Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:34:50 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss David Hafetz :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/David+Hafetz istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/brooklyn-murder-case-pinpoints-the-perils/5585/ Wed, 1 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST Last month, Shanduke McPhatter sat in a Brooklyn courtroom, staring at the prospect of a murder conviction. Four eyewitnesses had identified McPhatter, a 26-year-old from Park Slope, as the shooter in a 2002 slaying near the Gowanus Houses. Another witness reported seeing McPhatter flee with a gun. While his mother prayed for him, even McPhatter's defense lawyer came to believe his client would be found guilty and spend 25 years to life in prison. In an extraordinary turn of events, murder... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/iraq-artifacts-smuggler-gets-2-years-probation/5226/ Tue, 23 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST A federal judge in Brooklyn yesterday spared a young Middle East expert from prison after he admitted smuggling ancient artifacts looted from Iraq's national museum into Kennedy Airport and deceiving customs officials. Joseph Braude, 30, who wrote a book about reconstructing Iraq, was caught in June 2003 with three Mesopotamianera alabaster and marble cylinder seals as he was returning from Iraq. He had faced up to 16 months in federal prison. But United States District Judge Allyne Ross... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/national/fiery-protest-sends-g-men-scrambling/4924/ Wed, 17 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST On Monday, a desperate FBI informant from Yemen approached the White House with a letter for President Bush, then pulled out a lighter and set his gasoline-soaked jacket ablaze. Yesterday, as the man, Mohamed Alanssi, lay in serious condition in a Washington hospital, defense lawyers and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn scrambled to assess the damage he had inflicted on a major government investigation into alleged financing of terrorism. Mr. Alanssi, it turns out, is the prosecutors' central... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/ex-trader-tells-court-of-stock-manipulation-scheme/4210/ Wed, 3 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST A former stock trader yesterday detailed a pipeline of confidential law enforcement information that ran from investigators' files on publicly traded companies to the Internet chat rooms of Anthony Elgindy, a noted San Diego stock analyst. Testifying in federal court in Brooklyn, Derrick Cleveland told jurors that, starting in 2000, he and an FBI agent began passing Elgindy confidential information about criminal and regulatory investigations into penny stock companies. Cleveland said that... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/two-portrayals-of-penny-stock-pusher/4118/ Tue, 2 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Anthony Elgindy presented himself to the public as the champion of the small investor - a man determined to shed light on fraud, insider deals, and other malfeasance in the often murky world of penny stocks. During opening statements yesterday in Elgindy's trial in Brooklyn on charges of racketeering and securities fraud, federal prosecutors described the well-known San Diego stock analyst's carefully cultivated reputation as a scam. "Behind the facade were fraud, corruption, and betrayal at... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/penny-stock-tipster-gets-day-in-court/4047/ Mon, 1 Nov 2004 00:00:00 EST Two years ago, federal prosecutors cast a sinister spotlight on Amr Elgindy, a penny-stock tipster who was born in Cairo and graduated to the good life in Southern California. Prosecutors made the headline-grabbing suggestion that Mr. Elgindy had advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks. The allegations were never backed up with evidence and have since receded from the public eye. The government's focus on Mr. Elgindy has not receded. Today, when federal prosecutors begin presenting... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/witnesses-have-da-over-a-barrel/3897/ Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Since entering a witness protection program, three young women who saw a fatal shooting in a Bedford-Stuyvesant schoolyard in 2001 have had Brooklyn prosecutors in a bind, straining the lawyers' patience and pushing the limits of the program. The three women, who prosecutors have requested be identified only by their nicknames, have screamed at their protectors and demanded more money for food, housing, and other expenses. They have been ejected from hotels where they are supposed to hide... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/just-give-him-a-couple-of-shots-knocks-on/3614/ Fri, 22 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST The man waited in a car in the parking lot of a northern New Jersey diner. It was pouring rain and Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon" played on the radio. Martin Cohen got in the car. Mr. Cohen, a 68-year-old Orthodox Jewish insurance broker from upstate New York, began complaining about a business associate. Mr. Cohen, now on trial in federal court in Brooklyn in a murder-for-hire case, didn't realize that the thug next to him was an undercover detective, not a hit-man, and that their... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/queens-man-convicted-in-tax-scheme-to-cheat/3543/ Thu, 21 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST A Queens tax preparer yesterday was convicted of running a complicated fraud scheme that prosecutors said cheated an immigrant couple with a Chinatown garment business of more than $400,000 and laundered the stolen money through the Internal Revenue Service. A jury in federal court at Brooklyn took less than two hours to convict Mon Leang Mui, known as Danny Mui, of tax evasion, interfering with the administration of tax laws, and lying to investigators. Mui, who ran the Flushing firm Mon Leang... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/boychik-band-of-boro-park-hits-sour-note-with/3457/ Wed, 20 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Several years ago, Eli Gerstner, an ambitious record producer on Brooklyn's religious Jewish music scene, decided to venture into the unknown. He had a vision for a young male Orthodox pop group - a "boychik" band. Gerstner, who lives in Boro Park, assembled a quartet of fresh-faced young men with yarmulkes and sweet-sounding voices. In 2001, The Chevra, which loosely translates as "the group," cut an album of Hebrew songs based on Psalms and prayers and mixed with turbo-charged drums and... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/childrens-defense-fund-founder-assails-bush/2974/ Mon, 11 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund, delivered a stinging critique of the Bush administration yesterday, declaring that "justice is dying in America." In a guest sermon at Riverside Church on the Upper West Side, Mrs. Edelman made often thinly veiled attacks on President Bush, accusing him of neglecting poor children and families. She also accused the administration of breaking its promises on the No Child Left Behind education reform law, and of pursuing... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/man-is-accused-of-cheating-immigrants-using-irs/2830/ Thu, 7 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST The Flushing offices of Mon Leang Mui & Company weren't much to behold. Mr. Mui, who billed himself as a certified public accountant, had a lone desk and two idle-looking employees. Still, prosecutors say, Mr. Mui had a knack for manipulating clients, including an immigrant couple that ran a Chinatown garment business. When the couple learned they had tax trouble in the early 1990s, they visited Mr. Mui. That visit, the chief assistant U.S. attorney, Andrew Hruska, told a Brooklyn jury... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/investigators-dig-in-queens-in-attempt-to-unearth/2682/ Tue, 5 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EST Federal agents and police yesterday began digging up an empty lot in Queens to search for answers in two decades-old mob slayings long shrouded in mystery. Law enforcement sources said yesterday that the hunt in south Ozone Park by the Queens-Brooklyn border involves the bodies of three men whose deaths, for unrelated reasons, are enshrined in mafia history. A team of FBI investigators suspects that the lot, located in a residential area, holds the remains of the neighbor of John Gotti who... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/starr-emerges-as-key-lawyer-for-ny-times/2457/ Thu, 30 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST As the New York Times gears up for what it argues is a First Amendment fight to stop federal prosecutors from learning the identities of two reporters' confidential sources, the paper is enlisting a surprising ally. The Times, which is suing Attorney General Ashcroft in federal court in Manhattan, has retained Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor who, in years past, was a darling of the right and felt the sting of the paper's editorials. Mr. Starr is teamed up with the New York lawyer... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/mob-suspects-freed-in-2003-murder-case/2136/ Thu, 23 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A federal judge in Brooklyn ordered the release yesterday of two men convicted of 2003 racketeering murder charges despite prosecutors' assertions that both men are killers. Carmine Polito and Mario Fortunato, who still face charges of lying to investigators, are expected to walk out of prison today. Their release follows an appeals court decision last week finding a lack of evidence that a fatal shooting at a Greenpoint social club in 1994 was related to mob business and therefore part of a... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/mixed-verdict-in-case-against-court-workers/2002/ Tue, 21 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A Brooklyn jury yesterday delivered a mixed verdict on a courthouse corruption scandal, convicting a court officer of taking a bribe but finding his alleged co-conspirator, a retired court clerk, not guilty of all charges. Prosecutors accused the two men of accepting bribes of plane tickets, cash, and electronic goods in exchange for bypassing the normal case assignment system and steering divorce and custody matters directly to Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. The verdict in... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/bloomberg-defends-city-on-arrests/1923/ Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Mayor Bloomberg yesterday vigorously defended how New York City handled the arrests of protesters during the Republican National Convention, praising the police response to the demonstrations while proposing a tidy - if highly unlikely - resolution to protesters' grievances. "They might as well just plead guilty and go on," Mr. Bloomberg told reporters. "The truth of the matter is the city did what it was supposed to do: It protected the streets." The mayor spoke in Manhattan before the start... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/jury-begins-deliberations-in-garson-case/1734/ Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A Brooklyn jury failed to reach verdict in the trial of two court officials accused a conspiracy was afoot in Brooklyn to manipulate divorce and custody cases before state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. As they try again this morning, they find themselves knee-deep in what prosecutors say is a tale of judicial corruption, Brooklyn-style. There's a foul-mouthed, clowning judge and his scheming protege, a chubby-cheeked matrimonial lawyer. There's a feisty Russian-born mother - described by... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/brooklyn-jury-starts-weighing-garson-case/1666/ Tue, 14 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST They held hushed conversations in the hallways and made alleged payoffs inside and outside the courthouse, including a $2,000 hand-off by a urinal down the hall from the judge's office. The schemers, prosecutors say, swirled all around state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. They say a conspiracy was afoot that involved court personnel who illegally steered divorce and custody cases to a crooked judge. Today, a Brooklyn jury continues weighing those allegations and deliberating whether court... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/judge-sentences-murder-witnesss-killer/1670/ Tue, 14 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A man who shot and killed a witness set to testify at a 2002 Brooklyn murder trial was sentenced yesterday to 25 years to life in prison. Judge L. Priscilla Hall gave Trevis Ragsdale the maximum possible sentence after listening to legal arguments and an impassioned plea for severity by the slain witness's mother. Ragsdale, 20, was convicted in June of second-degree murder for gunning down Bobby Gibson by a stoop in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Mr. Gibson was two days away from testifying against a man... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/judge-orders-new-trial-in-busch-shooting/1527/ Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A federal judge yesterday threw out a jury's verdict that police officers were justified when they shot dead a hammer-wielding mentally disturbed man in Borough Park in 1999. Judge Sterling Johnson indicated that a police sergeant and some of his colleagues lied at a civil trial about the shooting of Gidone Busch. The judge took the rare step of ordering a new trial, saying the officers gave "exaggerated or overstated versions" about key details of the shooting. He also said other testimony... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/garson-witness-claims-cash-gift-was-not-a-bribe/1391/ Wed, 8 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST A crucial prosecution witness in a Brooklyn judicial corruption case said yesterday he didn't believe he was bribing state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson when he gave the judge cash and bought him meals and drinks. The witness, ex-matrimonial lawyer Paul Siminovsky, also denied there was an agreement to bribe the Judge Garson or that the judge fixed divorce and custody cases that later came under suspicion. Mr. Siminovsky was testifying at the trial of two former court employees. Judge... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/national/clinton-recovering-normally-after-surgery/1326/ Tue, 7 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST President Clinton lay recuperating at New York-Presbyterian Hospital late yesterday following a quadruple heart bypass surgery that doctors described as routine and apparently successful. "He is recovering normally," said Dr. Craig Smith, the chief surgeon on the operation performed. "Right now everything looks straightforward." Mr. Clinton had complained of shortness of breath and tightness in his chest but had not suffered a heart attack when he was admitted to the hospital on Friday, doctors... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/lawyer-testifies-he-committed-crimes-with-judge/1195/ Thu, 2 Sep 2004 00:00:00 EST Paul Siminovsky remembers once roaming Brooklyn's courthouses like a "big shot" lawyer. The chubby-cheeked 45-year-old with curly salt-and-pepper hair had unfettered access to a sitting judge, state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. That feeling of status soon crumbled amid charges of a seedy conspiracy to manipulate divorce and custody cases before Judge Garson. The disgraced Mr. Siminovsky looked dour and diminished yesterday as he walked briskly to the witness stand at the bribery trial... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/witness-tells-of-court-bribery-offer/1054/ Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST In the fall of 2002,prosecutors say Nissim Elmann, who claimed to have clout with a matrimonial judge, gave his sales pitch to a panicked mother of three. Mr. Elmann, a Brooklyn electronics dealer who prosecutors accuse of attempting to sell influence in matrimonial cases, said he could "arrange" Frieda Hanimov's child custody case then pending before state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. Otherwise, he warned, the judge "will destroy you." Mr. Elmann, investigators and lawyers say, lied... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/prosecutors-detail-alleged-manipulation-in-garson/779/ Wed, 25 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Prosecutors made a painstaking effort yesterday in drawing a portrait of what they called the inner workings of a conspiracy to manipulate Brooklyn divorce cases. They said the scheme had a simple goal: steer cases to state Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson. "Everything has to be done discrete...you know the judge, the way he is," a former court clerk, Paul Sarnell, was heard saying on one of 40 secretly taped conversations played in court. "He knows about it, but he doesn't want to know... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/i-have-a-judge-in-my-pocket/562/ Fri, 20 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Lisa Cohen remembers feeling doomed when she heard her divorce case would go before Judge Gerald Garson. As she testified yesterday at the Brooklyn bribery trial of two of the judge's former court employees, Ms. Cohen told jurors a close friend of her husband's had boasted special ties to the judge. The friend, she testified, said: "I have a judge in my pocket. Judge Garson." The testimony of Ms. Cohen, a 39-yearold product manager with two daughters, helped put a human face for jurors on a... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/jurors-watch-tapes-of-brooklyn-judge-accepting/469/ Thu, 19 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Jurors watched in silence yesterday as prosecutors played secretly taped videos of a Brooklyn judge accepting $1,000 in cash and a box of cigars from a lawyer who argued cases in his court. The grainy black-and-white footage, shot in early 2003 in the Brooklyn robing room of Judge Gerald Garson, plays almost like a profane cable talk show, with the two men chewing candy and bantering in their regular seats, swearing and firing off derogatory remarks and toilet jokes. But few jurors smiled as... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/prosecutors-say-videos-show-garson-accepting/409/ Wed, 18 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST A jury today will watch a trio of videos that show a Brooklyn divorce judge taking cigars and an envelope stuffed with $1,000 cash from a lawyer who appeared before him during a meeting secretly taped at the courthouse. Shot from above on a camera planted in his robing room, State Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson at one point exams the cigars and whimsically chants their brand name while assuring the lawyer that he will win a pending divorce case, prosecutors say. Taken together, the three... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/corruption-trial-offers-preview-of-garson-case/368/ Tue, 17 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EST Prosecutors yesterday began detailing what they describe as a chain of courthouse corruption that leads from an electronics salesman in Crown Heights to a divorce judge in Brooklyn. It is being played out in the trial of two court employees, where the prosecutors plan to offer a detailed preview of the evidence against Judge Gerald Garson, who is accused in a separate case of accepting a bribe. The two court employees - a court officer and a retired court clerk - are charged with steering cases... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/lawyer-queried-on-witness-meetings/155/ Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EST In June of 2002, defense lawyer Michael Warren says he got a stroke of good luck. Three young women set to testify that month against his client in a Brooklyn murder trial all suddenly wanted to change their story and tell him "the truth." Mr. Warren, who testified yesterday in a Brooklyn court, said he didn't know about the women until he got a call from his client's half-brother, Dupree Harris. Mr. Harris, a Bloods leader, is now on trial for bribing and intimidating the three witnesses. The... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/christians-rally-outside-city-hall-against-gay/101/ Mon, 26 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EST Hundreds of members of Christian churches from the New York metropolitan area gathered yesterday at City Hall to rally against what their leaders say is a growing assault on traditional marriage. Some even said "I do" - again. The rally, which included members of Chinese and Latino congregations, was held partly as a show of strength by Christian pastors who strongly oppose same-sex marriage and who say they can mobilize ten of thousands of voters in New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey. "This... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/hyness-lawyer-portrays-novelist-as-brat-for-suing/57/ Sat, 17 Jul 2004 19:49:01 EST A novelist and former prosecutor who is suing Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes for firing him over a book he wrote is a brat who complains when he doesn't get his way, the D.A.'s lawyer said yesterday. "When he doesn't get what he wants, he starts pouting and he acts like a child," the lawyer, Patricia Miller, said of author Robert Reuland as the trial in the civil-rights suit got under way in federal court in Brooklyn. Ms. Miller told jurors Mr. Reuland's suit was about "his desire for... DAVID HAFETZ http://www.nysun.com/new-york/judge-dismisses-lawsuit-against-synagogue/14/ Mon, 12 Jul 2004 13:34:54 EST A judge has dismissed a lawsuit that challenged membership restrictions at a Brooklyn synagogue and sought to permit female congregants to vote at meetings. Brooklyn state Supreme Court Judge Herbert Kramer ruled that a bitter dispute that has divided members of the Sephardic Congregation of Har Ha Lebanon belongs to "the realm of theological inquiry" and not to the courts. Judge Kramer ruled earlier this month the court lacks authority to decide religious questions in the case. The suit was...