Archive for the ‘Law’ Category

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Obit watch: January 24, 2025.

Friday, January 24th, 2025

Aaron De Groft. I don’t think many people will recognize the name, but his story allows me to indulge one of this blog’s interests: art crime.

Mr. De Groft was the director of the Orlando Museum of Art.

In February 2022, the Orlando Museum of Art opened a blockbuster exhibition of 25 paintings that Mr. [Jean-Michel] Basquiat was said to have created in 1982, when he was 22 and living in Venice, Calif.
Mr. De Groft said that Mr. Basquiat had sold the artworks, most of them painted and drawn on slabs of cardboard, for $5,000 in cash, and that they had languished for decades in a Los Angeles storage unit. In 2012, Mr. De Groft said, the storage unit was foreclosed for lack of payment and the contents auctioned off. A little-known dealer purchased the artworks for about $15,000.

Mr. Basquiat is a big deal in the art world, and this was a major coup for the musuem.

At the time of the exhibition, they were said to be worth nearly $100 million. Some museum staff members raised concerns about their authenticity but were rebuffed by the museum’s board chairwoman and threatened by Mr. De Groft with termination if they publicly aired their skepticism.

Hmmmm. Hmmmm hmmmm hmmm. Hmmm.

Days after the exhibit opened, The New York Times published an article raising questions about the paintings. The article noted doubts expressed by several curators, and reported that one of the paintings was made on a piece of cardboard shipping material containing a printed FedEx typeface not used by that company until 1994 — six years after Mr. Basquiat’s death and 12 years after Mr. De Groft and the painting’s owners said the painting was made.
The F.B.I. raided the museum four months later, confiscating all 25 works. An affidavit revealed that the bureau had been investigating the artworks and their owners for a decade.

Hmmm!

Mr. De Groft was fired. The museum sued him.

After the Basquiat exhibit was shut down, a Los Angeles auctioneer admitted to the F.B.I. that he had helped create the faux Basquiats in 2012, some in as little as five minutes.
Mr. De Groft countersued the museum for wrongful termination, calling their claims a “public relations stunt intended to save face.” He still insisted that the Basquiats were genuine.
He said the artworks’ owners had commissioned a forensic investigation by a handwriting expert, who identified the signatures on many of the paintings as being Mr. Basquiat’s. He also cited an analysis by a Basquiat expert — since disavowed — and statements by a member of the Basquiat estate’s now-defunct authentication committee, who found the paintings to be genuine.

The status of the lawsuits is unclear. The Wikipedia section in Basquiat’s entry on “Forgeries” is interesting.

Jack De Mave, actor. Other credits include “The F.B.I.”, “The Fugitive” (the original), “Adam-12”, and an uncredited role in “1776”.

Posted in Art, Law, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#141 in a series)

Friday, January 24th, 2025

Joseph Molina Flynn is a lawyer in Rhode Island. He specializes in immigration law. He was also a municipal judge in Central Falls, Rhode Island.

“Was” because he resigned on Thursday…

…after the FBI raided his offices.

The investigation into Molina Flynn started before President Donald Trump took office and is unrelated to his immigration-related executive orders, according to two people with direct knowledge about the investigation who would only speak on the condition of anonymity.
They said federal agents are looking at Molina Flynn over allegations that he defrauded people seeking representation on immigration-related matters.

Molina Flynn was the first openly gay person and the first formerly undocumented person to serve on the bench in Central Falls, according to the city.

He moved to the United States from Colombia when he was nine years old, according to a biography on his website, and he obtained lawful permanent status 15 years later before becoming a U.S. citizen.

No charges have been filed. Yet. But it sure seems like there’s something there. Plus, I don’t get to use the “Rhode Island” category often enough.

Posted in Law, Politics, Rhode Island | No Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#140 in a series)

Saturday, January 18th, 2025

Remember Sheng Thao? The former mayor of Oakland? “Former” because she got tossed out of office in a recall election in November?

