Family Told How to Hide Inheritance, U.S. Claim

By BENJAMIN WEISER, NY TIMES

Harry G.A. Seggerman

May 12, 2012

LINK

The meeting of the Seggerman family at the elegant Four Seasons Hotel in New York in August 2001 was like many such gatherings of bereaved families: a patriarch had died and the children had come to discuss their inheritances.

In this case, the patriarch was Harry G. A. Seggerman, a respected investment fund president who had died several months earlier at age 73, leaving his family more than $20 million, the government said.

But the meeting that day, attended by Mr. Seggerman’s widow and four of his children, took an unusual turn, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Friday.

The family’s lawyer, Michael Little, who was also present, explained that half of Mr. Seggerman’s estate, more than $10 million, was in Swiss and other foreign accounts, and he told them how they might keep the money hidden to avoid paying United States taxes, prosecutors said.

The result was the hatching of a protracted tax fraud scheme involving Mr. Little and various family members, federal prosecutors said. One of Mr. Seggerman’s daughters has already pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and on Thursday night, the lawyer, Mr. Little, was arrested on a conspiracy charge at Kennedy International Airport as he arrived from London.

Mr. Little, 61, who has residences in Hampshire, England, and in New York, would face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted. On Friday, a federal magistrate judge said he could be released on a $2 million personal recognizance bond.

Mr. Little’s lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, said “we are confident that in the end we will be able to demonstrate that there is no merit” to the charges, according to The Associated Press.Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said on Friday that his office was prosecuting not only people who do not pay their taxes, but also “their enablers.”

“In addition to breaking the law by advising his American clients on how to break it themselves, Michael Little violated the most basic moral and ethical tenets of the legal profession,” Mr. Bharara said.

A federal complaint unsealed on Friday charged that Mr. Little had told family members how they could set up Swiss accounts and other entities with him and a Swiss lawyer, who would be paid annual fees for their services. He also explained how the family could bring money back to the United States in small increments using, for example, traveler’s checks.

Mr. Seggerman’s eldest son, a businessman who worked at his father’s firm, also once proposed that his siblings use code words when discussing the plan, the complaint said.

They would use the word “beef” when referring to money, “F.D.A.” for the I.R.S., and “refrigerator” for certain accounts in which money would be held, the complaint said.

Mr. Seggerman’s son Henry, who is listed on the Web site of the firm, International Investment Advisors, did not respond to a request for comment.

A grand jury investigation into the family’s handling of its inheritance is continuing, the government said, and it has focused on foreign advisers to the family, as well as the Swiss lawyer and a New Jersey accountant.

Two of Mr. Seggerman’s other children, who are not identified in the complaint, have provided information to prosecutors in hopes of entering into cooperation agreements.

One, a daughter, took extensive notes at the Four Seasons meeting on hotel stationery, which she turned over to investigators, prosecutors said.

Another daughter, Suzanne Seggerman, pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy and tax charges, and is awaiting sentencing. She has become a cooperating witness in the investigation, the complaint said.

Her lawyer, Russell M. Gioiella, said on Friday that his client had “cooperated fully” in the case. “She sincerely regrets that she did not disclose the existence of these accounts from the outset,” he added.

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

Lawyer Little Charged With 11-Year Swiss Tax-Fraud Scheme

By Patricia Hurtado - May 11, 2012

LINK

 

The U.S. charged Michael Little, an attorney, with participating in an 11-year conspiracy that defrauded the Internal Revenue Service using Swiss bank accounts and sham mortgage transactions.
Little and unidentified co-conspirators, including five members of an U.S.-based family, first met at a New York hotel in August 2001, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a criminal complaint filed today.
During the meeting, Little advised family members, identified in court papers as the “S Family,” on how they could bring back to the U.S., without paying taxes, $10 million in overseas accounts that belonged to the family’s recently deceased patriarch.
Little assisted family members with opening an account at UBS AG in Switzerland and conducting sham mortgage transactions designed to get the money into the U.S. without alerting the IRS, the government alleged in the filing in federal court in Manhattan.
From 2001 and 2008 Little met with the matriarch of the family to discuss the transfer of funds and “caused millions of dollars” to be sent from offshore to the U.S. account of an entity she controlled, according to the complaint. The matriarch “made personal and other use of the money,” prosecutors said.
Other unidentified people involved in the scheme include a New Jersey accountant, a lawyer in Switzerland and the eldest member of the S Family, described as a New York businessman who also inherited funds in offshore accounts.
One of the relatives has pleaded guilty to federal charges and is cooperating with the government’s investigation, prosecutors said. Two of that person’s siblings have also provided information to the U.S., prosecutors say.
The case is U.S. v. Little, 12-MAG-1241, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

