semen evidence matched Glenn Gore. At one point, Williamson had come within 5 days of execution.
Earl Washington
Washington was arrested for murder and rape in Virginia. The Innocence Project summarizes his case this way: He had an IQ in the range of 69. Following questioning for two days, police claimed that he had confessed to five different crimes. The state dismissed the confessions of the first four because of the inconsistencies. They charged him with the fifth murder, however, despite not knowing the race of the victim, the address of the apartment where she was killed, or that he had raped her.
Washington also testified that Ms. Williams had been short when in fact she was 5’8”, that he had stabbed her two or three times when the victim showed thirty-eight stab wounds, and that there was no one else in the apartment when it was known that Ms. Williams’ two young children were with her in the apartment on the day of the crime.
Only on the fourth attempt at a rehearsed confession did authorities accept Washington’s statement and have it recorded in writing with Washington’s signature. He only picked out the scene of the crime after being taken there three times in one afternoon by the police, who in the end had to help him pick out Williams’ apartment. The confession proved to be the prosecution’s only evidence linking Washington to the crime.
Psychological analyses of Washington reported that, to compensate for his disability, Washington would politely defer to any authority figure
with whom he came into contact. Thus, when police officers asked Washington leading questions in order to obtain a confession, he complied and offered affirmative responses in order to gain their approval. At trial, only the State’s psychologist testified, claiming that Washington was competent when his statement was given.
The prosecution’s case hinged on Washington’s statements as well as his identification of a shirt given to the police by the victim’s family six weeks after the crime. A forensic analyst conducted serology testing on evidence from the crime scene and detected a rare plasma protein. Once Washington, who does not possess the rare protein, became a suspect, an amended forensic report was prepared (without additional testing being conducted) that said testing for the rare protein was “inconclusive.”
DNA testing in 1993 proved his innocence, but his death sentence was merely commuted in 1994. It took 6 more years before he was allowed to
have more sophisticated DNA testing, which ultimately resulted in his being pardoned based upon innocence. At one point, Washington came
within 9 days of execution.
Exposing The Death Penalty, Part 1
In my effort to raise awareness about the problem of wrongful convictions, as well as seeking legislative changes to make the criminal justice
system more accurate, I have always included abolishing the death penalty amongst the reforms I advocate. My reasoning is simple: any system of justice that results in wrongful convictions will, if it has a death penalty as a sentencing option, inevitably execute innocent people.
This past March 17 New Mexico legislatively abolished the death penalty citing, amongst other issues, that very real possibility. In this threepart series I will review likely wrongful executions, near-misses, ongoing cases of potential wrongful execution, systemic deficiencies, along with one case example wherein innocent people were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death before being cleared. And then, I will look at modern-day recognition that the death penalty risks the execution of innocent people.
Likely Wrongful Executions
There are a variety of cases wherein it is very likely that innocent people have been executed, as established by facts, circumstances, and statements from people involved, in one way or another, which can show a reasonable basis upon which to believe that the executed individual was likely innocent. These case summaries are taken from the Death Penalty Information Center.
Ruben Cantu
A two-part investigative series by the Houston Chronicle casts serious doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was executed in 1993. Ruben Cantu had persistently proclaimed his innocence and was only 17 when he was charged with capital murder for the shooting death of a San Antonio man during an attempted robbery. Now, the prosecutor and the jury forewoman have expressed doubts about the case.
Moreover, both a key eyewitness in the state’s case against Cantu, and Cantu’s co-defendant, have come forward to say that Texas executed an innocent man. Juan Moreno, who was wounded during the attempted robbery and was a key eyewitness in the case against Cantu, now says that it was not Cantu who shot him and that he only identified Cantu as the shooter because he felt pressured, and was afraid of the authorities.
Moreno said that he twice told police that Cantu was not his assailant, but that the authorities continued to pressure him to identify Cantu as the shooter after Cantu was involved in an unrelated wounding of a police officer.
“The police were sure it was (Cantu) because he had hurt a police officer. They told me they were certain it was him, and that’s why I testified. . . . That was bad to blame someone that was not there,” Moreno told the Chronicle.
In addition, David Garza, Cantu’s co-defendant during his 1985 trial, recently signed a sworn affidavit saying that he allowed Cantu to be accused and executed even though he wasn’t with him on the night of the killing. Garza stated, “Part of me died when he died.
You’ve got a 17-year-old who went to his grave for something he did not do. Texas murdered an innocent person.” Furthermore, Sam D. Millsap, Jr., the Bexar County District Attorney who charged Cantu with capital murder, said he never should have sought the death penalty in a case based on testimony from an eyewitness who identified a suspect only after police showed him Cantu’s photo three separate times.
And, Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu, said the jury’s decision was the best they could do based on the information
presented during the trial. She noted, “With a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we’d have gotten the right information. The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that.”
Larry Griffin
A year-long investigation by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has uncovered evidence that Larry Griffin may have been innocent of the crime for which he was executed by the State of Missouri on June 21, 1995. Griffin maintained his innocence until his death, and investigators say his case is the strongest demonstration yet of an execution of an innocent man. The report notes that a man injured in the same drive-by shooting that claimed the life of Quintin Moss says Griffin was not involved in the crime, and the first police officer on the scene has given a new account that undermines the trial testimony of the only witness who identified Griffin as the murderer.