She was indicted on Friday. Also indicted: Andre Jones, who the NYT describes as her “boyfriend”, David Trung Duong, and Andy Hung Duong. David Duong is the head of a local waste management company, and Andy is his son.

Patrick D. Robbins, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, said on Friday that Ms. Thao in October 2022 had agreed to extend a city contract with the waste company, California Waste Solutions, buy housing from the Duongs and use her influence to help them in exchange for a campaign mail effort and side payments that would benefit her and Mr. Jones.
California Waste Solutions then spent $75,000 on an attack mailer that helped Ms. Thao’s campaign in the 2022 mayoral election, prosecutors said. After Ms. Thao took office, the company paid $95,000 to Mr. Jones for a “no-show” job and had promised additional payments to the couple in exchange for Ms. Thao’s influence at City Hall, according to the indictment.
Prosecutors alleged that Ms. Thao followed through by taking steps to help companies owned by the Duongs and by appointing a high-level city official that they had selected.

The charges against her are pretty much standard. You got your mail fraud, you got your wire fraud, you got your bribery and conspiracy.

Efforts to remove Ms. Thao from office had begun long before she was publicly linked in June to a federal investigation. Early in her tenure, residents of Oakland, often regarded as a gritty and soulful alternative to San Francisco, had become increasingly frustrated with the city’s high crime rates, a widening budget deficit and the loss of major league sports teams. Ms. Thao’s decision to fire a popular police chief also rankled her critics.

…

But the efforts by Ms. Thao and labor allies to fight the recall were ultimately unsuccessful. In November, less than two years into her term, more than 60 percent of voters chose to remove Ms. Thao from office. Pamela Price, the district attorney for Alameda County and another progressive Democrat, was also recalled on the same ballot.

Posted in California Über Alles, Law, Politics | No Comments »

Obit watch: January 11, 2025.

Saturday, January 11th, 2025

Sam Moore, of Sam and Dave.

At their peak in the 1960s, Sam & Dave churned out rhythm-and-blues hits with a regularity rivaled by few other performers. When “Soul Man” topped the R&B charts and crossed over to No. 2 on the pop charts in 1967 (it also won a Grammy), its success helped open doors for other Black acts to connect with white audiences.
Sam & Dave’s live shows were so kinetic — they were known as the Sultans of Sweat and Double Dynamite — that even as charismatic a performer as Otis Redding was hesitant to be on the bill with them, for fear of being upstaged. Mr. Moore once spoke of his need to “liquefy” the audience before he considered a show a success.
“The strength of Sam & Dave,” he said, “was that we would do anything to please the audience.”

…

Working with the producers and songwriters Isaac Hayes and David Porter, the house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the crisp horns of the Mar-Keys, Sam & Dave were soon enjoying the benefits of stardom, including their own tour bus and plane, plus an entourage of women and hangers-on. They also both became addicted to heroin.

…

While still in high school, Sam was shot in the leg by the jealous husband of a married woman he was seeing. He later served 18 months in prison for procuring prostitutes. But music lifted him. He sang in a Miami Baptist church, then with an a cappella group called the Majestics and a gospel group called the Mellonaires, before teaming up with Mr. [Dave] Prater.

(Dave Prater died in a car accident in 1988.)

Burning in Hell watch: James Arthur Ray. People who have been reading this blog for a long time may remember that name, as I covered his actions and the resulting criminal case early on.

Mr. Ray was a “self-help guru” who killed three people in a sweat lodge in Sedona, Arizona.

Mr. Ray packed about 50 people into a temporary structure made of a round wood frame covered in tarps, measuring about 25 feet in diameter and only five feet at the center. He poured gallons of water over fire-heated rocks, filling the lodge with hot steam.
Though he told participants they could leave at any time, many said later that they felt pressured by him to stay. Eventually the conditions inside grew unbearable, and the crowd flooded out; many people collapsed on the ground.
Someone called 911; one first responder later said that the scene looked like the site of a mass suicide. Twenty-one people were taken to the hospital.
Three of them died — James Shore and Kirby Brown were declared dead on arrival, while Liz Neumann died nine days later. Mr. Ray was arrested shortly afterward on manslaughter charges.

