Long Island

Suffolk

INMACE07

The curious case of Robert Macedonio

Lawyer’s felony cleared in case shrouded in secrecy

inmace comp

Longtime Suffolk County prosecutor John Scott Prudenti regularly collected thousands of dollars from local defense attorneys for the use of his boat, potentially violating county ethics and professional conduct standards. 
Prominent defense attorneys Raymond Perini and William Collado said that their respective firms jointly made checks out to a corporation run by Prudenti, a bureau chief and 30-year veteran of the Suffolk district attorney’s office, in order to rent his 47-foot boat, the Christina Marie, for an annual summer party.
The get-togethers — which Perini called a “knock-around good old time party” — featured lobster, barbecue, “beer, wine and if somebody wanted a shot I always had a bottle of scotch.” Perini said he couldn’t be sure when he started booking the Christina Marie for the summer parties but that the arrangement lasted for five or six years. Some of the most powerful people in Suffolk’s criminal justice system — including prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges and Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota — attended the parties, Perini said.
Defense lawyers also paid Prudenti to charter the Christina Marie for fishing trips, though the boat did not always leave the harbor or even the dock, according to Collado and two other defense attorneys who said they had been on the charters.
The two other defense attorneys, who asked not to be identified, said they went on Prudenti’s boat on separate trips and that it was a well-known way to curry favor with Prudenti, who was involved in many of their cases.
Perini and Collado, however, each said the payments for the summer party were never aimed at getting better deals in criminal cases and that they never reaped any advantage from Prudenti. 
“I don’t think this affected his ability to make decisions at all,” said Perini, a former Suffolk prosecutor who failed in a 2013 bid to unseat Spota as district attorney.
Perini initially estimated the annual payments for the parties were about $4,000 or $5,000. Perini, in a later conversation, said that upon reviewing checks, he had paid Prudenti $1,500 to $1,800 for some of the parties, a cost that included food and drink. 
Perini said he couldn’t remember whether those checks covered the entire cost of those parties, or whether Collado had paid an additional amount. Perini declined to provide Newsday copies of the checks he gave to Prudenti.
Suffolk County’s ethics code states that public servants cannot “engage in any business, transaction or private employment, or have any financial or private interest which is in conflict with the proper discharge of his or her official duties.” 
The American Bar Association mandates that prosecutors must avoid allowing their professional judgment or obligations to be affected by private financial interests.
In 2015, the ABA toughened standards to require that prosecutors inform their supervisors of any matter that “could reasonably be viewed as raising a potential conflict of interest.” Supervisors are then to decide whether disclosure in the courtroom is warranted, and the ABA standards call for a bias in favor of disclosure.
Perini said “Spota always came” to the parties, as did many criminal judges whose identities he said he couldn’t remember. “If judges were there, if his boss was there, who is he going to disclose to?” Perini said of Prudenti. “It’s not a secret party.”
It’s unclear when Prudenti, who did not respond to messages left with the district attorney’s office or on his home answering machine, last rented out the boat. Prudenti is listed as the boat’s owner in a commercial database, and on Thursday his home voice mail gave callers the option to leave a message about fishing on the Christina Marie. 
Paul Sabatino, a former counsel to the Suffolk Legislature and chief deputy county executive who helped craft Suffolk’s ethics code, said if Prudenti took money from defense attorneys for use of the Christina Marie, it was improper.
“In all honesty, you don’t need an ethics code to tell you that if you are an attorney on one side of a case, you can’t be taking a financial benefit from your opposing party or the opposing party’s attorney,” Sabatino said. “That’s just a basic standard rule.”
Bennett Gershman, a Pace Law School professor and former Manhattan prosecutor, called Prudenti’s boat rentals to defense attorneys “potentially a very serious conflict of interest. You can argue it’s a bribe.”
Spota spokesman Robert Clifford, in an email responding to a reporter’s questions, wrote that before 2010 Prudenti chartered his boat, sometimes to attorneys, and served as captain. Those on board covered boat operating costs, including for bait and fuel, Clifford wrote.
Prudenti hosted a summer gathering on the boat, which remained docked during the party, and members of the defense bar shared the costs of food and beverages, Clifford wrote.
“This event was no different than the many other social events that take place every year including agency, office and law firm holiday parties, golf outings, dinners and summer picnics where members of the law enforcement community, the bench and bar collegially gather,” Clifford wrote.
<h4>Scrutiny on DA’s office</h4>
The revelations about Prudenti’s financial transactions with defense attorneys come at a time of increased scrutiny of how the Suffolk district attorney’s office has operated.
