What led to Judge Sinatra's recusal? Prosecutors say Peter Gerace's lawyers acted corruptlyNickleCity wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 12:58 pmHere is one of the relevant sections of the indictment.NickleCity wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:28 am Gerace Attorney 1' under investigation by feds in Pharaoh's strip club case
Dan Herbeck
“Federal prosecutors are investigating one of the region’s most high-profile attorneys in connection with a conspiracy that reportedly caused the death of a witness in the Pharaoh’s strip club case to prevent her from testifying.
“Although he is referred to as “Gerace Attorney 1” in an indictment made public on Tuesday, the indictment makes clear that attorney Steven M. Cohen is a subject of an investigation being conducted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
For the rest of the story see: https://buffalonews.com/news/local/crim ... -top-story
The whole indictment is quite the read. Here is the link to it on Courtlistener: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 1.24.0.pdf
Patrick Lakamp
When lawyers for Peter Gerace Jr. last summer listed two relatives of U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. among the defense witnesses, the judge said he was duty-bound to recuse himself from the high-profile bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking case.
Including the two on the witness list “appears to be gamesmanship,” Sinatra said when he recused himself June 21.
Federal prosecutors now see a “corrupt motive” behind adding the two names.
Prosecutors said they obtained a recording from an investigator during the government’s investigation into the July death of Crystal Quinn, a witness in the Gerace case. The recording, they say, reveals a disingenuous motive for adding the relatives’ names – an orchestrated recusal.
“The constellation of available facts goes to corrupt motive,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Casey L. Chalbeck at a recent court proceeding.
Chalbeck’s assertion is the latest development in the government’s case against Gerace, who owns Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club. Indicted three years ago, Gerace is awaiting trial on charges of bribing a DEA agent and operating the Cheektowaga strip club as a drug-involved premises where drugs were sold and young women were exploited through their drug addictions and coerced into sex acts. A January indictment named Gerace as part of a conspiracy targeting Quinn for retaliation.
Gerace attorney Eric Soehnlein, who with then-co-counsel Steven Cohen put the names on the defense witness list, told Sinatra in June adding the names “wasn’t taken lightly.” Gerace’s lawyers said both of the relatives’ names had been included among the pretrial information the government turned over to them about witnesses and evidence.
Since November, prosecutors have sought to remove Soehnlein as one of Gerace’s defense lawyers. Court filings have been sealed from public view. Lawyers involved in the case have declined to comment and have been vague about the facts in court proceedings. So there’s no public explanation from prosecutors detailing what they believe Soehnlein did that justifies trying to oust him.
At a recent hearing, Rodney O. Personius, ethics counsel for Soehnlein, denied any corrupt intent to force Sinatra off the case by submitting his relatives as potential witnesses.
“I can make a representation to you that Mr. Soehnlein absolutely, unqualifiedly – it’s not even close – did not have a corrupt intent,” Personius told U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo, who inherited the case from Sinatra.
Vilardo held the proceeding to hear arguments on the government’s request to disqualify Soehnlein.
Federal Judge John Sinatra
U.S. District Judge John Sinatra recused himself from Peter Gerace Jr.’s bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking case last June.
Buffalo News file photos
Personius said a transcript from a proceeding held in front of Sinatra on May 17, a month before his recusal, “just categorically, categorically establishes that there was zero possibility that Mr. Soehnlein was involved in any type of obstruction, that he had any type of corrupt intent.”
“Three different times in this transcript when it was represented to him who the witnesses would be, and what they would testify to, this same judge said, ‘I don’t have a problem with that, I don’t have a problem with it.’ The government had no problem with that. So, if nothing else, based on this transcript of these proceedings four weeks before this witness list was prepared, there was no reason to think that it was inappropriate.”
But clues emerged during the recent proceeding before Vilardo about why prosecutors are pressing to remove Soehnlein as Gerace’s lawyer.
Prosecutors mentioned a recording.
“That recording suggests that the recusal was an end looking for a means,” Chalbeck told Vilardo. “And the means was discovered maybe in part by tasking someone to research a federal judge’s family members through Ancestry.com – in concert with somebody who has been convicted of murder, and in concert with looking at Jencks trying to find a name that could be put on the witness list.”
Her reference to Jencks pertains to the Jencks Act, a law requiring the government to produce to the defense prior statements of prosecution witnesses as part of discovery.
Chalbeck did not identify who she meant by “somebody who has been convicted of murder.”
Late last hear, however, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch notified the court that the government uncovered a conspiracy, which the investigative team believes involves Gerace and Roderick Arrington, who beat a murder charge and was sentenced in January to narcotics racketeering conspiracy. Other names in Lynch’s letter to Arrington’s attorney were blacked out in his redacted letter that was placed on the public record. Gerace and Arrington were in custody at the Niagara County jail at the same time as their cases proceeded through the court system. Three pages of Lynch’s five-page letter to Arrington’s lawyer dealt with Sinatra’s recusal in the Gerace case.