British Lawyer Charged in Swiss Bank Mess Related to UBS Account (5/11/12)

Circuit Rejects Retaliation Lawsuit From Internal Probe

Mark Hamblett

New York Law Journal

05-10-2012

A fired employee has no viable claim for retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964 for participating in an internal investigation prior to any proceeding before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal appellate court held yesterday.

That was one of two questions of first impression on sexual harassment and retaliation resolved by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

The circuit also concluded that an affirmative defense to an employer's vicarious liability for a hostile work environment created by a plaintiff's supervisor is not available where the supervisor has enough authority and control so as to be the "proxy" or "alter ego" of the employer.

The new circuit law was made in Townsend v. Benjamin Enterprises, 09-0197-cv, where Martha Townsend sued her former employer Benjamin Enterprises, a firm that helps disadvantaged and low-skill workers train to work for local companies; its president Michelle Benjamin; and her husband, Hugh Benjamin, the sole vice president of the company. Both Benjamins are also shareholders.

Townsend was a receptionist who reported to the company's human resources director, Karlean Grey-Allen, that she was being sexually harassed by Hugh Benjamin.

Grey-Allen asked Townsend for a report, spoke to the New York State Division of Human Rights, asked Mr. Benjamin to work from home during her investigation and spoke about the allegations with a management consultant working for the company.

The talks with the consultant prompted Michelle Benjamin to fire Grey-Allen. Ms. Benjamin retained an outside human resources company to pursue the allegations and, after the company concluded nothing had happened, and it was a "he said, she said" case, Mr. Benjamin returned to work in the office.

Unable to tolerate working with Mr. Benjamin, Townsend resigned on March 23, 2005.

She and Grey-Allen filed suit in the Southern District, with Townsend charging hostile work environment and sexual harassment and Grey-Allen alleging retaliation for her investigation.

In February 2006, the Benjamins served Townsend with a Rule 68 Offer of Judgment for $50,000. She rejected the offer.

Southern District Magistrate Judge George Yanthis (See Profile) dismissed Grey-Allen's retaliation claim because her investigation was not associated with an ongoing EEOC proceeding, and she was not engaged in a protected activity.

On Dec. 12, 2008, a jury returned a verdict for Townsend for $30,400, finding that Mr. Benjamin had subjected her to a hostile work environment and that he was the alter ego of the company and his actions could be imputed to the company.

The amount of the award under Title VII against the company and the Benjamins was $5,200; $25,200 was against Mr. Benjamin for civil battery; and Yanthis awarded legal fees and costs of $141,308 to Townsend.

Appeals in the case were heard on Aug. 30, 2011, by Second Circuit Judges Debra Ann Livingston (See Profile) and Raymond Lohier and, sitting by designation, Southern District Judge John Koeltl (See Profile).

Koeltl wrote the court's 43-page opinion affirming Yanthis. Lohier penned a concurrence.

Retaliation Claim

Grey-Allen sought liability for retaliation under the participation clause of the Civil Rights Act's §704(a), which states it is unlawful to retaliate against a person "because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful practice by this subchapter, or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in an investigation, proceeding or hearing under this subchapter."

Koeltl explained that the subchapter largely deals with the enforcement powers of the EEOC and the procedures by which it carries out investigations and hearings.

Every other Court of Appeals to consider the issue, he said, "has squarely held that participation in an internal investigation not connected with a formal EEOC proceeding does not qualify as protected activity under the participation clause."