Newsday reported in January that Spota’s top corruption prosecutor, Christopher McPartland, is under federal investigation for possible obstruction of justice involving the case of James Burke, the former Suffolk police chief and district attorney’s chief investigator who pleaded guilty in February to beating up a suspect and then arranging a cover-up. 
In February, Newsday chronicled how Spota’s office handled the prosecution of Robert Macedonio, a defense attorney whose felony conviction for cocaine possession was later vacated in an unusual case shrouded by sealed records. After the story, federal authorities subpoenaed records and witnesses concerning Spota’s prosecution of Macedonio. 
A Suffolk prosecutor since 1986 and former unsuccessful congressional candidate, Prudenti has deep ties to Suffolk politics and the courts. His uncle was deceased Suffolk GOP leader Anthony Prudenti and his cousin is former state chief administrative judge A. Gail Prudenti. 
John Scott Prudenti began his career as a prosecutor under then-District Attorney Patrick Henry. He rose from trying District Court cases to high-profile assignments including a stint as deputy chief of the Major Crime Bureau. 
Prudenti — who pleaded guilty to impaired driving after a 1980 arrest, according to a civil deposition he gave in 2007 — currently leads Spota’s Vehicular Crimes Bureau. 
Perini said there was nothing untoward about his payments to Prudenti for the boat parties. He said that when negotiating plea deals in major cases, he dealt with Spota or his bureau chiefs, not Prudenti, who was a deputy bureau chief at the time.
The parties ended, Perini said, after retired New York Police Department Det. Pete Fiorello, who frequently criticizes Spota on Internet message boards, showed up in the marina parking lot to take photos of people on Prudenti’s boat.
“When people are uncomfortable or worried about it appearing on the blogs, we might as well not do it,” Perini said.
While defense attorney Collado acknowledged that he paid Prudenti for the parties and to charter the Christina Marie for fishing trips, he said he had never done so to influence the prosecutor. 
“Ours was exclusively fun,” Collado said. “I don’t partake in any quid pro quo.” 
<h4>Known for ‘making nice’</h4>
In interviews with about a dozen defense attorneys and former prosecutors, Prudenti’s fiberglass boat, built by AMF Hatteras Yachts in 1979 and docked at a Hampton Bays marina, was described as well-known in the legal community. 
One defense attorney, who asked not to be named so as to not jeopardize his legal practice, said he joined others on a charter fishing trip on Prudenti’s vessel. The trip was paid for by one of the other defense attorneys, he said. He recalled the lawyers joking about whether they had to leave the dock because the real purpose of the outing was not fishing but “making nice” with Prudenti.
“The thinking was that he would be more amenable if we chartered the boat,” the attorney said of Prudenti.
Another defense attorney, who also did not want to be named because he believed it could jeopardize his current cases, said Prudenti suggested he charter his boat during a period when the prosecutor oversaw many of his clients’ criminal cases. The attorney said that his intent in chartering the boat was getting favorable consideration from Prudenti and that the boat never left the harbor. 
Perini said the Christina Marie remained docked for the parties he paid for because of a drunken boating accident years earlier on another vessel in which an attorney died.
Collado said that besides his firm splitting the cost of the parties with Perini’s firm, he also chartered fishing trips on Prudenti’s boat. Those trips often never left the dock, Collado said.
“I’m not a fisherman, and I got sick a couple of times,” Collado said, which is why his charter trips on the prosecutor’s boat stopped leaving the dock. 
Prudenti’s boat rentals to defense attorneys appear to have been an open secret in Suffolk courthouses, according to the defense attorneys interviewed. When asked which of his colleagues had been on the boat, Perini said: “Call any lawyer over 40.”
Defense attorney and former prosecutor Keith O’Halloran said he’d never chartered the boat himself but had been aboard and didn’t “have that great of a memory of what was going on.”
Daniel Russo said he had been on the Christina Marie as both a defense attorney and during his previous career as a Suffolk prosecutor. He said he never personally paid Prudenti, and any suggestion by other attorneys that the prosecutor could be influenced surprises him.
“If they are getting good deals, I want to know how,” Russo said. “Because I don’t get them.”
Other attorneys were more reluctant to discuss whether they had knowledge of Prudenti’s charter business.
Defense attorney William Keahon, a former Suffolk prosecutor, responded when asked whether he had been on the boat: “When you tell me who told you that, I’ll give you an answer.” 
Former Suffolk prosecutor John Halverson said asking him about the boat was “reckless.”
Defense attorney Andrew Fiore told a reporter, “I just got to call somebody else and see if I can talk to you about this.” He never called back.
Former Suffolk prosecutor Craig McElwee, who said he had been on Prudenti’s boat when a political fundraiser for a defense attorney spilled from a neighboring bar onto the Christina Marie, acknowledged the troublesome ethics inherent in defense attorneys chartering a boat from a prosecutor overseeing their cases. 
“The way I look at it is, why wouldn’t you want to rent a boat from somebody you know who has it?” McElwee said. “But obviously, if you’re looking at it from a different angle, you might think: ‘Hey, what the hell’s going on with that?’ ”