Mr. Ray was convicted of three counts of negligent homicide and sentenced to two years in prison.

“I am responsible,” he said about the sweat-lodge disaster.
At the end of the film, he added: “It had to happen, because it was the only way I could explore and learn and grow through the things that I’ve done. Am I drinking the Kool-Aid? Maybe, but the Kool-Aid works for me.”

Am I reading that right? Three people had to die in great agony so James Arthur Ray could “explore and learn and grow”?

Hell is too good for him.

(Obligatory note that it was Flavor Aid, not Kool-Aid.)

(James Arthur Ray’s website.)

An honest bookstore would post the following sign above its “self-help” section: “For true self-help, please visit our philosophy, literature, history and science sections, find yourself a good book, read it, and think about it.”

–Roger Ebert

Posted in Law, Music, Obits | No Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#138 and #139 in a series)

Thursday, January 9th, 2025

Mike the Musicologist tipped me off to an interesting story from Louisiana.

Tyrin Truong is the mayor of Bogalusa. He’s 23, which makes him the youngest mayor in Bogalusa’s history, and one of the youngest ever in the state.

And he got busted on Tuesday for drug trafficking.

Investigators determined that members of a drug trafficking organization in the Bogalusa area were using social media to distribute opioids, high-grade marijuana, THC products and MDMA, State Police said. Profits from the drug sales were used to purchase firearms. Some of the firearms were “funneled” to individuals prohibited from legal possession and some were linked to crimes in the Bogalusa area, State Police said.

But, apparently, no blow. Which is kind of disappointing, because:

Northshore District Attorney Collin Sims, whose agency is involved in the investigation, said Truong allegedly “organized entertainment with a prostitute” at an AirBnB while attending a mayor’s conference in Atlanta. The AirBnB had been rented using public money, Sims said.

…

Truong, now 25, was booked into the Washington Parish Jail in Franklinton on counts of transactions involving proceeds from drug offenses, unauthorized use of a moveable and soliciting for prostitutes, State Police said in a news release.

“unauthorized use of a moveable”?

Even before officially becoming mayor, Truong did not shy away from political battles and controversies. As mayor-elect, he pushed for the resignation of the Bogalusa police chief after a Black man died in the department’s custody.
During his tenure he encouraged law enforcement to patrol more in Bogalusa, but also suggested the city could dissolve its 33-officer police force and transfer responsibilities to the Washington Parish Sheriff’s office to save money.

Meanwhile, Thomas Clasby, the former director of the Quincy Department of Elder Services (that’s in Massachusetts), has been charged with “embezzlement, mail and wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property”.

Starting in 2019, Clasby used the city’s purchasing power to pay for personal expenses and make money for himself.

What kind of expenses?

Clasby arranged for the city to pay $8,950 to a music studio to produce recordings of him singing, $2,236 to food service vendors for 153 pounds of bourbon steak tips, $4,800 for a Toyota Prius and $1,658 for a self-portrait, federal prosecutors said.

The articles don’t specify if that was a down payment on a new Prius or an outright purchase of a used one. I did run the numbers, and that works out to $14.61 a pound for the bourbon steak tips. I don’t know if that’s a good price or not: my H-E-B app does not list steak tips (with or without bourbon) at my local store. I also can’t find “bourbon steak tips” online – I was thinking that might be something Omaha Steaks sells – but I did find lots of recipes for “bourbon” and “honey bourbon” steak tips online. Might be something worth trying.

Clasby also arranged for the city to pay over $38,000 to a New York consulting company owned by his friend, federal prosecutors said.
The consulting company didn’t provide any goods or services to Quincy, federal prosecutors said. Instead, Clasby’s friend cashed the city’s checks and gave Clasby the money at three separate places: A rest stop in Framingham, a ferry terminal in Bridgeport, Connecticut and at the friend’s New York apartment.