Grey-Allen had argued that two U.S. Supreme Court cases bring internal investigations "under" Title VII within the language of the participation clause, Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998), and Burlington Industries v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (1998).

In Faragher/Ellerth, the court established an affirmative defense to vicarious liability for hostile work environment by a supervisor where the employer has not taken a tangible employment action against the plaintiff and the facts show "(a) that the employer exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, and (b) that the plaintiff employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of any preventive or corrective opportunities provided by the employer or to avoid harm otherwise."

Koeltl said the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense creates an incentive for employers to conduct internal investigations, but "it does not impose an obligation on employees to participate in such investigations as a necessary prerequisite to bringing a discrimination claim under Title VII."

And the rulings "do not provide a basis for bringing internal investigations not associated with a formal EEOC charge 'under this subchapter' within the language of the participation clause," he said.

Lohier wrote he was "reluctantly" concurring with the decision affirming the dismissal of Grey-Allen's claim. Observing that the text of Title VII's anti-retaliation provision is ambiguous, he urged Congress to clarify Title VII if it wants to protect employees "merely because they participate in internal investigations of discrimination complaints prior to any involvement by the EEOC."

Affirmative Defense

The Benjamins argued on appeal that the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense still holds where the alleged harasser holds a sufficiently high position in the company to be considered a proxy or alter ego.

But Koeltl said that argument "cannot be squared with a fair reading of Faragher or Ellerth."

The EEOC enforcement guidelines, he said, state that the defense is not available to a proxy and that guidance "is entitled to deference," as it is persuasive.

Nothing in Faragher or Ellerth, Koeltl said, was a departure from the case law on proxy/alter ego liability.

Faragher quoted the Second Circuit case of Torres v. Pisano, 116 F.3d 625 (1997), for the proposition that "a supervisor may hold a sufficiently high position 'in a management hierarchy of the company for his actions to be imputed automatically to the employer.'"

"This doctrine," Koeltl said, "as approvingly described by Farragher, thus holds an employer liable in his own right for wrongful harassing conduct, rather than vicariously liable for actions of the employer's agents."

And both Faragher and Ellerth make clear that they "did not intend to depart from these well-established theories of employer liability in sexual harassment cases," he said.

Here, he said, the jury "reasonably could have concluded that Hugh Benjamin occupied such a position."

Stephen Bergstein of Bergstein & Ullrich in Chester represented the plaintiffs. He said the Townsend side of the opinion was good for plaintiffs, and he is weighing a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court with regard to the Grey-Allen holding.

"I don't see how Congress could have wanted a result like this. How can you be fired for participation in an in-house investigation?" Bergstein said. "Human resources has to investigate but they are vulnerable to terminations. They won't do investigations because they are afraid and that's inconsistent with what Title VII stands for."

The Second Circuit also turned aside a challenge to the attorney fee award by the defendants.

Richard Kass and Amy Culver of Bond, Schoeneck & King represented the defendants.

@|Mark Hamblett can be contacted at mhamblett@alm.com.

The End of Dewey & LeBoeuf

Dewey’s Jeffrey Kessler Heading to Winston & Strawn

Jeffrey Kessler, right, with DeMaurice Smith, center, head of the N.F.L. players’ union

BY PETER LATTMAN, Deal book 

LINK

One of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s four members of its office of the chairman is departing for a rival, the latest sign that the firm is on the brink of collapse.

Jeffrey Kessler, who headed Dewey & LeBoeuf’s litigation department and is a top sports-industry lawyer, is leaving to join Winston & Strawn, according to a person with direct knowledge of his decision.

Mr. Kessler did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As recently as last week, Mr. Kessler maintained that the firm had no plans to close in mid-May or to seek bankruptcy protection.

A spokesman for Winston & Strawn did not immediately respond for comment. Mr. Kessler’s planned move was earlier reported by the Above the Law blog.

A number of Dewey partners are expected to join him at Winston, this person said, including Seth Farber and Harvey Kurzweil.

