Gangland - 5/24/18

[Chucky]

This Week in Gang Land
By Jerry Capeci

Sovereign District Of NY 'Retrains' All Its Prosecutors On 55-Year-Old Rule Of Law

Gang Land Exclusive!Geoffrey BermanIn a stunning disclosure after months of complaints from defense lawyers and federal judges, the Manhattan U.S Attorney's Office has admitted that prosecutors (AUSAs) in its Violent And Organized Crime unit have been wrongly withholding favorable defense evidence they should have been giving defendants awaiting trial for murder and other major crimes.

Lisa Zornberg, a top prosecutor for U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman, stated in court last Thursday — the day trial had been set to begin for two defendants charged with killing a government witness in 2016 — that prosecutors in that case and two others had made "inexcusable errors" and withheld so-called Brady Material due to "inadvertence, sloppiness, and thoughtlessness."

Judge Alison Nathan had called Zornberg, Chief of the Criminal Division, on the carpet a day earlier when Nathan got what she called an "extraordinary" letter from prosecutors. In a filing, they admitted "several mistakes" in not telling the defense that the government had gotten information a week after the murder that another suspect had confessed a role in it, and had implicated several others, but not the defendants.

Before giving Zornberg the floor, Nathan stated that "a fair number" of other judges "agree that it was a rather extraordinary statement" and that "the credibility of these assistants in particular and the office in general on that score has taken a serious hit, not only with me but with many of my colleagues who are aware of this case," as well as two others the judge did not identify.

As four other top prosecutors, including deputy U.S. attorney Robert Khuzami, sat quietly in the spectator section, Zornberg stated that "to make sure that errors don't happen again" she had "led an internal training for unit chiefs" last week and ordered the immediate retraining of "every AUSA in the criminal division" about the need "to do the right thing" in every case.

"This is not an event in which we celebrate. This is not the finest hour of the office," said Zornberg, who was much more subdued than she was in her mob-busting days eight years ago when then-Village Voice columnist Tom Robbins dubbed her a "tiny tornado of a prosecutor."

"I want to assure the Court that to the highest levels of the office, myself, the U.S. Attorney, all those present in the back of the courtroom today, we take this with utmost seriousness," she said. "We regard it as a training issue," said Zornberg, adding that she "found no indication that any AUSA in this case or in the other two cases to which you referred, intentionally acted willfully to withhold information."

"The defense takes issue with the idea that this was merely an issue of training," countered attorney Elizabeth Macedonio, who represents a defendant indicted in March of 2017 for the murder of Robert Bishun on September 20, 2016, about a week before Bishun was slated to testify against Merlin Altson, an NYPD cop who was on trial for drug charges.

Macedonio noted that seven months before her client, Robert Pizarro, was indicted, the government had learned — a week after Bishun was killed — that an informant told a DEA agent "that he has obtained a detailed confession from" a drug dealer named Gabriel Guillen who "implicates not only himself but three other individuals" in the crime. The info was turned over this month, which precipitated the extraordinary pre-trial session last week.

The attorney did not charge the prosecutors with knowingly withholding Brady Material they knew they had. But Macedonio came pretty close. She noted that Guillen and four others he named in the murder were later hit with drug charges, and that some of the AUSAs in that case are also prosecutors in the Pizarro case.

"During the course of our investigation the last couple of weeks," Macedonio continued. "I have come to learn that the attorneys in that case were told by some of the same prosecution members at this table that their clients were being investigated for a homicide."

"So we're taking issue with the idea that this is simply a matter of training," she said. "We have prosecutors at this table who were involved in both investigations, and we think at a minimum it was neglect to the extent that it raises a level of negligence that requires this Court to exercise its supervisory powers and dismiss the indictment," the lawyer said, adding: "Judge, there has to be at some point some deterrent, right?"

"There has to be deterrence," agreed Nathan, who stated it might be a question for Zornberg but never posed it to the prosecutor, noting that "these kinds of things do sometimes lead to OPR investigations" and that "there's consideration in Congress now as to bills to allow for civil lawsuits against prosecutors who withhold exculpatory information."

In their letter admitting "several mistakes" in not turning over information about Guillen's confession and other Brady Material concerning a second cooperating witness, AUSAs Jessica Finder, Jared Lenow and Jason Swergold wrote that "the appropriate remedy for the Government's error" was an adjournment, not a dismissal of the indictment.

Judge Nathan agreed, and scheduled the trial of Pizarro and codefendant Juan Rivera for September 11.

The defense lawyers and prosecutors in the case all declined to comment. Zornberg, Khuzami, and Public Information officer James Margolin were also mum about the two other cases where AUSAs failed to live up to what Judge Nathan called their "Brady obligations." They were also close-lipped on whether the screw-ups would have any impact on the cases involving Guillen, or Alston, who was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years.