INBOAT0426

Prosecutor’s party boat: Spota deputy got thousands for use of vessel

ADA got thousands from attorneys for boat use

Prudenti and Perini/mk

Throughout most of 2007, day and night, the Suffolk County district attorney’s Government Corruption Bureau eavesdropped on a politically connected attorney’s wiretapped phone. 
The wiretap began with a tip that a prosecutor in the office — John Scott Prudenti — had taken a bribe in exchange for getting a violent felon out of prison. The wiretapped phone belonged to the man who allegedly paid off Prudenti: Robert Macedonio, a cocaine- and alcohol-addicted defense attorney who would occasionally roll up to the courthouse in a Bentley and step out wearing diamonds and a mink coat. 
Suffolk investigators and prosecutors listened as Macedonio plotted what they believed to be criminal activity with cocaine traffickers, judges, gang members and various public officials. In some phone calls he was overheard arranging cocaine purchases or tipping off clients to law-enforcement informants, whom he referred to as rats to be poisoned. In other calls, he discussed deals to launder campaign contributions or trade patronage jobs for judgeships. 
Operating in secrecy out of an unmarked building in a Hauppauge industrial park, upwards of 15 investigators worked the sprawling case. Some had been pulled from a police narcotics squad, while others were financial specialists probing alleged money laundering and mortgage-fraud schemes orchestrated from Macedonio’s Central Islip law office. 
Investigators cultivated informants, sent co-conspirators undercover wearing wires, conducted surveillance, issued subpoenas and obtained warrants to wiretap more than a dozen phone numbers, building dossiers not just on Macedonio but also cocaine dealers, armed robbers and public officials. 
The top three officials in the Suffolk district attorney’s office managed the operation. District Attorney Thomas Spota signed affidavits detailing evidence of criminal activity that justified the need for wiretaps. His top assistant and chief of the government corruption bureau, prosecutor Christopher McPartland, often listened in live to the intercepted phone conversations. And James Burke, who at the time was the district attorney’s chief investigator, worked in tandem with McPartland to guide the probe. 
It looked like a case destined to end with a press conference touting high-profile indictments involving drug trafficking, mortgage fraud, public corruption and cocaine distribution in Long Island high schools. But according to several officials with knowledge of the investigation, most of the criminal activity went unpunished and investigators were left wondering why such an extensive wiretap operation resulted in so few prosecutions. 
The officials came to believe that Macedonio was a “political bag man” who negotiated behind-the-scenes deals. The investigation “was a goldmine of political information they were getting,” said one of the officials, each of whom spoke to Newsday on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. 
A top law-enforcement official, who reviewed case materials and was briefed by people involved with the investigation, confirmed that the details in this story reflect the investigative record. 
The officials familiar with the investigation said McPartland showed particular interest in political conversations caught on the wire, even when they fell outside the scope of what a judge had approved to be intercepted. 
“McPartland was directing investigators to listen to political calls they probably should not have been listening to,” one of the officials said. Those instructions included recording all calls between Macedonio and William Keahon, another prominent defense attorney with political connections. 
Keahon did not respond to several messages seeking comment. 
Newsday has reviewed more than 100 pages of documents and other materials produced during the district attorney’s Macedonio probe. Those records, along with information from officials familiar with the wiretap, reveal an array of alleged and confirmed criminal activity that appears to have gone largely unpunished by the district attorney’s office. 
Spota, McPartland and Prudenti did not respond to multiple interview requests. 
The documents from the Macedonio investigation show that in negotiations, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with criminal sale of cocaine, grand larceny, money laundering, mortgage fraud and violating election law. Additionally, prosecutors agreed not to press charges against several of Macedonio’s relatives and friends. 
Macedonio referred questions to his attorney, Sarita Kedia. Kedia said that there was no “credible evidence” supporting any other charges against Macedonio other than cocaine possession. Kedia said she may have insisted that prosecutors agree in writing not to charge him with other crimes, including sale of cocaine, to protect Macedonio from “further unwarranted allegations.” 
Newsday published an investigation in February highlighting the unusual circumstances of the Macedonio prosecution, including that he pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession in 2008 despite records indicating a more extensive investigation into mortgage fraud and money laundering. Later, Macedonio had his felony drug charge vacated with support from McPartland. 
The same month, Newsday filed a motion with acting Suffolk Supreme Court Judge James Hudson, who presided over the Macedonio case, to unseal records related to the attorney’s prosecution. Spota and Macedonio opposed unsealing the records, but Hudson ruled in favor of Newsday on May 4. Hudson is expected to make the records available to the public as soon as Thursday. 
Federal investigators with the U.S. Eastern District of New York subpoenaed the district attorney’s records from the Macedonio case following Newsday’s report. 
The interest in the Macedonio case comes amid ongoing federal scrutiny of Suffolk’s law-enforcement system. Burke, who after his tenure as district attorney’s chief investigator was appointed chief of the Suffolk Police Department, pleaded guilty in February to federal charges that he beat a suspect in custody and orchestrated a cover-up of the crime. In addition, Newsday has reported that McPartland is the target of a federal investigation for possible obstruction of justice charges stemming from the Burke case. 
Eastern District Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Treinis Gatz, who is among the prosecutors involved in the federal Macedonio investigation, did not return a message seeking comment. 
<h3>The investigators’ work</h3> 
As the wiretaps and information from sources generated tantalizing leads on public corruption, investigators grew increasingly frustrated that they were not allowed to aggressively pursue them, according to officials. 
Investigators learned that Macedonio had allegedly boasted of paying then-Brookhaven Town Supervisor John Jay LaValle a $25,000 bribe to get an emergency order that kept a Hamptons bar open from a judge who was at a beauty salon, officials said. State court records confirm that a judge’s 2001 order prevented the closing of a Hamptons beachfront bar that state regulators wanted to shutter. Macedonio was close with the family that owned and ran the bar. 
LaValle, who is now the Suffolk GOP leader, acknowledged helping to secure the order from the now-retired judge, who was getting her nails done at a Mount Sinai salon. LaValle said he was “sure I got a referral fee of some sort” for suggesting an attorney to represent the bar’s owners but that nothing improper occurred. 
“I will answer any question you have as if my hand was on a Bible,” LaValle said. “There is nothing I have done wrong.” 
LaValle was never questioned at all, officials said, and his involvement in the Hamptons bar issue went largely unexamined. 
Although Macedonio held no formal political position, records from the investigation state that after intercepting his phone calls, “it has become clear that Robert Macedonio acts as an official representative of the Brookhaven Republican Party.” 
Macedonio was recorded in a wiretapped conversation with then-Brookhaven Highway Superintendent John Rouse in which they discussed how Macedonio could circumvent election law by donating to Rouse’s re-election campaign in a relative’s name past the filing deadline, the officials said. 
Investigators took surveillance photos of Rouse retrieving a back-dated check at the business owned by Macedonio’s relative. Campaign finance records show a donation of $1,000 to Rouse from that business at the time in question. 
In a separate facet of the investigation involving Macedonio and Rouse, Spota signed documents providing evidence that Macedonio and others were involved in bribery in Suffolk County politics. 
In a June 2007 recorded phone call, Macedonio told Rouse there were eight judgeships set to be available and said, referring to one of the Republican-controlled spots, if “we give you one of ours, is that something you’d be interested in?” 
Rouse, a Democrat, replied that he would be interested. 