Mr. Farber and Mr. Kurzweil are the two Dewey partners who are conducting an internal investigation of Steven H. Davis, the former Dewey chairman. The Manhattan district attorney’s office has also opened an inquiry into Mr. Davis’s conduct as head of the firm. Mr. Davis has denied any wrongdoing.

Mr. Kessler was one of four Dewey partners who ousted Mr. Davis from his leadership post late last month as they tried to save the firm.

Winston & Strawn, an old-line Chicago firm with about 900 lawyers, is perhaps best known for its litigation practice. Its chairman, Dan K. Webb, is considered one of the country’s leading trial lawyers.

Dewey & LeBoeuf, which has been devastated by partner defections and financial woes, has effectively ceased operations as large groups of partners leave the firm each day. Dewey’s junior lawyers were told on Tuesday that Monday would be their last day at the firm.

A Brooklyn native, Mr. Kessler earned his college and law degrees from Columbia University. As one of the country’s leading sports-industry lawyers, Mr. Kessler has represented all four major sports leagues players’ unions and numerous star athletes individually, including the basketball player Lattrell Sprewell and the football player Terrell Owens.

Mr. Kessler, who had a contract paying him $5.5 million a year at Dewey, was a vocal proponent of the firm’s star system of compensation that gave top producers outsize multiyear, multimillion-dollar contracts. Those contracts created obligations that Dewey, after posting disappointing financial results, could not meet, leading to a mass exodus of partners in recent weeks.

In an interview in March, Mr. Kessler said there was immense pressure to pay big producers who brought in the clients, while the partners that did the grunt work were worth less and less. He analogized it to the sports world, where the salary spread has widened between star players and others on the team.

He observed that the pay spread between what the New York Yankees all-star Alex Rodriguez and the rest of the team today was far greater than that of the Yankees legend Mickey Mantle and his teammates in the 1950s. The dynamics in corporate law were the same, he said.

“The value for the stars has gone up, while the value of service partners has gone down,” he said.

Also on Wednesday, Richard Shutran, another member of the four-person office of the chairman, departed for O’Melveny & Myers. Mr. Shutran, a mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, will join O’Melveny along with four other Dewey partners — Junaid H. Chida, Arthur V. Hazlitt, Mark Caterini and Dev R. Sen.

May 8, 2012, 9:11 am

More Top Lawyers Leave Dewey & LeBoeuf

By PETER LATTMAN

When the partner exodus at Dewey & LeBoeuf began in earnest about six weeks ago, legal industry observers said there were a handful of the firm’s top producers to keep a close eye on.

Among the names most frequently mentioned were Richard E. Climan, a leading mergers and acquisitions lawyer in Silicon Valley, and Berge Setrakian, a corporate lawyer in New York with a large international practice. If those two left, the thinking went, Dewey was in trouble.

Dewey, of course, is already in trouble, as more than 120 of its 300 partners have defected. But both Mr. Climan and Mr. Setrakian are wrapping up the final details on their moves to rival firms, delivering a major blow to Dewey’s chances for survival.

Mr. Climan is joining Weil, Gotshal & Manges, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Joining him is Keith Flaum, along with three other partners and four associates. This is the second lateral move in less than three years for the Climan group; Dewey had poached them from Cooley in 2009.

In Mr. Climan and his partners, Weil gets a pre-eminent West Coast mergers and acquisition practice. Mr. Climan and his team have recently advised Dell on two acquisitions, and they also handled the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers out of bankruptcy.

Mr. Setrakian is heading to DLA Piper and bringing a number of Dewey partners with him. DLA Piper, with more than 4,000 lawyers, is the world’s largest law firm. It has aggressively grown by hiring star lawyers from other firms with the promise of lucrative pay guarantees.

The moves by Mr. Climan and Mr. Setrakian were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Also this week, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has finalized the hiring of Dewey’s 31-lawyer Moscow office. All told, Morgan Lewis has brought on about
65 lawyers from Dewey, including 18 in London.