But numerous defense lawyers, and even a few prosecutors, were incredulous that prosecutors for the flagship U.S. Attorney's Office in the country, the so-called Sovereign District of New York, would need to be "retrained" about Brady Material, a basic rule that the U.S. Supreme Court put into the law books in 1963.

"Brady Material is anything that would be favorable information for a defendant, even if it's seemingly innocuous information about the credibility of a witness," said one federal prosecutor, adding, "That's not for you to decide."

"It's evidence known to the prosecution that is favorable to the defense," said a former federal prosecutor who is still a member of the law enforcement community.

"Retraining?" laughed one defense lawyer. "What the hell were they doing in law school. It's a basic rule."

"Retraining?" cracked another defense attorney. "It's simple: If you have it, you turn it over. You don't wait for me to ask for it. It's your obligation."

"Prosecutors have a completely different view of the world than we do," said another lawyer, who believes their actions are learned from their bosses. "They have a different interpretation of Brady. They don't have to give you any helpful information if they don't think that it's true. That's not what the Supreme Court says, that's not what the cases say, but that's what they say."

Stay tuned. We're pretty certain we've identified one of the two cases that Judge Nathan and Zornberg were discussing in court. It's one Gang Land has written about before, and we're hoping to flesh out the details next week.


Benny The Blade's Trial Strategy Is In Place, No Matter Who Represents Him

The shrink made me do it.

That's the apparent trial stategy, hatched a year ago last Saturday, that mob associate Battista (Benny the Blade) Geritano seems ready to use next month when he is slated to face extortion charges for threatening to kill his lawyer and his son.

On May 19, 2017, a day after he was brought to Brooklyn Federal Court, according to court papers federal prosecutors filed last week, Geritano sent an email from his federal lockup to the son of lawyer Al Brackley stating that he would "never hurt either" man. He had merely been taking his psychologist's advice and blowing off steam in the letter he had sent the elder Brackley three months earlier.

In the email missive to Patrick Brackley, who is also an attorney, Geritano wrote, "I would never hurt either of you and you both know it," he wrote. As proof that he meant no harm, The Blade added these brilliant words: "If I had intent on ever harming either of you I would have (done so) on Rikers when you both came to see me after the trial," according to the excerpt in the court filing.

"I vent when I say things and write things or I'll give myself a heart attack," the email continued. "My psychologist told me better to rant and rave and verbally blow up the world than hold it in and cause physical harm. Yes I would like to punch a few people in their face and take their heads off with one punch or kick, but it is (only) a figure of speech," he wrote.

In what prosecutors Lindsay Gerdes and Matthew Jacobs say was a "self-serving" letter to the elder Brackley in December, Geritano wrote he "would never hurt you or your son" and that they would "never have to worry about me physically touching any of you — or having someone do it."

Prosecutors say the email and the followup letter indicate that Benny plans to "argue at trial that he never intended the letters" to Brackley and to appeals lawyer Domenick Napoletano, in February and April of 2017 "to be threatening." To rebut that argument, Gerdes and Jacobs want to use threatening letters he sent other trial participants — a court reporter and a detective — before and after his 2013 conviction because it's prior conduct that is similar to the charged crimes.

Geritano is charged with threatening to kill the three lawyers if they didn't provide him "false affidavits" stating that Brackley had failed to mount a viable defense for him so that Benny could use them to seek a new trial based on the ineffective assistance of counsel.

In his letter to Brackley, Benny warned the 84-year-old attorney that even though he "may not be around" to suffer Geritano's wrath when he gets out of prison in 2024, Brackley's son will pay the price, stating: "I'm going to leave your son dead in front of the court house for his standing by as you sold me out!" In the letter to Napoletano, Benny wrote: "The next lawyer to intentionally fuck me is a dead lawyer! Straight like that. Lawyers are sneaky sell out scumbags who forget their place until someone pulls alongside of them and puts a few holes in them — the old school way. . . . And if you don't put my motion together immediately and get me the hearing — God help you."

"The defendant's history of mailing threatening letters to people involved in his 2013 trial establishes that his decision to include threats in the Letters to the Lawyers was knowing, intentional and strategic" because there are "substantial similarities" with the letters Benny "sent to the Court Reporter and the Detective," the prosecutors wrote.

Like his letters to the lawyers, Geritano made demands in his letters to the court reporter and the detective, Brian Meyers, the prosecutors wrote. He stated he wanted "true transcripts" from the reporter and the "original complete video" of the one in which he is seen holding a knife in his right hand after he allegedly stabbed the victim in a 2012 barroom assault.