Two days later, in a recorded conversation with a businessman active in Brookhaven politics, Macedonio discussed an apparent deal in which the Brookhaven Republican Party would cross-endorse Rouse for the judgeship in return for highway department jobs, which he described as four full-time and eight part-time positions. 
“If we were going to cross-endorse him he was going to let, you know, us pick who we wanted to put there,” Macedonio said. 
“Wow,” the businessman responded. 
In sworn court documents, Spota and a Suffolk police detective cited the conversations as probable cause of bribery and conspiracy on Macedonio’s part. As for Rouse, the documents stated that the highway superintendent “has not solicited or even discussed a quid pro quo for a cross endorsement, judgeship or any other benefit in any of the conversations intercepted.” 
Because “a person offering a bribe is not a coconspirator of a person receiving a bribe,” the documents said, there was no similar probable cause that Rouse had also participated in the scheme. 
Officials said that McPartland tried to pressure Macedonio by targeting his relative but never moved against Rouse, a former prosecutor with whom he’d worked years earlier in the district attorney’s office. McPartland only agreed to bring in Rouse for questioning after being badgered to do so by investigators, according to the officials. 
McPartland and three investigators were present for the brief interview with Rouse, but the corruption bureau chief did all of the talking in what one of the officials described as “more of a gentlemen kind of meeting” than a traditional interrogation. 
McPartland played a few of the taped conversations and Rouse began to cry, the officials said. McPartland asked him whether he’d committed the acts described on the recordings and Rouse simply told him no. He was allowed to leave and no charges were brought. 
Rouse was subsequently cross-endorsed by Republicans and elected a Suffolk County Court Judge in 2012. Now an acting Suffolk Supreme Court judge, he declined an interview request through a court spokeswoman. 
In another wiretapped conversation, officials said, investigators listened as Macedonio secured a job for then-County Court Judge Ralph Gazzillo’s son in the Brookhaven Highway Department controlled by Rouse. Records show that the son was hired by the highway department in April 2007 and still works there. 
“To be quite honest, I don’t remember it at all,” Gazzillo, who is an acting Suffolk Supreme Court judge, said when asked about Macedonio’s assistance in securing his son’s position. 
Gazzillo later testified on Macedonio’s behalf at a 2012 hearing to regain his law license. 
<h3>Evidence of drug trafficking</h3> 
The investigators were most troubled by wiretapped conversations revealing drug trafficking linked to the Macedonio case, officials said. The investigators gathered evidence against more than 17 individuals connected to the drug trade or violent crimes, including some who sold significant quantities of cocaine. Some of that cocaine was then peddled to teenagers in Long Island high schools, the officials said. 
Officials identified to Newsday many of the individuals believed to be involved in the drug trafficking, and the newspaper used state criminal court records to confirm that none of them was convicted of drug crimes during the time period that coincided with the Macedonio investigation. 
Spota signed sworn court records attesting that several of the drug dealers planned the armed robbery of a Ronkonkoma marijuana dealer who they believed could have tens of thousands of dollars stashed in his house. 
A recorded conversation captured the robbery’s ringleader in the midst of planning the heist, saying of the marijuana dealer that “we gotta push his roly-poly ass over and go take twenty, ten, twenty, thirty-thousand dollars real quick ya know, just to warm up our, our palms.” 
“But he is gonna get got this weekend for sure,” the man said of the marijuana dealer in another recorded call. “I don’t care if he got a hundred grand or ten grand, he getting got.” 
Investigators heard the robbery plan unfold on the wiretap and caught two men, one who fled into nearby woods, as they waited at night outside the marijuana dealer’s house. The men were armed with a gun and zip ties they planned to use to tie people up during the robbery. 
Though officers had put themselves in danger to apprehend armed criminals, the robbers were set free and never faced charges. When investigators repeatedly questioned such decisions, McPartland was evasive, the officials said. 
The officials said investigators knew that if they brought any of the drug cases to trial, prosecutors would have been forced to disclose the wiretap to defense attorneys. 
<h3>The attorney and the prosecutor</h3> 
The district attorney’s Macedonio probe began, officials said, after investigators spoke with sources who claimed that the defense attorney was involved in various criminal activities, including financing a gang member’s cocaine operation and engaging in mortgage fraud. 
One claim that immediately grabbed the attention of investigators was that Macedonio allegedly paid a cash bribe to a prosecutor within their own office. A source told investigators that Macedonio paid Prudenti $2,500 to charter his boat to thank him for arranging the early release of a client, a violent felon convicted of his role in an armed robbery in which a family was bound and held at gunpoint. 
Investigators corroborated aspects of the story, the officials said, and found that in order to arrange the early release of Macedonio’s client in 2004, Prudenti had misled a judge into believing the felon had cooperated against a criminal associate. 
In fact, the investigators found, Macedonio’s client had been “absolutely uncooperative” when approached by Prudenti and detectives for information and had only testified to a grand jury against his will because he was subpoenaed to do so, according to officials. 
Prudenti’s boat again turned up on the 2007 wiretap. 
As investigators eavesdropped, Macedonio told Keahon that Prudenti wanted him “to go out on his boat to talk,” according to the officials. “Don’t rent it,” Keahon said. Macedonio responded that he would not rent the boat or take anybody out. 
Newsday reported last month that Prudenti had for years taken money from defense attorneys to charter Christina Marie, his 47-foot fiberglass boat. Some defense attorneys who had been aboard the boat told Newsday that renting the boat was a well-known way to curry favor with Prudenti. 
Investigators on the Macedonio case were not permitted to interview Prudenti or the felon who had benefited from the favorable deal, and they ultimately suspected that Prudenti had been tipped off about the wiretap by someone within the district attorney’s office, according to officials. 
Although phone records showed that Prudenti and Macedonio spoke often, their phone conversations ended shortly after the wiretap began, the officials said. Macedonio was even heard on the wire complaining that Prudenti had stopped returning his calls. 
The investigation was ultimately exposed when one of Macedonio’s co-conspirators sat down in his law office and wrote on a piece of paper that he was wearing a wire. Macedonio and the man went immediately to the office of another defense attorney, and investigators had to ask the lawyers for the return of their own listening equipment, according to the officials with knowledge of the case. 
Investigators later had a different co-conspirator wear a wire and meet with Macedonio. Those meetings took place in the aisles of a Home Depot in Central Islip, presumably because Macedonio no longer trusted that his law office wasn’t being monitored. According to officials, Macedonio would not communicate verbally with the co-conspirator during one of the meetings and instead wrote questions and answers on paper that he then chewed and flushed down a toilet in the home-improvement store’s bathroom. 
<h3>Investigation ends</h3> 
Macedonio pleaded guilty in December 2008 to felony possession of cocaine after nearly a year of negotiations between his lawyers, Spota and McPartland. The single count of felony fifth-degree drug possession to which he pleaded was equivalent to having been caught with less than $50 worth of cocaine. The sentence carried no jail time, but the felony conviction required the automatic forfeiture of his law license. 
The officials familiar with the case considered the penalty too light. 
“He deserved more charges,” one of the officials said of Macedonio, and added that in his view, the case is “a classic example of the DA’s office perverting the justice system.” 
Though the case had been handled by Suffolk’s Government Corruption Bureau, the investigation did not result in a single public official being charged with as much as a misdemeanor. 
In 2012, McPartland supported Macedonio’s unusual court application that allowed him, with the aid of Judge Hudson, to vacate his felony conviction in favor of a misdemeanor plea. 
Months later, Macedonio’s law license was reinstated after a hearing in which he stated under oath that there had not been “any allegations” that he was involved in the sale of narcotics. It was as if the district attorney’s investigation had never happened. 
“That’s when I wanted to throw up,” one of the officials familiar with the case said.