Based on its findings, the NAACP has supplied the prosecution with the names of three men it suspects committed the crime, and all three of the suspects are currently in jail for other murders. Prosecutor Jennifer Joyce said she has reopened the investigation and will conduct a comprehensive review of the case over the next few months. “There is no real doubt that we have an innocent person. If we could go to trial on this case, if there was a forum where we could take this to trial, we would win hands down,” stated University of Michigan law professor
Samuel Gross, who supervised the investigation into Griffin’s case.
Joseph O’Dell
New DNA blood evidence has thrown considerable doubt on the murder and rape conviction of O’Dell. In reviewing his case in 1991, three Supreme Court Justices said they had doubts about O’Dell’s guilt and whether he should have been allowed to represent himself. Without
the blood evidence, there is little linking O’Dell to the crime. In September, 1996, the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated his death sentence and upheld his conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review O’Dell’s claims of innocence and held that its decision regarding juries being told about the alternative sentence of life-without-parole was not retroactive to his case. O’Dell asked the state to conduct DNA tests on other pieces of evidence to demonstrate his innocence but was refused.
David Spence
Spence was charged with murdering three teenagers in 1982. He was allegedly hired by a convenience store owner to kill another girl, and killed these victims by mistake. The convenience store owner, Muneer Deeb, was originally convicted and sentenced to death, but then was acquitted at a re-trial. The police lieutenant who supervised the investigation of Spence, Marvin Horton, later concluded: “I do not think David Spence committed this crime.”
Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective who actually conducted the investigation, said: “My opinion is that David Spence was innocent. Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved.” No physical evidence connected Spence to the crime. The case against Spence was pursued by a zealous narcotics cop who relied on testimony of prison inmates who were granted favors in return
for testimony.
Leo Jones
Jones was convicted of murdering a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida, and was executed. Jones signed a confession after several hours of police interrogation, but he later claimed the confession was coerced. In the mid-1980s, the policeman who arrested Jones and the detective who took his confession were forced out of uniform for ethical violations. The policeman was later identified by a fellow officer as an “enforcer” who had used torture. Many witnesses came forward pointing to another suspect in the case.
Gary Graham
On June 23, 2000, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, despite claims that he was innocent. Graham was 17 when he was charged with the 1981 robbery and shooting of Bobby Lambert outside a Houston supermarket. He was convicted primarily on the testimony of one witness, Bernadine Skillern, who said she saw the killer’s face for a few seconds through her car windshield, from a distance of 30-40 feet away.
Two other witnesses, who both worked at the grocery store and said they got a good look at the assailant, said Graham was not the killer, but
were never interviewed by Graham’s court-appointed attorney, Ronald Mock, and were not called to testify at trial. Three of the jurors who voted to convict Graham signed affidavits saying they would have voted differently had all of the evidence been available.
Cameron Willingham
After examining evidence from the capital prosecution of Cameron Willingham, four national arson experts have concluded that the original investigation of Willingham’s case was flawed and it is possible the fire was accidental. The independent investigation, reported by the Chicago
Tribune, found that prosecutors and arson investigators used arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances.
Willingham was executed earlier this year in Texas despite his consistent claims of innocence. He was convicted of murdering his three children in a
1991 house fire. Arson expert Gerald Hurst said, “There’s nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire. It was just a fire.” Former Louisiana State University fire instructor Kendall Ryland added, “[It] made me sick to think this guy was executed based on this investigation....
They executed this guy and they’ve just got no idea - at least not scientifically - if he set the fire, or if the fire was even intentionally set.” Willingham was convicted of capital murder after arson investigators concluded that 20 indicators of arson led them to believe that an accelerant had been used to set three separate fires inside his home. Among the only other evidence presented by prosecutors during the trial was testimony from jailhouse snitch Johnny E. Webb, a drug addict on psychiatric medication, who claimed Willingham had confessed to him in the county jail.
Some of the jurors who convicted Willingham were troubled when told of the new case review. Juror Dorinda Brokofsky asked, “Did anybody know
about this prior to his execution? Now I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. Maybe this man was innocent.” Prior to the execution, Willingham’s defense attorneys presented expert testimony regarding the new arson investigation to the state’s highest court, as well as to Texas Governor Rick Perry.
No relief was granted and Willingham was executed February 17, 2004. Coincidentally, less than a year after Willingham’s execution, arson evidence presented by some of the same experts who had appealed for relief in Willingham’s case helped free Ernest Willis from Texas’ death row. The experts noted that the evidence in the Willingham case was nearly identical to the evidence used to exonerate Willis.
Near Misses
There have been a variety of cases where innocent people have come frighteningly close to being executed. These cases also show, clearly, how
innocent people can be wrongfully convicted, sentenced to death and executed.
Kenneth Foster
Foster and several of his friends went on a crime spree in Texas in 1997. Eventually the crime spree ended, but Foster never parted company with one of his friends, Maurecio Brown. On the way home, Brown left the car to talk to a woman. An argument ensued that soon involved her boyfriend. Brown claimed that the victim reached into his jeans, which he interpreted as reaching for a gun. Brown pulled out his gun and killed
the victim some 100 yards in front of the car that Foster was in.
Foster had no idea that Brown would do this and the crime was not a part of their criminal conduct; he had simply made the mistake of not parting company with him. Nonetheless, he had been sentenced to death. Based upon a groundswell of grass roots support, extensive media coverage and editorials, national and international support, Foster’s death sentence was commuted on noon of the day that he was scheduled to be executed, August 30, 2007.