Okay, now you’re just being scummy instead of amusing. But we’ll always have the “signed, lacquered, framed portrait” and the studio recordings of his singing. Not that I’ve found those anywhere yet, but I’m sure prosecutors will be entering those into evidence and playing them for the jury.

Posted in Beef, Food, Law, Politics | No Comments »

The classics.

Tuesday, January 7th, 2025

There was a story in the NYT the other day that I thought was interesting, for reasons I’ll get to shortly.

Yujin Choi was a rising young prosecutor in the Denver district attorney’s office.

In 2021, Ms. Choi made her first allegation against Dan Hines, a criminal investigator in the district attorney’s office. She told supervisors that he had made an inappropriate comment to her.
Mr. Hines, who joined the office in 2019 after spending 10 years in the military and 20 years with the Pennsylvania State Police, retiring as a troop commander, denied the allegation.
“The investigation was closed as unsubstantiated,” according to the ruling, but Mr. Hines was transferred within the office and was ordered not to contact Ms. Choi.

…

In October 2022, Ms. Choi said that Mr. Hines sent her four inappropriate text messages.

So what makes this story interesting? Turns out…

While she provided screenshots of the messages, questions about their authenticity quickly surfaced.
The first text had a time stamp that was about 40 minutes after Ms. Choi had already reported it to her superiors, according to the ruling.
She said that she did not want a formal investigation and did not cooperate with it, the ruling said, but the prosecutor’s office felt obligated to move forward with an inquiry.
When confronted with the new allegations, Mr. Hines immediately demanded a polygraph test and offered his phone for inspection. A forensic search of his phone did not show any communication between his number and Ms. Choi’s, according to the ruling.
The investigation further revealed that Ms. Choi had texted the inappropriate messages to herself. In addition, she changed the name in her phone to make it appear as though Mr. Hines was the one who had sent them.
The investigation found that Ms. Choi downloaded and altered a spreadsheet containing her Verizon message logs before she provided those records to investigators.

Yes, it is the all-time, but not often seen, classic “B—h set me up!” story. And it seems like she was singularly inept at the “setting up” part. But wait, there’s more.

The weekend before her phone and laptop were to be examined for evidence of the alleged misconduct by Mr. Hines, Ms. Choi told investigators that her phone had fallen into her bathtub after she had drawn herself a bath and put her phone on a tray.
She said that she dried it right away but found that it was not working. She then went to her desk to make a video call to a colleague, according to the ruling. After the call, still in a panic over her phone, she knocked over a bottle, spilling water on her laptop, and leaving that disabled as well.

…

“In our view, this narrative is not plausible,” the court office said, finding that Ms. Choi had destroyed both electronic devices.

Ms. Choi has been disbarred.

“Unremitting honesty must at all times be the backbone of the legal profession,” the ruling said. “When a lawyer repeatedly employs deceit and dishonesty to harm another person, that lawyer corrodes the integrity of the profession and threatens to compromise public confidence in the legal system.”

…

Ms. Choi told the disciplinary office that she did not intentionally harm Mr. Hines because she did not make any formal statement against him until the office forced her to participate in its investigation.
In asking for leniency, she said that she was under financial stress and that she had been a lawyer only for a short time. The court office noted in its ruling that Ms. Choi’s repeated deception and lack of remorse persuaded it to go beyond suspending her law license and to seek disbarment.
Mr. Hines said he was livid about the way the internal investigations were handled, and the damage done to his reputation and mental and physical health. Last month, he filed a lawsuit against the district attorney, Beth McCann, the city and county of Denver and the prosecutor’s office.

In case you’re wondering, the DA’s office says that “Ms. Choi’s casework was later found to be in ‘excellent order,’ with no evidence of fabrications.”

Posted in Law | No Comments »

Fiction has to be believable.