Crime

INWIRE0512

DA Thomas Spota’s wiretap of Robert Macedonio: New details of probe 

Inside a Suffolk wiretap: Drugs, gangs, politics

IMG5GFQ_WEB / mg

Federal authorities have interviewed several individuals involved in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office’s 2007 wiretap investigation of politically connected defense attorney Robert Macedonio and are examining whether an alleged bribe to prosecutor John Scott Prudenti went uninvestigated, according to a source with direct knowledge of the ongoing federal probe.
The circumstances surrounding a tip that Macedonio paid Prudenti a cash bribe for the early release of a violent felon is part of a larger federal investigation into selective prosecution and abuse of power under District Attorney Thomas Spota, according to the source. Beyond the Macedonio case, federal officials are examining at least two other cases handled by Spota’s office, the source said.
Spota, who has arguably been Suffolk County’s most formidable political figure for more than a decade, has faced recent demands that he resign amid increasing scrutiny of his office and how he has exercised his authority.
Following a Newsday story last week that detailed how the district attorney’s office failed to prosecute apparent public corruption, drug activity and an armed robbery during an extensive wiretap investigation into Macedonio, County Executive Steve Bellone in a news conference accused Spota of leading a “criminal enterprise” and demanded that he step down or be removed from office.
Suffolk County’s Republican lawmakers echoed Bellone’s call for Spota to resign, and their Democratic counterparts have indicated they will hold a public hearing and demand answers from Spota. Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco had previously written an Op-Ed in Newsday calling for Spota’s resignation.
Spota, during his own news conference held in response to Bellone’s, rebuffed the county executive and said there is “absolutely no reason” for him to resign and that Bellone made his statements because he had prosecuted Bellone’s friends. Spota added that he would only leave office on his own terms.
In the same news conference, Spota stated that all public corruption leads in the Macedonio case had been “exhaustively investigated.” Spota also referred to Newsday’s report as “fundamentally flawed” and said Macedonio was not involved in the case concerning the bribery allegation. “It was not Macedonio at all,” Spota said.
Spota and Prudenti declined to be interviewed for this story.
However, court records show that Macedonio was a key participant in the case of Benjamin Piccolo, a violent felon whose early release from prison would be an impetus for the district’s attorney’s extensive wiretap investigation.
Macedonio represented Piccolo at his arraignment in 1999 — when the felon was prosecuted for masterminding an armed robbery — and called the district attorney’s case a “fishing expedition,” according to a Newsday article at the time. In 2000, Piccolo was convicted of two violent felonies after he pleaded guilty to attempted robbery and attempted burglary in the first degree. In 2004, court records show, Macedonio helped secure Piccolo’s early release from a seven-year sentence.
Officials familiar with the district attorney’s Macedonio prosecution told Newsday that the tip that Macedonio bribed Prudenti in return for help securing Piccolo’s release was one of several leads involving public corruption that investigators said they were prevented from aggressively pursuing.
Those officials said investigators were able to determine that Prudenti misled a judge in 2003 when he said Piccolo had agreed to provide key information and help gain the conviction of another felon. Prudenti cited Piccolo’s alleged willingness to cooperate as he asked the judge to reduce Piccolo’s original seven-year sentence.
Federal officials have been told by sources involved in the Macedonio case that contrary to what Prudenti said, Piccolo “absolutely did not want to cooperate and had to be subpoenaed to testify,” according to the person with knowledge of the federal investigation.
The officials familiar with the district attorney’s investigation said investigators were told that Macedonio bribed Prudenti by paying him to charter the prosecutor’s boat. The investigators separately learned that Macedonio had chartered the boat on at least one occasion, and they intercepted a phone call in which he told another defense attorney that though Prudenti wanted him to go out on his boat “to talk,” Macedonio did not want to rent the prosecutor’s boat or take anybody out on it.
After securing Piccolo’s early release, district attorney investigators caught Macedonio on a wiretap discussing a range of potential criminal activity with Piccolo, including witness tampering, according to officials. Macedonio and Piccolo plotted to retaliate against a man, whom they referred to as a “rat,” by exposing him as a criminal informant.
The wiretap investigation ultimately ended in 2008 when Macedonio pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession, although that conviction was later vacated with the help of prosecutors. State criminal court records show Piccolo was not convicted of any crimes stemming from the district attorney’s investigation.
Macedonio declined to answer questions for this story. Piccolo responded to a reporter’s attempt to question him about his case by saying, “[Expletive] you and [expletive] law enforcement.”
Newsday published a story in February detailing the district attorney office’s unusual prosecution of Macedonio, which Spota’s spokesman said was “common, not unique nor unprecedented.” Soon after, federal authorities subpoenaed all investigative records in the case, and they have now interviewed several of the personnel involved in the initial investigation.
In the story published last week, Newsday used public records, documents produced during the Macedonio investigation and information from sources familiar with the probe to provide an inside look at the district attorney’s wiretap investigation. Although wiretapped phone calls captured an array of apparent criminal conduct, including public corruption, officials familiar with the case said serious crimes went unpunished because the investigators were prevented from pursuing leads.
The district attorney’s Macedonio investigation went on for at least a year and was led by the office’s top three officials: Spota, prosecutor Christopher McPartland and James Burke, who at the time was the office’s chief investigator.
Burke later went on to lead the Suffolk Police Department until he resigned last year and pleaded guilty to federal charges that he beat a suspect in custody and orchestrated a cover-up of the crime. Newsday has also reported that McPartland is the target of a grand jury investigation related to his role in the Burke case.
<h4>The robbery</h4>
The case at the center of the allegation that Macedonio bribed Prudenti stemmed from a 1997 home invasion robbery involving a crew of violent criminals that Piccolo helped mastermind, according to court filings and testimony.
Already a convicted drug dealer, Piccolo was on lifetime parole when he learned that a Smithtown man kept substantial sums of cash in a safe at his home. With the help of another career criminal — who would be convicted of a murder that same year in a separate case — Piccolo planned a heist in which two more criminal associates would masquerade as law enforcement officers to gain entry to the Smithtown man’s home.