Ron Williamson
Ron Williamson was wrongfully convicted of murder in Oklahoma in 1998, along with his co-defendant Dennis Fritz. Williamson received the
death penalty, whereas Fritz received life in prison. The Innocence Project summarizes his case this way: An inmate that Fritz was paired with eventually came forward and stated that Fritz had confessed to the murder. This jailhouse snitch gave a two hour taped interview revealing what Fritz had allegedly confessed to him. This confession came one day before the prosecution would have been forced to drop the charges against
Fritz. Another informant testified that she had heard Williamson threaten to harm his mother as he had the victim.
Williamson was also seen at the bar the night of the murder, according to a witness named Glenn Gore. Additionally, police had statements from
Williamson regarding a dream he had about the crime.
Forensic testing was performed on various items of evidence. Seventeen hairs were recovered and were “matched” to both Fritz and Williamson.
The semen evidence suggested that the perpetrator(s) were non-secretors, as Fritz and Williamson are. Fritz could not remember his exact thereabouts during the day of the crime due to the amount of time, five years, that had passed. DNA testing revealed that neither Fritz nor Williamson deposited the spermatozoa found in the victim. Further testing proved that none of the many hairs that were labeled “matches”
belonged to them. The profile obtained from the semen evidence matched Glenn Gore. At one point, Williamson had come within 5 days of execution.
Earl Washington
Washington was arrested for murder and rape in Virginia. The Innocence Project summarizes his case this way: He had an IQ in the range of 69. Following questioning for two days, police claimed that he had confessed to five different crimes. The state dismissed the confessions of the first four because of the inconsistencies. They charged him with the fifth murder, however, despite not knowing the race of the victim, the address of the apartment where she was killed, or that he had raped her.
Washington also testified that Ms. Williams had been short when in fact she was 5’8”, that he had stabbed her two or three times when the victim showed thirty-eight stab wounds, and that there was no one else in the apartment when it was known that Ms. Williams’ two young children were with her in the apartment on the day of the crime.
Only on the fourth attempt at a rehearsed confession did authorities accept Washington’s statement and have it recorded in writing with Washington’s signature. He only picked out the scene of the crime after being taken there three times in one afternoon by the police, who in the end had to help him pick out Williams’ apartment. The confession proved to be the prosecution’s only evidence linking Washington to the crime.
Psychological analyses of Washington reported that, to compensate for his disability, Washington would politely defer to any authority figure
with whom he came into contact. Thus, when police officers asked Washington leading questions in order to obtain a confession, he complied and offered affirmative responses in order to gain their approval. At trial, only the State’s psychologist testified, claiming that Washington was competent when his statement was given.
The prosecution’s case hinged on Washington’s statements as well as his identification of a shirt given to the police by the victim’s family six weeks after the crime. A forensic analyst conducted serology testing on evidence from the crime scene and detected a rare plasma protein. Once Washington, who does not possess the rare protein, became a suspect, an amended forensic report was prepared (without additional testing being conducted) that said testing for the rare protein was “inconclusive.”
DNA testing in 1993 proved his innocence, but his death sentence was merely commuted in 1994. It took 6 more years before he was allowed to
have more sophisticated DNA testing, which ultimately resulted in his being pardoned based upon innocence. At one point, Washington came
within 9 days of execution.
Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Should Our Courts Be
Creating Deadbeat Parents?
The current recession has affected many local residents severely. When faced with the loss of a job, clients or customers, or a cut in pay, workers must cut costs and live off of savings, if any, to survive. But for many workers, divorced parents who have child support obligations, cutting back is not an option. If child support payments are not met, those parents will face the loss of their driver’s license,
limiting their ability to work and pay the support even further. Parents who do not pay child support also face contempt of court charges
and fines.
On April 21st, the Westchester Women’s Bar Association’s Matrimonial, Families, Children and the Courts Committees hosted a program entitled “Substantive and Procedural Law Applicable to the Modification of Child Support and Maintenance.”The speakers at this event included Hon. Esther R. Furman, a Support Magistrate in the Family Court in White Plains, Hon. Linda S. Jamieson, a judge in the Westchester Supreme Court, and Hon. Josephine Trovini, a court Attorney and Special Referee in the Westchester Supreme Court.
The invitation for this event was only forwarded to members of the WWBA or anyone astute enough to access this on their website. Local
parents and Pro Se litigants, those unable to afford to be awarded attorneys, usually middle-class litigants, were not invited to get this critical
information direct from the judges’ and magistrates’ mouths.
No notices of this seminar were posted on the Pro Se website for the Westchester Courts or distributed to unrepresented litigants in matrimonial and support issues in Family and Supreme Court.
The Court’s standards for changing child support, called a “modification” by the courts, places the burden on the individual who applies
for the change. Child support may only be changed due to very limited circumstances. The support laws were not written by accountants or
economists, so they do not consider economic reality, e.g. the courts do not recognize inflation as a basis for increasing support, and therefore do not automatically increase child support each year for such increases.
To be able to petition the court for an increase in support due to higher expenses, a parent must submit evidence that their expenses increased. But the courts do recognize inflation as a legitimate basis for automatic increases in other areas.