Friday, December 27th, 2024

Mike the Musicologist sent this over to me. While WFLA is a Florida news site, the most unbelievable part of this story (to me, anyway) is that the events took place in Maryland, not Florida.

A man was arrested and charged after disrupting religious services at two Maryland Catholic churches on Christmas Eve, according to the St. Mary’s County Sherriff’s Office.
A release from SMCSO said that around 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve, Thomas Campbell Bolling Von Goetz, 56, entered Holy Angels Catholic Church during Mass. He then proceeded to disrupt the service by dropping an onion in the aisle.
A citizen who followed Von Goetz into the church ushered him outside where, SMCSO said, Von Goetz began pelting the individual with tangerines.

Onions and tangerines? I guess there are worse things than being pelted with tangerines.

But wait, there’s more!

Later Tuesday night, deputies were called to a similar disruption at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Leonardtown during Midnight Mass. According to them, Von Goetz poured whiskey into the holy water and threatened parishioners who tried to intervene.
While being escorted from the building, Van Goetz attempted to strike church attendees with a whiskey bottle.

I don’t think this is what the Irish mean by “Uisce beatha“. Also, seems like a waste of both good whiskey and good holy water.

The gentleman in question is now facing a laundry list of charges, some of which I’ve never heard of before: “Obstructing a religious exercise”, “Religious crime against a group”.

Posted in Law, Religion | 3 Comments »

NYPD Blues.

Monday, December 23rd, 2024

I get the feeling the paper of record was caught flatfooted by the Maddrey scandal, and is playing catch-up.

Jessica Tisch, the head of the New York Police Department, is cracking down on apparent abuse of overtime pay as the agency faces internal and external investigations into the matter.
Among at least 29 officers who were moved into new jobs over the past two days, 16 earned more than $100,000 in overtime pay in the last fiscal year.

…

Several of the employees who were moved worked under Mr. Maddrey, formerly the chief of department, and other top police officials, according to city payroll records and internal police documents obtained by The New York Times.
Two officers who worked for Mr. Maddrey collectively made $312,769 in overtime alone.
Two other officers, who together made around $289,000 in overtime, were transferred out of the operations bureau led by Kaz Daughtry. Eleven officers were moved out of the department’s public information office. Ms. Tisch last week announced that the head of that office, Tarik Sheppard, is also being replaced.

…

Even before the accusations against Mr. Maddrey, the Police Department has long attracted scrutiny for its high overtime spending. As of March, the agency had spent close to $271 million more on overtime in fiscal year 2024 than originally budgeted, the City Council speaker, Adrienne Adams, said at a public hearing in May, noting that the department routinely exceeded its overtime budget.
Word of personnel changes quickly swept through police headquarters in Manhattan over the weekend, and some officers privately praised Ms. Tisch, calling the changes long overdue. Several said they had been exasperated with officials who showed favoritism toward some subordinates and awarded them with cushy positions and bigger paychecks.
Some were also glad to see Mr. Maddrey and Mr. Iglesias go. In group text chats, the rank-and-file lauded the police commissioner, and shared a photo a with a golden halo around her head. Underneath the picture it said: “Saint Tisch. Patron saint of common sense.”

I want to be clear about this. I don’t think overtime, even a lot of overtime, is necessarily a criminal violation, or even an ethical one. That is, if the officers in question actually collected the overtime honorably: they actually worked the time, did their jobs, and had the proper approval.

If the overtime was being collected based on a quid pro quo – like sex for overtime hours, or kickbacks to supervisors, or something equally sleezy – yes, go after the people involved for the unethical and/or criminal behavior. But just accumulating lots of hours isn’t a crime by itself.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#137 in a series)

Saturday, December 21st, 2024

Wow. Just wow.

You know, you go to church last night for the “Lessons and Carols” service (which, at my church, was a very nice service, but lightly attended). Then you go pick up your car from the repair shop (yes, Daddy spoke too soon. Fortunately, I have the reserves to cover it.)