And Akin Gump announced on Tuesday morning that it had added three Dewey energy industry lawyers to its partnership ranks, including John C. LaMaster, who was chairman of Dewey’s global oil and natural gas group and is based in London.

Dewey’s employees have been warned that the firm could shut down. On Monday, secretaries were told that Friday would be their last day. As of last week, the firm’s leadership said there were no plans to file for bankruptcy.

Dewey Departure Tracker

Court Corruption = City Corruption: MTA

 From Betsy Combier: Why was Jimmy Roemer hired by the MTA in the first place?

 

Ex-con Jimmy Roemer ousted from MTA project after News exposes his crooked past

Capo | May 8, 2012 | 0 Comments

LINK

James Roemer, convicted in 2003 of orchestrating a $10 million ripoff during MTA headquarters renovation, got boot from East Side Access tunnel project after Daily News exposed his crooked past to transit authority.

Roemer served three years for helping mob-run payroll scam loot $10M from authority

Roemer was removed from a gig managing payroll at the MTA’s biggest construction site last week after the Daily News told officials about his crooked ways — he had previously done prison time for helping a mob-run payroll scam loot $10 million from the same authority.

Now Roemer could get tossed from his union, the crane operators’ Local 14. Its court-appointed lawyer, George Stamboulidis, a former prosecutor in mob cases, recently moved to expel Roemer from the union permanently — arguing that Roemer’s fleecing of the MTA “furthered the influence of the Genovese crime family,” court papers filed April 25 state.

Roemer pleaded guilty nine years ago to the scheme to skim cash from the MTA’s renovation of its downtown Manhattan headquarters.

He admitted he padded hours for workers and put nonexistent employees on the payroll. At the time, he was treasurer of Local 14, a union prosecutors charge has been mob-controlled for decades.

He served three years in prison. After completing his probation in 2009, he landed a job on the MTA’s $7.3 billion East Side Access tunnel under the East River.

By November, he was managing payroll for more than 100 Local 14 members working on the tunnel.

Source: nydailynews.com

Corrupt Courthouse Bookkeeper Stole $2.6 Million From The Dead

LINK

Richard Paul leaves Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday. He was the alleged ringleader of four people from the Brooklyn Public Administrator who were indicted and charged with stealing $2.6 million from the estates of the deceased

The New York Daily News by Greg B. Smith and Janon Fisher  -  May 4, 2012
Theft funded lavish shopping sprees for camera equipment, Gucci products, Apple computers and even a New Year’s Eve weekend in Las Vegas: officials

 
Richard Paul was the alleged ringleader of four people from the Brooklyn Public Administrator who were indicted and charged with stealing $2.6 million from the estates of the deceased.  George Bethea was one of four people from the Brooklyn Public Administrator indicted and charged with stealing $2.6 million from the estates of the deceased. 

A corrupt county bookkeeper in the Brooklyn courthouse stole $2.6 million from the estates of dead people and funneled the money to three of his cronies, according to indictments unsealed Friday.  Richard Paul, who worked in the Kings County Public Administrator’s office, used his own password to get access to the funds of people who died without wills, cut checks to phony names and deposited them into a TD Bank account in the Garment District.  

 

Paul, who was arrested in January, and his cohort Taryn Miller, 33, are both charged with two counts of grand larceny. Miller’s husband, George Bethea, 34, and former city department of corrections officer Ransel Sangster, 35, were charged with grand larceny in the second degree. All pleaded not guilty.  “By breaching the public trust in order to line his pockets, the defendant violated his obligations to the City and to all New Yorkers,” District Attorney Cyrus Vance said of Paul. 

 

The fraud uncovered by Investigations Department exposed a weakness in the city’s system of maintaining so-called “abandoned” estates — estates where no legitimate relative comes forward to claim the money.  When the public administrators can’t find next of kin, they’re supposed to send the money by check to the city Finance Department, which holds on to it in case a relative comes forward later.  But investigators discovered the public administrators and finance weren’t double-checking to make sure the money got to where it was supposed to go.  In Brooklyn, investigators discovered one out of every four checks went missing — $12.7 million of $34.4 million from abandoned estates between 2004 and 2011. That included the $2.6 million allegedly stolen by Paul.  The problem may exist in the other boroughs as well, where 567 checks from abandoned estates worth $110 million have been written to the finance department since Jan. 1, 2007, officials said.  Finance auditors are now going back over all those checks to make sure they were deposited correctly Finance auditors are now checking. 