Court employees, including magistrates and court attorneys, receive automatic cost-of-living increases each year to their taxpayer-subsidized
incomes, regardless of merit. Therefore, from the Court’s perspective, highly-paid court lawyers are automatically entitled to more money each year based on inflation, children are not.
There are other child support areas where our courts defy economic reality and other laws governing economic issues. New York State laws
continue to define emancipation for children as age 21, even though most students are still in college at that age and are not self-supporting.
The federal government is more realistic; the Internal Revenue Service recognizes that a child may still be a student until age 25 and allows
for a parent to claim that child as a dependent until such age; New York State laws, however, continue to contradict the federal laws.
The courts also do not recognize the increased expenses of a teenager as a basis for additional child support nor do they consider subsequent
care-giving responsibilities for other family members, which may limit a parent’s ability to work.
For example, a mother, who received initial child support for two young children possibly a decade ago, could find herself stuck with
living on that same level of support when those children are teenagers facing significant college prep and sports team’s travel expenses at a time when she may also be faced with downsizing to part-time work to care for aging parents.
Chances are that mother’s ex-husband has moved on and remarried, more than likely to a significantly “younger model”. Ex’s new wife, if still in her prime fertile years, will undoubtedly want a family of her own. The courts, in their “logic”, will actually grant the ex and his trophy wife a reduction in his child support payments to his first wife and two children, since additional children are recognized as a legal “change of circumstances”! So, in this not-so-hypothetical situation, not only does the first wife have more expenses for their older children, and less income thanks to caring for her parents, she now gets less child support because her ex can’t control his biological urges. And, consequently, her ex now has more money to spend on the woman who may have been the reason for the divorce to begin with! This common deadbeat dad scenario is all perfectly legal and actually sanctioned by our “justice” system.
Ironically, that same mother could also find her current child support based on her “ability” to earn, rather than on actual economic reality. The courts have consistently ruled that “earning capacity may be based on prior earnings, past employment experience, training, and education”.
So, if that mother used to be a highly-paid engineer, and she now works part-time as a consultant to care for a dying father, she will not qualify for an increase in child support due to her loss in income because the courts will rule that, as a trained engineer, she should be earning more money. She will actually be penalized by our legal system for “honoring her father and her mother”. Our courts clearly do not adhere to those ten basic laws, probably why they don’t hang them in the courthouse as reminders.
One of the attendees at the “Substantive and Procedural Law Applicable to the Modification of Child Support and Maintenance” program reported back to the Guardian on this event. Our source informed us that the above scenario was addressed by the judges and magistrates on this forum. Their attitude?
Esther Furman actually told the audience of lawyers, “If a man gets married again and has more children you have to look at that”, implying that she would grant these fathers a reduction in their child support obligations without noting that dad’s ability to sire additional progeny should not be used as a weapon against his existing children. Furman never noted why it was the responsibility of the children of the first marriage to subsidize the
children of a second relationship by having their child support reduced.
If mom/dad is capable of producing more children, shouldn’t they be equally responsible to work more hours/jobs to pay for those children? And why are the courts implying to the attorneys who appear before them that they support giving the first family “sloppy seconds”?
If parents were held fully responsible for their actions by our laws and our courts, including adultery and multiple child-producing relationships, perhaps our society might witness less of this behavior. None of the members of this forum noted the questionable ethics and inappropriateness of having judges and magistrates giving what amounted to a “head’s up” on their rulings to the attorneys who regularly appear before them.
The female members of the WWBA also never addressed the fact that most of the local parents who can afford lawyers are fathers. Those lawyers would have been in attendance at this program to garner the critical strategic insider information from the judicial officials on the forum.
But the local parents who are able to afford lawyers are usually stay-at-home mothers. Without a lawyer, or a direct invitation to, or knowledge of, this event, these mothers had no way to get access to this same insider information and would consequently be at an even greater disadvantage when facing their “lawyered up” ex-spouses in court. So this program was essentially discrimination against women. And sanctioned by the Women’s Bar Association.
To be a successful deadbeat parent, all you need to do in Westchester County is become a member of the local bar associations. If you can afford their annual fees, you will then obtain full access to their insider information and invitations to similar “meet and greet” events with the judges on your child support case. A “contribution” of $250 last week to the WWBA would have bought you an invite to Judge Sondra Miller’s home; Judge
Miller was the chair of the New York State Unified Court System’s powerful Matrimonial Commission and a Westchester Supreme Court and New York State Appellate Court judge.
Not to be outdone by the women, the Westchester County Bar Association offers many of their programs for free, subsidized by taxpayers. The WCB is announcing on their website that local lawyers may do a free “meet and greet” with the Surrogate’s Court, getting free refreshments and even continuing education credits to boot.
The Westchester County Surrogate’s Court and the WCBA’s Trusts & Estates Section will present an Advanced CLE Seminar on Wednesday, May 6, on Contested Probate Proceedings. This free seminar will take place at the Surrogate’s Courtroom, Room 1800, at 111 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., 18th Floor, from 12 - 2pm. Attendees will receive 2 CLE credits. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Joseph M. Accetta, Esq. at (914) 824-5655. This reporter called Joseph Acceta to request admission to this seminar. Acceta informed us that “this was only for attorneys”. So, according to our courts, only lawyers may have direct access to the judges to hear how cases like theirs will be handled; Pro Se litigants and family members are not allowed to attend, denying them equal access to our courts.