"In all the letters," they wrote, Geritano "threatened harm to the recipients" whom he accused "of willful misconduct related to his 2013 trial," and also "threatened to harm people close to the recipients — the Trial Lawyer's son, the Appellate Lawyer's secretary, the Court Reporter's husband, and the Detective's family."

The prosecutors also want to introduce evidence of Geritano's 2013 trial, his conviction, his 12 year sentence, and his appeal in order to prove his motive — anger over Brackley's handling of the case — for writing the threatening letters that are the main focus of the extortion allegations against Benny.

In an email to Gang Land this week, Geritano stated that he intends to retain a new attorney. But court-appointed lawyer Walter Mack, whom Judge Sterling Johnson has refused to replace, told Gang Land that unless and until that happens, he is preparing to file papers next week contesting several of the government's pre-trial requests they made last week.

Trial is scheduled to begin June 11.

Judge Lowers The Boom On Mobbed-Up Labor Racketeer

A federal judge has sentenced a tough-talking labor racketeer who bragged of his ability to short-change his foreign-born union members to five years in prison. The harsh sentence for Roland Bedwell, 58, includes three years of post-prison supervision stemming from his shake downs of four New York area contractors he tried to force to sign contracts with his mobbed up union.

In handing down the sentence last week, Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis stressed a need to deter other union leaders from hooking up with mobsters and abandoning their obligations to their members.

Garaufis meted out his 60 month prison term after prosecutor Andrey Spektor reported that Bedwell, the $190,000 a year business agent of Local 175 of the United Plant & Production Workers Union, did the bidding of Gambino mobster Anthony Franco and that in addition to threatening victims himself, Bedwell brought one extortion victim to meet Franco.

The prosecutor did not detail any alleged threats by Bedwell or Franco at that meeting, but in response to a query about Franco from the judge, Spektor stated, "practically speaking, he runs the union" of about 600 asphalt workers, landscapers and others in the metropolitan area.

"This sentence ends Bedwell's career of extorting business owners and sends a clear message that others who attempt do so will suffer the same fate," said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue, noting that "Unions exist to protect workers, not to serve as vehicles for extortion."

Even so, five years was less than what prosecutors had asked for, and what the judge had threatened to impose last month, when he alerted Bedwell's attorneys that he was planning to give him more than the maximum 63 months behind bars called for in the plea agreement he had reached with the government.

That came after prosecutors submitted a sentencing memo containing many taped threats by Bedwell and his tape-recorded assertion that the union did better for its asphalt workers than its landscapers, stating: "See we came up with that cause we knew, in the landscapers, they got a lot of Mexicans (and) Guatemalans" who "came from a third-world country."

In response to the judge's reaction to the detailed government filing, Bedwell wrote Garaufis a six-page letter in which he stated that he has changed his ways in the year since he has been behind bars and is no longer the "immoral, drug-using, trash-talking guy" he was when he was committing crimes.

"You were right to put me in jail last May" for violating his bail conditions by continuing to use cocaine, even after he was warned that his bail would be revoked if he didn't stop, Bedwell wrote, stating that the judge "may have saved my life and me from myself" by doing so.

"This has been a real wake-up call for me," he wrote. "I have had a lot of time to think about my life and soul search as to how I got here. I am not the same man who stood before you back in May (of 2017.) "

"I realize I have been a selfish man who took many important things for granted" and is now "ashamed and embarrassed" about putting himself and his "selfishness" above his family members and by letting them down through his "destructive behavior," Bedwell wrote.

"I should have done better for them," he wrote.

Bedwell told Garaufis that his time behind bars "has been the worst thing that has happened to me in my life but in some ways it has been the best thing as well," adding that he "will continue to soul search and grow as a man" and that the judge "will never see" him again "when I am released from prison."

If he completes a special Bureau of Prisons drug counseling course, that could be in September of 2020.

[Chucky]

It's a bit of a snooze fest this week fellas

[TommyGambino]

I remember bronx saying Geritano was mentally ill, looks like he was right, surely the Gambino's will wash there hands with him now

[SILENT PARTNERZ]

All the pics were of judges and lawyers.
Not gonna bother with it. I hope Benny
joins a Tibetan monastary so we don't
have to hear about him any more.

[Stroccos]

Thanks for posting chucky

[SonnyBlackstein]

I sometimes think Capeci is more into the law side rather the OC side of things.

Did he fail the bar as a kid I wonder...


Thanks for the post Chuck. No problems SP.

[gohnjotti]

Slow news week I guess. Not Jerry’s fault.

[newera_212]

I sometimes think Capeci is more into the law side rather the OC side of things.

Did he fail the bar as a kid I wonder...