The court records explain how the robbery unfolded: Piccolo rented a Ford Crown Victoria and had it customized to look like a detective’s unmarked police car. At an Islip auto body shop run by another criminal associate, Brian Soltan, Piccolo’s accomplices dressed up as a uniformed police officer and a detective.
Piccolo drove the men to the target and waited in the Crown Victoria as his disguised associates entered the man’s home. At gunpoint, Piccolo’s associates duct-taped homeowner Frank Geraci, his fiancee, his mother and his sister-in-law. Geraci’s 3-year-old niece was also present. The robbers made off with a Rolex watch, a pistol and $155,000.
Geraci and the other victims suffered lasting physical and emotional harm, court filings state. According to a probation officer’s report, Geraci said that Piccolo “should stay in jail for as long as possible, and be forced to do every day of his sentence and not a day less.”
When Piccolo was arraigned in connection with the robbery in June 1999, Prudenti, the prosecutor, told Suffolk County Court Judge Louis Ohlig that Piccolo had recruited “known killers” for the robbery. Prudenti said that Piccolo may have ties to organized crime and that he’d been “nothing but a criminal his entire adult life.”
Piccolo pleaded guilty to first-degree attempted robbery and attempted burglary, both violent felonies. In April 2000, Ohlig sentenced him to seven years in prison. The sentence was determinate, meaning he would have to serve at least six years before he would be eligible for release.
As part of the sentencing, Piccolo promised to make restitution to Geraci and waived his right to appeal.
<h4>Shorter sentence</h4>
Three years later, with Macedonio representing Piccolo, Prudenti and Macedonio appeared before Judge Ohlig in June 2003. Macedonio and Prudenti asked Ohlig to reduce Piccolo’s sentence from seven to five years, according to a court transcript of the proceedings.
Prudenti told the judge that Piccolo had made full restitution to Geraci and that his former mother-in-law said his children needed him.
Most significant, Prudenti said, was Piccolo’s “extensive cooperation” against Soltan, the owner of the auto body shop that had been used as a staging area for the robbery. Prudenti said he and two detectives had visited Piccolo at Adirondack Correctional facility, and Piccolo had “expressed a desire” to assist in Soltan’s prosecution.
Piccolo then testified against Soltan before a grand jury, Prudenti said, with the understanding that prosecutors would recommend leniency in his own case. Prudenti said of Piccolo that he had “extensive dealings with him through that cooperation” and that the felon had exhibited remorse, court records show.
Court records depict Soltan as the heist’s most tangential participant — he ultimately pleaded guilty to felony possession of stolen property — but Piccolo’s alleged cooperation prompted Ohlig to reduce Piccolo’s sentence to five years.
The following year, Macedonio and Prudenti sought a new plea and more favorable sentence in the Piccolo case. The defense attorney and prosecutor asked Ohlig to vacate Piccolo’s conviction for violent felonies in favor of a plea to a nonviolent, felony grand larceny charge. Macedonio and Prudenti also sought to have Piccolo’s sentence reduced again, this time to two to four years, retroactive to the date of his previous sentencing.
Again, Ohlig agreed. Although state law demands that when taking such action, the court “must set forth on the record its findings of fact, its conclusions of law and the reason for its determination,” no explanation is available in the court file. A transcript of the hearing shows Ohlig also did not provide a statement explaining his decision.
Ohlig, who retired from the bench at age 70 in 2004, said in an interview Friday that he only had a vague recollection of the case and did not know why there was no explanation for his decision in the court record.
“Whatever I did, I relied on the district attorney, Mr. Prudenti’s, statement to me,” Ohlig said.
Piccolo was released from prison in December 2004, roughly three-and-a-half years before his original sentence would have expired. He was returned to lifetime parole supervision.
A year later, however, Piccolo received a “merit termination” of that parole status. State guidelines allow for a merit termination only when it is in the “best interests of society,” and it would have been unavailable to Piccolo had Prudenti and Macedonio not persuaded Ohlig to undo his original conviction and allow him to plead guilty instead to a nonviolent felony.
<h4>Working together</h4>
Documents reviewed by Newsday, as well as interviews with officials familiar with the district attorney’s 2007 wiretap investigation, show that Piccolo became one of Macedonio’s closest associates in much of the alleged criminal activity for which Macedonio was never charged.
In wiretapped conversations, the men discussed Macedonio’s mortgage business, Piccolo’s garbage business and the identities of those he believed to be secretly working for law enforcement..
In one phone conversation caught on the wiretap, Macedonio, a former Suffolk prosecutor, told Piccolo that a blond woman seen at Pace’s, their favored Port Jefferson steakhouse, was actually an undercover law enforcement officer. 
One of the officials familiar with the district attorney’s investigation of Macedonio said that spreading such information could have been deadly for informants and undercover cops.
“That’s how narco guys get killed,” the official said. 
In another call, the defense attorney and the felon discussed a property loan being prepared for Piccolo’s friend with the assistance of a Macedonio employee later convicted of committing mortgage fraud. Macedonio told Piccolo that he would “close his eyes” in regards to the apparently fraudulent mortgage and that he had instructed the employee to do what was necessary, according to the officials.
In another call, Macedonio told Piccolo that he could get him work via a friend, then-Brookhaven Highway Superintendent John Rouse. Macedonio — who was referred to in records from the wiretap investigation as someone who “acts as an official representative of the Brookhaven Republican Party” — told Rouse in a wiretapped call that Piccolo had gotten a Brookhaven address for his garbage business. Rouse replied that was fine but said he did not want to discuss the matter on the phone he was using, according to officials familiar with the investigation.
Rouse, who is now an acting Suffolk Supreme Court justice, said Sunday through a court spokesperson that he does not remember the conversation with Macedonio and has never known Piccolo.
Piccolo and Macedonio also had conversations captured on the wiretap in which they discussed exacting revenge on a “rat” they believed had given information to law enforcement. Macedonio described the “rodent problem” at Pace’s — presumably a reference to the alleged informant showing up at the steakhouse — and that “rat poison” should be thrown around the place.
“No problem,” Piccolo responded, saying that he knows “an exterminator” he can go see.
Officials familiar with the district attorney’s Macedonio investigation said that Piccolo papered the steakhouse with fliers outing the suspected informant as a “rat.”
Those officials said that though Piccolo could have been charged with witness tampering, he was never arrested or questioned as a result of the Macedonio probe.
If investigators had been able to interrogate Piccolo, one of the officials said, asking him about the alleged bribe of Prudenti “would have been the priority.”