Considering that this seminar is being held in a taxpayer-funded facility, during Court hours, no one may be denied access. If the court wants to limit this to lawyers only, then this seminar must be held off-site in a private facility. Otherwise, this must be open to all taxpayers since it is our
money that is paying for it! The courts have been guilty of this bad behavior in the past; the Guardian wrote of another free seminar offered to attorneys only last August, 2008. Clearly Surrogate’s Court ignored the Guardian’s criticisms of their misuse of taxpayers’ funds noted in that article.
So what does a parent with limited or no financial resources to do when faced with a moneyed parent who has direct access to judges, influencing the outcome of their child support cases? One source is Pace University’s Women’s Justice Center which notes it “sponsors and conducts lectures, seminars, trainings and free legal walk-in clinics on various issues, including domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, divorce, custody, child support, VAWA immigration, teen dating violence, elder law, elder abuse, and other issues”. The Justice Center offers its programs to all, and may be reached at 914-422-4069 or at www.pace.edu.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Should Our Courts Be
Creating Deadbeat Parents?
The current recession has affected many local residents severely. When faced with the loss of a job, clients or customers, or a cut in pay, workers must cut costs and live off of savings, if any, to survive. But for many workers, divorced parents who have child support obligations, cutting back is not an option. If child support payments are not met, those parents will face the loss of their driver’s license,
limiting their ability to work and pay the support even further. Parents who do not pay child support also face contempt of court charges
and fines.
On April 21st, the Westchester Women’s Bar Association’s Matrimonial, Families, Children and the Courts Committees hosted a program entitled “Substantive and Procedural Law Applicable to the Modification of Child Support and Maintenance.”The speakers at this event included Hon. Esther R. Furman, a Support Magistrate in the Family Court in White Plains, Hon. Linda S. Jamieson, a judge in the Westchester Supreme Court, and Hon. Josephine Trovini, a court Attorney and Special Referee in the Westchester Supreme Court.
The invitation for this event was only forwarded to members of the WWBA or anyone astute enough to access this on their website. Local
parents and Pro Se litigants, those unable to afford to be awarded attorneys, usually middle-class litigants, were not invited to get this critical
information direct from the judges’ and magistrates’ mouths.
No notices of this seminar were posted on the Pro Se website for the Westchester Courts or distributed to unrepresented litigants in matrimonial and support issues in Family and Supreme Court.
The Court’s standards for changing child support, called a “modification” by the courts, places the burden on the individual who applies
for the change. Child support may only be changed due to very limited circumstances. The support laws were not written by accountants or
economists, so they do not consider economic reality, e.g. the courts do not recognize inflation as a basis for increasing support, and therefore do not automatically increase child support each year for such increases.
To be able to petition the court for an increase in support due to higher expenses, a parent must submit evidence that their expenses increased. But the courts do recognize inflation as a legitimate basis for automatic increases in other areas.
Court employees, including magistrates and court attorneys, receive automatic cost-of-living increases each year to their taxpayer-subsidized
incomes, regardless of merit. Therefore, from the Court’s perspective, highly-paid court lawyers are automatically entitled to more money each year based on inflation, children are not.
There are other child support areas where our courts defy economic reality and other laws governing economic issues. New York State laws
continue to define emancipation for children as age 21, even though most students are still in college at that age and are not self-supporting.
The federal government is more realistic; the Internal Revenue Service recognizes that a child may still be a student until age 25 and allows
for a parent to claim that child as a dependent until such age; New York State laws, however, continue to contradict the federal laws.
The courts also do not recognize the increased expenses of a teenager as a basis for additional child support nor do they consider subsequent
care-giving responsibilities for other family members, which may limit a parent’s ability to work.
For example, a mother, who received initial child support for two young children possibly a decade ago, could find herself stuck with
living on that same level of support when those children are teenagers facing significant college prep and sports team’s travel expenses at a time when she may also be faced with downsizing to part-time work to care for aging parents.
Chances are that mother’s ex-husband has moved on and remarried, more than likely to a significantly “younger model”. Ex’s new wife, if still in her prime fertile years, will undoubtedly want a family of her own. The courts, in their “logic”, will actually grant the ex and his trophy wife a reduction in his child support payments to his first wife and two children, since additional children are recognized as a legal “change of circumstances”! So, in this not-so-hypothetical situation, not only does the first wife have more expenses for their older children, and less income thanks to caring for her parents, she now gets less child support because her ex can’t control his biological urges. And, consequently, her ex now has more money to spend on the woman who may have been the reason for the divorce to begin with! This common deadbeat dad scenario is all perfectly legal and actually sanctioned by our “justice” system.
Ironically, that same mother could also find her current child support based on her “ability” to earn, rather than on actual economic reality. The courts have consistently ruled that “earning capacity may be based on prior earnings, past employment experience, training, and education”.
So, if that mother used to be a highly-paid engineer, and she now works part-time as a consultant to care for a dying father, she will not qualify for an increase in child support due to her loss in income because the courts will rule that, as a trained engineer, she should be earning more money. She will actually be penalized by our legal system for “honoring her father and her mother”. Our courts clearly do not adhere to those ten basic laws, probably why they don’t hang them in the courthouse as reminders.
One of the attendees at the “Substantive and Procedural Law Applicable to the Modification of Child Support and Maintenance” program reported back to the Guardian on this event. Our source informed us that the above scenario was addressed by the judges and magistrates on this forum. Their attitude?