Meanwhile, all heck breaks loose.

New York City’s second-highest-ranking police officer, who served as chief of department, abruptly resigned Friday night following allegations of sexual misconduct, according to the Police Department.
The former top chief, Jeffrey Maddrey, submitted his resignation and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch accepted it Friday night, according to a statement from the department.

The NYPost broke the story. This being the Post, they go into more explicit detail.

Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey stepped down soon after The Post contacted the NYPD about Lt. Quathisha Epps’ claims in an exclusive interview that he routinely preyed upon her, asking for sex in NYPD headquarters.

And here’s a fun fact:

Epps recently made headlines as the NYPD’s top earner, pulling in a whopping $400,000 — including roughly $204,000 in overtime alone last year for her administrative job in Maddrey’s office, payroll records show.

I am leaving a lot out of the Post story. You can go over there and read it if you want, but I warn you: the details are very explicit.

In the interest of fairness:

When she started to try to get away from Maddrey recently, Epps was outed on a list of high overtime earners in retaliation, Sanders said.
Epps was suspended for 30 days and is being investigated over the excessive overtime, police sources said.

Also in the interest of fairness:

Former Police Officer Tabitha Foster filed an unsuccessful 2016 civil suit alleging he took advantage of her by exchanging sex for job perks. A judge threw the case out and cleared Maddrey. Foster also accused Maddrey of hitting her.

In August, Edward Caban, the police commissioner at the time, dismissed internal charges against Mr. Maddrey that he had interfered with the arrest of a retired officer who had chased three boys while armed.

Updated 12/23: And over the weekend, Miguel Iglesias, the Chief of Internal Affairs, was “relieved of his command and has notified the Department of his intent to retire”. The NYPost coverage is being played like it was an open secret within the department that Maddrey was a sex predator, and nobody – including IAD – was willing to do anything about it before now.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD, Politics, Religion | Comments Closed

Obit watch: December 20, 2024.

Friday, December 20th, 2024

Joanne Pierce Misko, historical footnote. And I say that in the kindest possible way.

She spent 10 years as a nun with the Sisters of Mercy, but she decided she wanted to marry and have kids. She was looking for something to do other than teaching.

One day an F.B.I. agent came to her school in Olean to talk about jobs in the bureau. She had already been thinking about leaving her order, and the idea of a career in the F.B.I. intrigued her.

She signed on as a researcher in 1970. Research or clerical work were the only options available to women at that time. But when Hoover died in 1972, L. Patrick Gray III allowed women to sign up as agents.

With her supervisor’s encouragement, Mrs. Misko applied, and within a few months she was being sworn in with 44 others at the F.B.I. headquarters in Washington. She and another woman, Susan Roley Malone, a former Marine, then traveled with the others to the new F.B.I. Academy in Quantico, Va., for 14 weeks of training.

They were the first two female FBI agents.

“I can remember very vividly the first case I had,” she told the Buffalo TV station WGRZ in 2022. “We went out to get the guy, and he found out that we were looking for him and he called back into the office; he was incensed that a woman was being sent out to get him, you know, that he wasn’t worthy of a guy. He had to have a woman go after him.”
Often, she found her gender could be an advantage, as suspects often let their guard down around her.
“Most people back then didn’t even realize the F.B.I. had female agents,” Mrs. Misko said on the Madame Policy podcast in 2022. “Many times a subject would simply open the door when I knocked, not expecting me to say, ‘F.B.I.’”

“Celebrating Women Special Agents: Joanne Pierce Misko” on the FBI website. One thing not mentioned there, but in the NYT obit:

She retired in 1994 and went to work for a bank. That same year, she filed a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, saying she had been held back from promotion because of her gender. She settled the suit in 1996 for an undisclosed sum.

By the way, she did marry a fellow FBI agent, but the NYT does not mention children.

Posted in Cops, FBI, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Flaming hyena update.