The calculus changed
Prosecutors were irked when Soehnlein and Cohen put the relatives’ names on the defense witness list.
“Did we think it was shady and a little suspicious? Sure,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi told Vilardo at the recent hearing.
But nobody was “jumping to conclusions asking to disqualify Mr. Soehnlein,” Tripi said.
Then Quinn died of an overdose in July under suspicious circumstances. The former exotic dancer had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their case against Gerace.
Stung by the death of a witness, prosecutors and the FBI ratcheted up their investigation over the summer and fall in what had already been an intense Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club criminal case targeting Gerace and retired DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
“I think we need to just remember when the calculus changed. Now we’re ramping up our investigation into the death of a witness, Judge,” Tripi told Vilardo. “And in that context, we came across the recording.”
“We didn’t expect to hear what we heard,” Tripi said. “But once we heard the things, and I won’t repeat them, that’s where we were left, Judge.”
When weighing what the counsels told the court last summer leading up to the defense witness list being filed, “the recording that the government obtained afterward indicated that was a bad-faith decision made to commit a fraud upon the court,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Cooper, who has partnered with Tripi and Chalbeck to prosecute Gerace.
Personius, Soehnlein’s lawyer, said the recording made by an investigator ambiguously refers to “them” and “they.”
“It makes zero reference to Mr. Soehnlein,” Personius said.
What’s more, the lawyer for the investigator has indicated that the investigator, if interviewed about the recording, would say that nothing on the recording has anything to do with Soehnlein, Personius said.
“So that’s why I say, there is no case here, Judge,” Personius said.
The government’s request to disqualify Soehnlein has disrupted Gerace’s legal team. Cohen withdrew from the team in September, telling Vilardo that Gerace fired him because of disagreements over legal strategy.
Attorney Mark Foti, who replaced Cohen, in November said the government’s bid to oust Soehnlein would “eviscerate any hope that the defense has of being ready for trial.” Indeed, Vilardo postponed Gerace’s trial and, reversing Sinatra’s previous order for a joint trial for Gerace and Bongiovanni, allowed Bongiovanni to stand trial separately. Bongiovanni’s trial began five weeks ago.
If not for evidence from the investigation into Quinn’s death, “we’re having a joint trial right now,” Tripi said.
Once prosecutors obtained the recording, “that’s when we’re duty-bound to bring the motion,” he said.
‘Downright scary’
Gerace faces multiple felony charges, including drug trafficking, sex trafficking, bribing a federal drug agent, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. He has pleaded not guilty.
Before withdrawing from Gerace’s Pharaoh’s case, Cohen had made public remarks critical of Sinatra over some of his rulings.
Last June, when Sinatra ordered Gerace to remain in pretrial custody, Cohen said, “This judge continues to be particularly harsh to Mr. Gerace, and we see no legitimate basis for that.”
The month before, when Sinatra ruled he would not suppress evidence seized during the 2019 searches of Gerace’s home and his Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club, Cohen said, “The government is doing everything in its power to prevent Gerace’s defense from preparing our client for trial. Regrettably, they have found a sympathetic judge who has ordered all these restrictions.”
If Cohen had a legitimate reason to add the judge’s relatives to the defense list, but also had an ulterior motive to get a different judge, Vilardo asked the prosecutors if that would still be considered a crime.
“Suppose I have two witnesses that are identical in every way,” Vilardo said to Cooper. “One of them is going to get the judge who I don’t like recused, and I put that witness on the witness list – not the other one. That’s clearly a mixed motive. I want to get the judge recused, I’m putting that witness on. Have I committed a crime?”
Cooper replied, “Judge, I think it’s a question of fact that ultimately would be up for a grand jury to decide. The law says yes.”
“Do you have any idea the chill that just went up Mr. Personius’ back, and Mr. Foti’s back, and Mr. Soehnlein’s back ... that if they do something to get rid of a judge, that has a legitimate other purpose, that they are committing a crime?” Vilardo said.
In an exchange with Vilardo, Chalbeck said “the facts of this case were the evidence of corrupt motive (that) came to the government.”
Vilardo said a witness might give testimony that’s good for a defense lawyer’s client, but the real reason for adding the witness is to get the judge recused.
“And you’re telling me that’s a crime, and I’m telling you that’s downright scary,” Vilardo said.
“We can’t get into the lawyer’s head because that would do exactly what I’m saying you folks are doing here, that is sending a chill up the back of every defense attorney in the country for doing something that they have a mixed motive for,” Vilardo said.
Vilardo has yet to rule on whether to remove Soehnlein.
At one point, Vilardo said he agreed with Personius’ description of the case as being “extraordinarily weak.” But the judge also called it a “thorny” issue.
Vilardo also raised a concern about Gerace’s right to a speedy trial, saying that if he concludes the government’s disqualification motion “is an extraordinarily flimsy case that you are simply pursuing because you can pursue it, and perhaps to get an excellent lawyer like Mr. Soehnlein off the case, I think Mr. Gerace has a pretty strong speedy trial motion that he can make.”
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