Esther Furman actually told the audience of lawyers, “If a man gets married again and has more children you have to look at that”, implying that she would grant these fathers a reduction in their child support obligations without noting that dad’s ability to sire additional progeny should not be used as a weapon against his existing children. Furman never noted why it was the responsibility of the children of the first marriage to subsidize the
children of a second relationship by having their child support reduced.
If mom/dad is capable of producing more children, shouldn’t they be equally responsible to work more hours/jobs to pay for those children? And why are the courts implying to the attorneys who appear before them that they support giving the first family “sloppy seconds”?
If parents were held fully responsible for their actions by our laws and our courts, including adultery and multiple child-producing relationships, perhaps our society might witness less of this behavior. None of the members of this forum noted the questionable ethics and inappropriateness of having judges and magistrates giving what amounted to a “head’s up” on their rulings to the attorneys who regularly appear before them.
The female members of the WWBA also never addressed the fact that most of the local parents who can afford lawyers are fathers. Those lawyers would have been in attendance at this program to garner the critical strategic insider information from the judicial officials on the forum.
But the local parents who are able to afford lawyers are usually stay-at-home mothers. Without a lawyer, or a direct invitation to, or knowledge of, this event, these mothers had no way to get access to this same insider information and would consequently be at an even greater disadvantage when facing their “lawyered up” ex-spouses in court. So this program was essentially discrimination against women. And sanctioned by the Women’s Bar Association.
To be a successful deadbeat parent, all you need to do in Westchester County is become a member of the local bar associations. If you can afford their annual fees, you will then obtain full access to their insider information and invitations to similar “meet and greet” events with the judges on your child support case. A “contribution” of $250 last week to the WWBA would have bought you an invite to Judge Sondra Miller’s home; Judge
Miller was the chair of the New York State Unified Court System’s powerful Matrimonial Commission and a Westchester Supreme Court and New York State Appellate Court judge.
Not to be outdone by the women, the Westchester County Bar Association offers many of their programs for free, subsidized by taxpayers. The WCB is announcing on their website that local lawyers may do a free “meet and greet” with the Surrogate’s Court, getting free refreshments and even continuing education credits to boot.
The Westchester County Surrogate’s Court and the WCBA’s Trusts & Estates Section will present an Advanced CLE Seminar on Wednesday, May 6, on Contested Probate Proceedings. This free seminar will take place at the Surrogate’s Courtroom, Room 1800, at 111 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., 18th Floor, from 12 - 2pm. Attendees will receive 2 CLE credits. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Joseph M. Accetta, Esq. at (914) 824-5655. This reporter called Joseph Acceta to request admission to this seminar. Acceta informed us that “this was only for attorneys”. So, according to our courts, only lawyers may have direct access to the judges to hear how cases like theirs will be handled; Pro Se litigants and family members are not allowed to attend, denying them equal access to our courts.
Considering that this seminar is being held in a taxpayer-funded facility, during Court hours, no one may be denied access. If the court wants to limit this to lawyers only, then this seminar must be held off-site in a private facility. Otherwise, this must be open to all taxpayers since it is our
money that is paying for it! The courts have been guilty of this bad behavior in the past; the Guardian wrote of another free seminar offered to attorneys only last August, 2008. Clearly Surrogate’s Court ignored the Guardian’s criticisms of their misuse of taxpayers’ funds noted in that article.
So what does a parent with limited or no financial resources to do when faced with a moneyed parent who has direct access to judges, influencing the outcome of their child support cases? One source is Pace University’s Women’s Justice Center which notes it “sponsors and conducts lectures, seminars, trainings and free legal walk-in clinics on various issues, including domestic violence, sexual assault, trafficking, divorce, custody, child support, VAWA immigration, teen dating violence, elder law, elder abuse, and other issues”. The Justice Center offers its programs to all, and may be reached at 914-422-4069 or at www.pace.edu.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Janet Difiore and Christopher Ridley Case.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Four Brave Witnesses Tell The Truth About
Murder Of Officer Christopher Ridley
DA DiFiore’s Deceitful Scheme Exposed
Last Wednesday morning, four courageous individuals came forward at a press conference called by Civil Rights Attorney Jonathan Lovett at the site on Court Street, in White Plains, where Mount Vernon Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life at the hands of brother officers some 15 months earlier, in an effort to reveal to the Westchester community what they had witnessed.
The tone and the content of the questions from News12 reporter Brian Conybeare and Journal News reporters Richard Liebson and Shawn Cohen were such that their pro-DiFiore bias could not have been more obvious. Conybeare insultingly asked Lovett if he had paid the witnesses to come forward.
One would have thought these three reporters were DiFiore’s legal defense team engaged in cross-examination. After all, why shouldn’t we believe her?
• This is the DA whose spouse tried to bribe Attorney Anthony DiCintio, the Right-To-Life candidate for DA to withdraw from
the race in 2005 because she was running as a Republican then, and theorized that most Right-To-Life voters would vote Republican
in the absence of their own candidate;
• This is the DA who lied and said she had prosecuted 2,000 cases as an Assistant DA when she ran for County Court against Les Adler. In truth, she had prosecuted only 12 cases, all misdemeanors;
• This is the DA who covered up rogue cop Wayne Simoes; instead prosecuting his innocent victim, Irma Marquez, who he had brutally body-slammed. She has done the same to Rui Florim, nearly beaten to death by six other rogue Yonkers cops, as well as to countless other victims of Yonkers police brutality. The United States Justice Department has stepped in to the Marquez case and is prosecuting violent Police Officer Simoes despite the DA’s attempt to cover up his criminal assault;
• This is the DA who continued to hide 376 pages, 52 boxes, and miles of secretly audio-taped conversations, all exculpatory to Anthony DiSimone until the federal courts demanded that she turn them over, and released Mr. DiSimone, who had served seven years in prison for a murder he was clearly innocent of, and to which the actual killer had confessed.