 

"This investigation exposed an audacious and calculated scheme to steal money from the dead” DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said. “Investigators quickly found that a key insider and his accomplices methodically raided the accounts of a City office charged with safeguarding decedents’ property. DOI is recommending measures to the relevant City agencies to prevent a recurrence of the fraud uncovered by the investigation.”  Paul, who worked at the Public Administrator’s office for 10 years, used his own password to log into the computer that controls the funds, prosecutors say.  Starting in August 2008 through November of last year, prosecutors say he cut checks for draw-dropping amounts of cash. Sangster, deposited a $390,287.41 in his bank account in August 2008 and another for $200,000 in November 2011 while he was still working for the DOC, prosecutors say. Bethea was the recipient of $150,000 that should have gone in the public coffers, according to court papers.  The crew went on shopping sprees, spending $44,000 on camera equipment, Gucci products and Apple computers, investigators believe. Sangster also treated himself to a New Year’s Eve weekend in Las Vegas. He declined to comment.  Paul’s lawyer, Louis Rosenthal, said that his client trained others on the computer bookkeeping system and his password was available to many employees.  “Half a dozen people have his password and passcode,” he said. “It’s unthinkable that he would use his own code to cut forged checks.”  Darren Fields, the lawyer for Miller, said that his client has no association with the county office.  “She never worked for the public administrator, she never received funds from the public administrator,” he said. “She’s a victim of circumstance.”  jfisher@nydailynews.com

 

 

May 4, 2012

City Bookkeeper Charged With Stealing $2.6 Million From Estates

LINK

By RUSS BUETTNER

A bookkeeper in the office of the Brooklyn public administrator stole more than $2.6 million from the estates of people who died without wills over a period of three years, prosecutors charged on Friday.

The bookkeeper, Richard Paul, wrote forged checks from seven estates, diverting money that was supposed to be deposited in the city treasury to himself and three co-conspirators, who were also charged, according to criminal complaints in the case and a prosecutor’s remarks in court.

All four defendants are charged with grand larceny; Mr. Paul, 34, is also charged with defrauding the government. They pleaded not guilty on Friday and are free on bail.

The money was rapidly withdrawn and spent using debit cards, including charging $4,500 at B&H Photo and purchases from Gucci and Apple, according to a memorandum by the city Department of Investigation. Transfers to other bank accounts, including one for $200,000, drained nearly all the proceeds of the forgeries, the memo says.

“This investigation exposed an audacious and calculated scheme to steal money from the dead,” Rose Gill Hearn, the commissioner of the department, said in a statement.

For decades, auditors and prosecutors have cited public administrator offices, which handle the estates of people who die without wills or known heirs, for corruption or incompetence. Questions about the handling of funds and real estate and the selection and billings by lawyers appointed to oversee the estates have been the source of recurring problems.

Most recently, Lee L. Holzman, the Bronx surrogate court judge since 1988, is facing a disciplinary hearing this year on charges that he allowed the public administrator whom he oversaw to run amok, taking unearned and excessive fees from estates she was handling.

In 2009, an audit of the Brooklyn public administrator’s office by William C. Thompson Jr., who was the city comptroller, found mismanagement so pervasive that Mr. Thompson urged people to rush to create wills.

Each borough has a public administrator, who sells deceased people’s property, pays their debts and looks for heirs. If no heirs are found, the estate’s proceeds are sent to the city Finance Department.

The scope of the office’s work was not readily available Friday, but Mr. Thompson’s audit said the Brooklyn public administrator’s office had closed 523 estates in 2008. It was not clear whether any heirs were cheated out of money because of the scheme described by prosecutors, but none had been found when the money was alleged to have been taken.