INMACE0523

Feds examining whether Robert Macedonio’s alleged bribe to John Scott Prudenti went uninvestigated, source says

Did alleged bribe go uninvestigated?

WEFWRF_WEB

Federal investigators subpoenaed the Suffolk district attorney’s office on Tuesday, according to multiple sources, seeking all records related to its 2008 prosecution of criminal defense attorney Robert Macedonio, whose drug possession case remains shrouded in secrecy and involved unusual legal maneuvering.
Among the materials subpoenaed were wiretap audio and transcripts gathered by District Attorney Thomas Spota’s office during its investigation of Macedonio, according to a source close to the district attorney’s office familiar with the Macedonio case.
The source said the subpoenaed wiretaps include “evidence of a lot of crimes that have not been acted upon” by Spota’s office.
Macedonio ultimately pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession, a conviction that prosecutors then allowed him to vacate, which paved the way for Macedonio to resume his law career. 
In addition to the records sought, federal investigators subpoenaed at least seven individuals directly involved in the Macedonio case, although those subpoenas apparently did not specify the matter under investigation.
A spokesman for Spota declined to comment.
Suffolk County Police Department Det. Edward Troyano, who had worked with the district attorney’s investigators on the Macedonio case, confirmed to Newsday that he had received one of the subpoenas. Troyano said the document ordered him to appear March 22 at the Eastern District’s Central Islip courthouse. Federal prosecutor Lara Treinis Gatz’s name is on the subpoena, Troyano said.
Gatz did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Macedonio said Thursday he had not received a subpoena. He declined to comment further.
The subpoenas arrived on the same day that federal prosecutors, in a separate matter, accused Spota of thwarting a probe of Suffolk County Conservative Party leader Edward Walsh. The pretrial filing in Walsh’s ongoing federal case stated that Spota stymied an investigation into whether Walsh neglected to show up for his job as a county correction lieutenant at the Suffolk County Jail and had been caught at an illegal poker game. Walsh, whose case is unrelated to Macedonio’s, is charged with theft of government funds and wire fraud.
Spota’s spokesman, in a statement issued Wednesday, said Suffolk Sheriff Vincent Demarco -- not Spota -- was responsible for investigating Walsh.
Newsday published an investigation in February detailing the district attorney office’s unique handling of the case against Macedonio, a former Suffolk prosecutor. The story noted that many of the records had been sealed without explanation, and the few available records obtained by the newspaper suggested that alleged criminal activity beyond drug possession had been investigated.
The Suffolk prosecutor who handled the Macedonio case, Christopher McPartland, is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation for possible obstruction of justice charges in connection to former SCPD chief James Burke, Newsday has reported. Burke pleaded guilty last month to charges that he violated the civil rights of a Smithtown man in custody and then orchestrated a cover-up of the crime.
Newsday filed a Freedom of Information Law request with Spota’s office in May seeking the same records that federal investigators subpoenaed, including the wiretap materials. Spota’s office has so far produced none of the records for Newsday.
In addition, a Newsday attorney appeared in Riverhead court on Feb. 18 to argue that certain court records in Macedonio’s case, including a search warrant affidavit and his plea agreement, should be unsealed. At Suffolk County Supreme Court Judge James Hudson’s request, the newspaper will file a formal motion this week arguing that those records should be unsealed.

INMACE0311

DA Spota’s office subpoenaed by feds in Macedonio probe, sources say

Sources: Feds subpoena Suffolk DA’s office in probe

INMACE0311 INMACE0311_WEB / mg

Newsday filed legal papers with Suffolk Supreme Court Judge James Hudson Tuesday opposing an attempt by the Suffolk County district attorney’s office to keep records sealed in the case of Robert Macedonio, an attorney and former prosecutor who lost and then regained his law license after being convicted of felony cocaine possession.
District Attorney Thomas Spota’s office argued in court filings last week that public interest in the case has been “manufactured” by Newsday, which is seeking to unseal records. Attorneys for Macedonio also filed papers opposing release of the records and filed a separate motion asking for the entire case to be retroactively sealed because Macedonio completed a court monitored drug treatment program.
Newsday published an investigation in February highlighting the unusual case against Macedonio. Many of the case records had been sealed without explanation, and the records Newsday obtained suggested an ambitious law enforcement investigation in which Macedonio and multiple associates were probed for alleged criminal activity, including mortgage fraud.
Macedonio ultimately pleaded guilty to felony drug possession, though the basis of that charge was not revealed in any detail in court proceedings or in public records. With the support of prosecutors and the approval of Hudson, Macedonio then had that conviction vacated and replaced by a misdemeanor, paving the way for him to regain his law license.
Newsday had previously filed a motion to have two documents from the case unsealed: the affidavit law enforcement used to obtain a search warrant for Macedonio’s law office and the plea agreement the attorney reached with prosecutors. Hudson, who presided in the Macedonio case, ordered both records sealed in 2008.
The DA’s office opposition states that its prosecution of Macedonio was largely routine and that the newspaper’s efforts to shed light on the case were “an attempt to gin-up interest in the mundane.”
The papers Newsday filed Tuesday argue against sealing the case and assert its First Amendment and common law right to access the search warrant affidavit and plea agreement. Newsday attorney Katherine Bolger wrote that the right of access “is of particular importance in a case like this where the District Attorney and defendant’s counsel have collaborated to keep public records secret.”
“Such secrecy in such a strange case — and, indeed, the ferocious efforts by the state to maintain that secrecy — call into question the legitimacy of the judicial process and should not be tolerated,” Bolger wrote.
An attorney for Macedonio, in a separate motion, has asked Hudson to recuse himself from deciding whether to grant Macedonio’s request to seal the case. Macedonio’s attorney argues that because the Newsday story raised questions about Judge Hudson’s rulings in the case, the judge would be exposed to perceptions of self-interest regardless of how he decided.
It’s unclear when Hudson will rule on any of the motions.
The renewed action in the Macedonio case comes amid wide-ranging scrutiny of Spota’s office. Macedonio’s case was handled by Spota’s top corruption prosecutor, Christopher McPartland, who is the subject of a federal grand jury investigation for possible obstruction of justice charges in connection to former Suffolk police chief James Burke, Newsday has reported. Burke has pleaded guilty to assaulting a Smithtown man and of orchestrating a cover-up of the crime.
Federal investigators subpoenaed from the DA’s office all records and materials related to the Macedonio case after Newsday published its story. Several people connected to the case, including investigators, also received federal subpoenas, Newsday reported.