• This is the DA from whose Office 72 attorneys and investigators had resigned at last count. And, we are supposed to believe
she is telling the truth about the murder of heroic, young police officer, Christpher Ridley? We think not.
Stanley Ridley, Officer Ridley’s dad, has been very hurt by DiFiore’s cruel effort to discredit his son’s actions. Thanking
the four witnesses who unselfishly came forward to share the truth no matter what reprisal, what retaliation doing so might
bring, Mr. Ridley told them, “My son died taking care of people, and they are trying to make him look reckless. Nothing they put in my way will keep me from getting out the truth.”
One witness, John Fiumara, told reporters, “I told DiFiore shooting Officer Ridley in the head was uneccessary, and an execution; and, she told me ‘Don’t say that in Court.’” Obviously she did not want the grand jurors to know the truth.
Attorney Jonathan Lovett, who has filed federal lawsuits on behalf of Officer Ridley’s dad, Stanley Ridley, as well as on behalf of Efrem Burgos, the witness dubbed ‘The Good Samaritan’, for having gotten violent perpetrator Anthony Jacobs away from his elderly victim, told reporters, “The big lie will not stand. The truth is coming out. It was a polarizing event. A White cop shoots a Black cop.” He went on, “If the DA will release all of the footage from all of the cameras, we might see what really happened.” Each of the four eyewitnesses who came forward on Wednesday were put before a grand jury by Janet DiFiore, and, therefore, were deemed by her to be credible, trustworthy, and knowledgeable witnesses. She can not now attempt to discredit, or impeach what they are saying with respect to the manner in which Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life by an uneccessary shot to his head. She cannot erase what they each witnessed at close range just because when one of them, John Fiumara, told her to her face, “It was an uneccessary execution,” she told him, “Don’t say that in court.”
Neither can she brush off the fact that when asked by a grand juror directly, Efrem Burgos expressed the same opinion, that the shot to the head was uneccessary, but the Assistant DA controlling his appearance, declared, “Strike that.” Janet DiFiore cannot, now, avoid the inconvenient truth, the horrible, traumatic experience of witnessing the murder of a young man, a heroic police officer, at close range, and being compelled to keep that shocking experience bottled up for 15 months because someone who was sworn to search for the truth, used the power of her Office to keep it hidden for political and self-preserving reasons.
Each one of those four witnesses who spoke out publicly on Wednesday, David Boudreau, Kathy Allan, John Fiumara, and Efrem Burgos, expressed to this reporter their relief and their gratitude for the opportunity to publicly reveal what they, and others, have been forced to keep from the family of Officer Ridley and the Westchester community by the District Attorney and her agents.
It’s amazing what lengths certain media persons will go to in order to protect the sitting district attorney from exposure. The handling of the Ridley investigation is but one example. When you have a cable channel such as Cablevision’s News 12 that was not only granted their monopolistic franchise by the County Executive, but was also given a $22.5 million no-bid contract to their Lightpath subsidiary for a failed communication system in March 2000 by that same County Executive, you will do everything that you can, everything that Brian Conybeare and Janine Rose are now doing, to protect and promote the County Executive’s, Andy Spano’s, “partner in crime.” They did it for Jeanine Pirro, and now they’re doing it for Janet DiFiore.
Last Thursday, Conybeare spent hours on Court Street in White Plains searching for someone, anyone, who might contradict what four eyewitnesses to the murder of Police Officer Christopher Ridley revealed at a press conference the day before. They, News12, who had the images from four cameras out of nine that were in range, “exclusively” as they put it, were also in control of the particular clips from each that they showed. Of course they were; they were the only so-called news source that DiFiore knew she could trust to keep her secret.
As far as News 12’s witness, David Hess, is concerned, his claim that they did not see what happened, is totally wrong. Dave Boudreau was standing directly across the street at the time of the shooting. Kathy Allan had a clear view through the window of the van in which she was seated. John Fiumara was right there, behind Hess, outside the passenger side of the van, and Efrem Burgos, in fact, viewed the shooting by Officer Oliveri through the windows of the taxi.
Richard Blassberg
Four Brave Witnesses Tell The Truth About
Murder Of Officer Christopher Ridley
DA DiFiore’s Deceitful Scheme Exposed
Last Wednesday morning, four courageous individuals came forward at a press conference called by Civil Rights Attorney Jonathan Lovett at the site on Court Street, in White Plains, where Mount Vernon Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life at the hands of brother officers some 15 months earlier, in an effort to reveal to the Westchester community what they had witnessed.
The tone and the content of the questions from News12 reporter Brian Conybeare and Journal News reporters Richard Liebson and Shawn Cohen were such that their pro-DiFiore bias could not have been more obvious. Conybeare insultingly asked Lovett if he had paid the witnesses to come forward.