The current Brooklyn public administrator, Bruce L. Stein, took office after the issues raised in the Thompson audit occurred. Last November, Mr. Stein noticed that a check for about $650,000 bearing his name had been forged and reported it to Ms. Gill Hearn’s office, according to the Department of Investigation memo. Investigators then discovered that the check was deposited into an account at a Manhattan branch of TD Bank.

City investigators, working with the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., eventually discovered six earlier forgeries going as far back as August 2008.

“By breaching the public trust in order to line his pockets, the defendant violated his obligations to the city and to all New Yorkers,” Mr. Vance said of Mr. Paul.

Taryn Miller, 33, is accused of helping Mr. Paul run the scheme, and her husband, George Bethea, 34, is accused of receiving $150,000 of stolen money.

Another city employee, Ransel Sangster, 35, is accused of receiving two forged checks — one for $390,287.41 in August 2008 and another for $200,000 in November 2011 — while he was working for the Department of Homeless Services and as a corrections officer for the Department of Correction. Mr. Sangster was fired as a correction officer after his arrest and reverted back to his Civil Service job at Homeless Services, from which he is currently suspended, according to the Department of Investigation.

Mr. Paul and Ms. Miller each face maximum sentences of up to 25 years if convicted of the top charges against them. Mr. Bethea and Mr. Sangster face up to 15 years on their top counts.

Mr. Paul’s lawyer, Louis R. Rosenthal, said outside the courtroom that his client had shared his user name and password with people he trained to use the computer program in the office that prints checks. Mr. Rosenthal suggested others might have been responsible for the forgeries.

“It’s incomprehensible that he would have used his own pass code to write a forged check,” Mr. Rosenthal said.

U.S. Court of Appeals To Hear Case of John Parent v State of New York

Breaking News: Federal Appeals Court to Decide Parenting Case in New York City

 April 27, 2012

LINK

The United States Court of Appeals in New York City released its weekly calendar today which includes the case of John Parent v State of New York. This is a consolidated test case seeking to establish a privacy limit for parents and families subjected to abusive divorce, custody and support practices in state domestic relations courts. It is being argued by Dr. Leon R. Koziol, a parental advocate who spent more than 23 years in federal and state courts litigating civil rights cases on behalf of minorities, women and victims of government abuse.

It comes in the wake of the Founding Fathers March on Capitol Hill this past week and is set for Friday of Father’s Day weekend. Whether the June 15^th date means anything for long discriminated fathers is already the subject of widespread speculation. Regardless, civil rights activists across New York’s metropolitan area are already organizing a rally at the Foley Square court in lower Manhattan. Although oral arguments are not scheduled, this is the date set to begin deliberations, and it affords Family Court victims an opportunity to express their support.

The plaintiff, John Parent, is not a real person. Like the case of Roe v Wade, it is a fictitious name allowed by a lower federal court on a sealed record to protect privacy interests. The name is also employed to represent the concerns of “parents similarly situated”. In this manner, the high cost and complexities of a class action lawsuit were avoided. In short, you may be an interested party to this action, and your personal and financial support is crucial to its success. The lawsuit and appeals brief can be found on line at www.leonkoziol.com. Today’s news was received with guarded optimism given the uphill battle. However, Dr. Koziol had this to say:

“Shared parenting and family retention are the final frontier of civil rights to be defended under the American Constitution. When parents raise their children, they exercise virtually every human right contemplated by that venerable document. And so, this is where I draw my line against further invasions of family privacy. I will not back down.”

The case deals with a full range of parenting interests, including child alienation, attorney misconduct, oppressive collection practices and equal protection violations. A “separate but unequal” doctrine of custody laws is being challenged because it mandates superior and inferior classifications among separated paternal and maternal family units even when it harms parent-child relationships. Litigants are needlessly forced to fight over power and money awards which produce lucrative controversy for lawyers. Debtor prisons and other barbaric practices inflict greatest injury to minority fathers. The case is being defended by the U.S. Justice Department, New York Attorney General and law firms on behalf of named lawyers and municipalities.

See Complaint and Appeals Brief (Click Here)

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