Friday, December 20th, 2024

A while back, I wrote about Burnet County Judge James Oakley, who had just been indicted on both felony and misdemeanor charges.

A jury found him not guilty of one charge, and a judge threw out the other charges. However, a panel of judges from the Third Court of District Appeals recently ruled that judge “erred” in his decision.

Judge Oakley was also reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct earlier this month.

One of the things he’s accused of is removing the lock to Justice of the Peace Lisa Whitehead’s courtroom door. Whitehead ended up filing a formal complaint over safety concerns after she said she could not find a “workable solution” with Oakley.
Oakley also faces allegations of sexual harassment from Whitehead that stem from 2023 and for creating a “hostile work environment.”

Judge Oakley resigned on Wednesday. For what it may be worth, the text of his reprimand is included in the linked KXAN article.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#136 in a series)

Thursday, December 19th, 2024

You know, there’s been so much corruption in the Eric Adams administration, I’ve kind of lost track myself.

But being as this is possibly the most corrupt administration in the history of New York City, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: do I feel like doing two flaming hyenas in one day?

Well, do I, punk?

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, the former top aide to Mayor Adams, was officially indicted today, along with her son and two “businessmen”.

Allegedly, they were getting paid by check, “which her son cashed and used to buy a Porsche and other luxury items”.

Ms. Lewis-Martin, her son, Glenn Martin II, and the businessmen were charged in a four-count indictment with participating in “a long-running bribery, money-laundering and conspiracy scheme.” The indictment accuses Ms. Lewis-Martin of using her official position to “illegally influence Department of Buildings and other city decisions” in exchange for the cash and other benefits for her and her son.

…

Prosecutors also accused Ms. Lewis-Martin and her son of accepting financial support from the two businessmen for a clothing line and a Chick-fil-A franchise in exchange for her using her city position to assist with their projects.
As evidence, prosecutors quoted from telephone conversations involving Ms. Lewis-Martin, her son and others, suggesting they may have wiretapped one or more of the defendants’ phones.

…

The businessmen charged alongside her were pursing construction projects that included work on a rooftop bar, the Glass Ceiling, and a hotel, both in Manhattan, and they had asked her to help move the projects through the city’s tangled bureaucracy.
After Mr. Dwivedi and Mr. Vaid paid Mr. Martin $100,000 in August 2023, he deposited the money into a joint account he shared with Ms. Lewis-Martin, prosecutors said. Each businessman made a $50,000 payment to Mr. Martin; one had the words “personal loan” written in the check memo, according to prosecutors, who called that an attempt to conceal a bribe and said the defendants had not provided any evidence that loan payments were ever made.

…

Prosecutors, in their narrative, included as an exhibit a picture of Mr. Martin in sunglasses, grinning in front of a gleaming black 2023 Porsche Panamera, a big red bow affixed to the hood. He paid $113,000 for the car, “something neither he nor Lewis-Martin could have funded without the bribe money,” the prosecutors wrote.

…

Prosecutors said Ms. Lewis-Martin used her son as an intermediary in an attempt to cover up her actions. Mr. Martin, 38, a professional D.J. who uses the name “Suave Luciano,” has worked at city events overseen by Mr. Adams’s administration, both when Mr. Adams was mayor and Brooklyn borough president.

Noted:

During the same period she was using Signal to field requests from Mr. Vaid and forward them to city buildings officials, Ms. Lewis-Martin set her Signal messages to disappear after an hour, prosecutors said.

COMSEC! Hurrah! Obviously not a perfect effort, but it has been so rare to see someone even trying to secure their communications, attention must be paid.

Oh. Her lawyer vigorously denies the charges:

“To think that a high-ranking city official would take a bribe in the form of a check deposited into a bank account defies common sense,” he said. “We look forward to the citizens of the City of New York, who Ingrid has served so admirably for decades, clearing her name after a trial.”

Ms. Lewis-Martin resigned over the weekend, apparently in anticipation of the indictment.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

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