One would have thought these three reporters were DiFiore’s legal defense team engaged in cross-examination. After all, why shouldn’t we believe her?
• This is the DA whose spouse tried to bribe Attorney Anthony DiCintio, the Right-To-Life candidate for DA to withdraw from
the race in 2005 because she was running as a Republican then, and theorized that most Right-To-Life voters would vote Republican
in the absence of their own candidate;
• This is the DA who lied and said she had prosecuted 2,000 cases as an Assistant DA when she ran for County Court against Les Adler. In truth, she had prosecuted only 12 cases, all misdemeanors;
• This is the DA who covered up rogue cop Wayne Simoes; instead prosecuting his innocent victim, Irma Marquez, who he had brutally body-slammed. She has done the same to Rui Florim, nearly beaten to death by six other rogue Yonkers cops, as well as to countless other victims of Yonkers police brutality. The United States Justice Department has stepped in to the Marquez case and is prosecuting violent Police Officer Simoes despite the DA’s attempt to cover up his criminal assault;
• This is the DA who continued to hide 376 pages, 52 boxes, and miles of secretly audio-taped conversations, all exculpatory to Anthony DiSimone until the federal courts demanded that she turn them over, and released Mr. DiSimone, who had served seven years in prison for a murder he was clearly innocent of, and to which the actual killer had confessed.
• This is the DA from whose Office 72 attorneys and investigators had resigned at last count. And, we are supposed to believe
she is telling the truth about the murder of heroic, young police officer, Christpher Ridley? We think not.
Stanley Ridley, Officer Ridley’s dad, has been very hurt by DiFiore’s cruel effort to discredit his son’s actions. Thanking
the four witnesses who unselfishly came forward to share the truth no matter what reprisal, what retaliation doing so might
bring, Mr. Ridley told them, “My son died taking care of people, and they are trying to make him look reckless. Nothing they put in my way will keep me from getting out the truth.”
One witness, John Fiumara, told reporters, “I told DiFiore shooting Officer Ridley in the head was uneccessary, and an execution; and, she told me ‘Don’t say that in Court.’” Obviously she did not want the grand jurors to know the truth.
Attorney Jonathan Lovett, who has filed federal lawsuits on behalf of Officer Ridley’s dad, Stanley Ridley, as well as on behalf of Efrem Burgos, the witness dubbed ‘The Good Samaritan’, for having gotten violent perpetrator Anthony Jacobs away from his elderly victim, told reporters, “The big lie will not stand. The truth is coming out. It was a polarizing event. A White cop shoots a Black cop.” He went on, “If the DA will release all of the footage from all of the cameras, we might see what really happened.” Each of the four eyewitnesses who came forward on Wednesday were put before a grand jury by Janet DiFiore, and, therefore, were deemed by her to be credible, trustworthy, and knowledgeable witnesses. She can not now attempt to discredit, or impeach what they are saying with respect to the manner in which Police Officer Christopher Ridley lost his life by an uneccessary shot to his head. She cannot erase what they each witnessed at close range just because when one of them, John Fiumara, told her to her face, “It was an uneccessary execution,” she told him, “Don’t say that in court.”
Neither can she brush off the fact that when asked by a grand juror directly, Efrem Burgos expressed the same opinion, that the shot to the head was uneccessary, but the Assistant DA controlling his appearance, declared, “Strike that.” Janet DiFiore cannot, now, avoid the inconvenient truth, the horrible, traumatic experience of witnessing the murder of a young man, a heroic police officer, at close range, and being compelled to keep that shocking experience bottled up for 15 months because someone who was sworn to search for the truth, used the power of her Office to keep it hidden for political and self-preserving reasons.
Each one of those four witnesses who spoke out publicly on Wednesday, David Boudreau, Kathy Allan, John Fiumara, and Efrem Burgos, expressed to this reporter their relief and their gratitude for the opportunity to publicly reveal what they, and others, have been forced to keep from the family of Officer Ridley and the Westchester community by the District Attorney and her agents.
It’s amazing what lengths certain media persons will go to in order to protect the sitting district attorney from exposure. The handling of the Ridley investigation is but one example. When you have a cable channel such as Cablevision’s News 12 that was not only granted their monopolistic franchise by the County Executive, but was also given a $22.5 million no-bid contract to their Lightpath subsidiary for a failed communication system in March 2000 by that same County Executive, you will do everything that you can, everything that Brian Conybeare and Janine Rose are now doing, to protect and promote the County Executive’s, Andy Spano’s, “partner in crime.” They did it for Jeanine Pirro, and now they’re doing it for Janet DiFiore.
Last Thursday, Conybeare spent hours on Court Street in White Plains searching for someone, anyone, who might contradict what four eyewitnesses to the murder of Police Officer Christopher Ridley revealed at a press conference the day before. They, News12, who had the images from four cameras out of nine that were in range, “exclusively” as they put it, were also in control of the particular clips from each that they showed. Of course they were; they were the only so-called news source that DiFiore knew she could trust to keep her secret.
As far as News 12’s witness, David Hess, is concerned, his claim that they did not see what happened, is totally wrong. Dave Boudreau was standing directly across the street at the time of the shooting. Kathy Allan had a clear view through the window of the van in which she was seated. John Fiumara was right there, behind Hess, outside the passenger side of the van, and Efrem Burgos, in fact, viewed the shooting by Officer Oliveri through the windows of the taxi.
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