Thanks for the post Chuck. No problems SP.

its a combo of not much news going on, and the courts being the biggest source of info for capeci. lawyers call capeci with stuff all the time.

slow LCN news day today but it'll pick up. i have a feeling we're going to see more court reporting; as out of Genovese character as it seems, I have a feeling Esposito is going to actually go to trial. the case against him is complete dog shit. i would bet money on him actually going to trial

[SonnyBlackstein]

its a combo of not much news going on, and the courts being the biggest source of info for capeci. lawyers call capeci with stuff all the time.

slow LCN news day today but it'll pick up. i have a feeling we're going to see more court reporting; as out of Genovese character as it seems, I have a feeling Esposito is going to actually go to trial. the case against him is complete dog shit. i would bet money on him actually going to trial

There's SO much in the pipeline though.

Luchese family bust with complete admin and sev Capos locked up and awaiting trial.

Bonanno family hirearchy (significant part) and Capos locked up awaiting trial.

Genovese trial with potential high ranking member awaiting trial.

Philly indicments which could decimate the family on the books.

....

....

....

But no.
Lets spend several weeks talking about Benny 'Bat-shit crazy and my jacket won't do up because I actually dont even have a button' Bautista and a corrupt union offical's sentencing who likes to talk shit.

Sorry, but fuck me Jerry, Prioritize.

PS Esposito when it comes down, extorted a guy for 10k a year and had dollars unaccounted for. The guns will prob hit him the most. He'll plea for
7-9 out in 5, imo.

[Snakes]

Sometimes there just isn't anything new to report.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Sometimes there just isn't anything new to report.

Sure. But a lot of what Jerry does isn’t necessarily ‘new’. Why not a bio on any of the 15 odd ranking members under charge? Their histories, crews, potential options/outcomes etc etc.

With as listed the above facing trial, the argument that there isn’t anything to write on is just false. And ‘new’ isn’t necessarily Jerry’s forte or history.

It’s just no excuse for yours. As an OC observer his choices of late are to ignore such a rare abundance of topic forgone for the easy route of the current boring irrelevant sideshows.

IMO.

[Snakes]

Well, you have to remember he writes for the public, not necessarily the weirdos on message boards like us. I don't know, maybe the clientele is pretty similar.

I've also seen FBI reports on pretty high profile guys that were the same month after month because they simply didn't have any new substantive material. I'm sure he runs into the same thing.

[SonnyBlackstein]

Well, you have to remember he writes for the public, not necessarily the weirdos on message boards like us.

That's a point Id likely take issue. I'd say his audience is almost precisely us weirdos on message boards and not the general public.

How many of your friends and family not being mafia aficionados pay Capeci for their weekly column do you think?

[Ivan]

It's a bit of a snooze fest this week fellas

Chucky I hope you're stealing this somehow and not paying for the subscription.

Seriously though, thanks for posting as always, even the sucky columns.

[newera_212]

its a combo of not much news going on, and the courts being the biggest source of info for capeci. lawyers call capeci with stuff all the time.

slow LCN news day today but it'll pick up. i have a feeling we're going to see more court reporting; as out of Genovese character as it seems, I have a feeling Esposito is going to actually go to trial. the case against him is complete dog shit. i would bet money on him actually going to trial

There's SO much in the pipeline though.

Luchese family bust with complete admin and sev Capos locked up and awaiting trial.

Bonanno family hirearchy (significant part) and Capos locked up awaiting trial.

Genovese trial with potential high ranking member awaiting trial.

Philly indicments which could decimate the family on the books.

....

....

....

But no.
Lets spend several weeks talking about Benny 'Bat-shit crazy and my jacket won't do up because I actually dont even have a button' Bautista and a corrupt union offical's sentencing who likes to talk shit.

Sorry, but fuck me Jerry, Prioritize.

PS Esposito when it comes down, extorted a guy for 10k a year and had dollars unaccounted for. The guns will prob hit him the most. He'll plea for
7-9 out in 5, imo.

jesus...you're right, lmao. i actually forgot about a lot of that shit. totally blanked on the fact that the most of the bonanno admin got busted semi-recently and on top of that, since its been over a year with the lucchese admin behind bars i damn near forgot about them too. capeci reported on the bullshit attempted murder charge a few weeks ago that the feds crobar'ed in there..of the guy that allegedly barred crea from entering a social club. but i feel like thats the first and last ive heard about that case since the actual indictment

im not the most flag saluting law and order type who gets justice-boners...but I feel like Geritano is someone who belongs behind bars for the rest of his life. theres not too many people id actually say that about. the guy seems like a real, actual danger to society. on and off for the past 10 years hes been in and out of the news (and prison) for senseless violent crimes, against regular working citizens nonetheless. fuck that guy