INMACE0412

Newsday fights move to keep Robert Macedonio case sealed

Newsday fights move to keep court records sealed

INMACE0412_WEB

Newly unsealed court records in the criminal case of defense attorney Robert Macedonio provided further confirmation that before he pleaded guilty to felony cocaine possession in 2008, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office targeted him in an extensive probe of serious crimes that included mortgage fraud, sale of cocaine, grand larceny and witness tampering. 
In the documents, which were unsealed Thursday by acting Suffolk Supreme Court Judge James Hudson in response to a motion by Newsday, investigators for Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota alleged in a search warrant affidavit that they had found evidence Macedonio employed unlicensed brokers with criminal records, lied to state banking authorities and filed fraudulent mortgages while operating a real estate business out of his law office. Macedonio was also alleged to have been active in the drug trade, the records show. 
Newsday published a story Thursday in which officials familiar with the case criticized Spota’s handling of the investigation. Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, the officials accused the district attorney, his top corruption prosecutor Christopher McPartland and then-chief investigator James Burke of allowing alleged and confirmed criminal activity from the wiretap investigation to go unpunished. Many of the allegations were corroborated by more than 100 pages of documents and other materials reviewed by the newspaper.
Macedonio’s sole conviction in the case was for felony cocaine possession, leading to the loss of his law license. But his conviction was later vacated with the support of the district attorney’s office, and he regained his law license. 
Spota’s office opposed the release of any records in the case, in which many court documents were sealed without explanation. In opposition to Newsday’s April motion to unseal records, prosecutors had argued that nothing unusual had occurred in the case and that the newspaper’s efforts were “an attempt to gin-up interest in the mundane.”
Spota did not respond to a request for comment. 
After ruling in Newsday’s favor, Hudson, who oversaw Macedonio’s criminal case, unsealed a search warrant affidavit filed by investigators before a January 2008 raid on the attorney’s law office, as well as the felony plea agreement that Macedonio signed in December of that year. Both sets of documents were heavily redacted to shield the names of unindicted co-conspirators, undercover officers, informants and other information Hudson deemed too sensitive to release.
In the search warrant affidavit, an investigator for the district attorney’s office stated that toward the end of 2006, Macedonio unlawfully allowed at least four individuals with criminal records to work as mortgage brokers using Macedonio’s own license. Macedonio received a split of their commissions, according to the affidavit. 
Macedonio then lied in a sworn filing with the New York State Banking Department by attesting that he did not have any felons working for his mortgage company, according to the affidavit and attached exhibits. 
The investigator also alleged that Macedonio had a role in a suspected narcotics dealer fabricating his occupation on a mortgage application to receive a loan. 
In another section of the affidavit, the investigator detailed allegations concerning Macedonio’s illegal narcotics activity. The investigator said an informant had told authorities that Macedonio fronted money to a drug dealer in return for cash or cocaine and at one point sought to invest thousands in the purchase of a kilo of cocaine, according to the affidavit. It’s not known from the documents whether investigators verified those claims.
The plea agreement also released Thursday — bearing the signatures of Macedonio, his attorneys and McPartland — shows that prosecutors agreed not to charge Macedonio with drug and white-collar crimes, as well as witness tampering and intimidation. 
Macedonio referred questions to his attorney, Sarita Kedia, who said Thursday she was unfamiliar with the claims in the search warrant affidavit. Kedia had previously stated that the uncharged crimes on the plea agreement were added only to protect her client from unwarranted charges.
Kedia said that Macedonio’s light treatment proved he had not committed more serious crimes.
“The manner in which he was treated shows that his criminal activity was not ultimately all that serious and was really his own substance abuse problem,” she said.

INMACE0513

Unsealed records detail DA Thomas Spota’s probe of Robert Macedonio

Unsealed records detail allegations against Macedonio

INMACE0513_WEB

David M. Schwartz

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone has asked the county Board of Ethics to investigate Assistant District Attorney John Scott Prudenti for renting his boat to criminal defense lawyers who allegedly represented defendants in criminal cases Prudenti prosecuted or supervised.
Bellone in a letter obtained by Newsday wrote to the executive director of the ethics panel that the rentals “would seem an obvious and apparent violation of numerous sections of the County’s Code of Ethics that was in effect at the time of the conduct.”
The complaint, dated Monday, cites two Newsday articles, published May 22 and April 25, in which defense attorneys said they paid $1,500 to $5,000 to rent Prudenti’s 47-foot Christina Marie, sometimes for trips where the boat didn’t leave the dock. Defense attorneys also recalled summer parties with lobster, wine and beer attended by top prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Robert Clifford, a spokesman for District Attorney Thomas Spota, said Tuesday that the office was unaware of Bellone’s complaint and did not comment further.
Prudenti, a bureau chief and 30-year veteran of the Suffolk district attorney’s office, did not respond to requests for comment through Clifford.
Previously, Clifford told Newsday that before 2010 Prudenti chartered his boat, sometimes to attorneys, and served as captain. Those on board covered operating costs, including for bait and fuel. Prudenti also hosted summer gatherings on the boat which remained docked during the parties, and members of the defense bar shared the costs of food and beverages, Clifford said.
Clifford wrote the summer parties were, “no different than the many other social events that take place every year.”
The letter is the latest salvo by Bellone against Spota and his office. Earlier this month, Bellone called for Spota to resign. Bellone cited Newsday stories detailing how the office failed to investigate alleged criminal wrongdoing uncovered on wiretaps.
Spota said he had done nothing wrong, and that Bellone had a vendetta because of prosecutions of his political allies.
Bellone’s letter cites a section of the county’s ethics code that says no county employee shall, “engage in, solicit, negotiate or promise to accept private employment or render services for private interests which employment or service creates or might reasonably tend to create a conflict or impair the proper discharge of his official duties.” The letter also cites a section prohibiting conduct that gives “reasonable basis for the impression that any person can improperly influence him or unduly enjoy his favor in the performance of his official duties.”
Anyone guilty of violating the ethics code faces forfeiture of pay, suspension, or removal from the job as well as up to a year in jail, according to the letter.
Bellone also requested all financial disclosure statements submitted by Prudenti be reviewed to see whether his outside business interests were disclosed.
Calls to Board of Ethics executive director Samantha Segal were referred to general counsel John Gross, an attorney for Hauppauge-based law firm Ingerman Smith. Gross declined to comment.
A spokesman for Bellone declined to comment.

Politics

POETHI0525

Steve Bellone seeks ethics probe of prosecutor’s boat rentals

Bellone seeks probe of ADA’s boat rentals

IMGJPC7_WEB

The Suffolk legislature ordered county ethics officials late Wednesday night to deliver district attorney bureau chief John Scott Prudenti’s financial disclosure forms to its ways and means committee amid ongoing questions about the rental of his party boat to defense lawyers.
The legislature voted 14-4 to have ethics officials appear before the committee Oct. 14 with Prudenti’s documents and also explain at that time why they have refused to release the forms.
“We’re very pleased,” said Deputy County Executive Jon Schneider, a top aide to County Executive Steve Bellone. “Hopefully this will expedite the process of making this information available to the public.”
Legislators approved the order after Schneider earlier Wednesday pressed for immediate action to force the release of the forms to determine if Prudenti disclosed rentals of his party boat to defense attorneys he dealt with in court. 
“We have an obligation to step in and look at what’s going on,” said Legis. Rob Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) a frequent Bellone critic who sponsored the resolution. “It’s time for us to take charge.”
Bellone held a news conference Monday to press for the release of the documents. Later, John Gross, the ethics board’s attorney, said Bellone could force the release of the forms with a two-thirds majority vote by the legislature.
Last May, the county executive, who has called for the resignation of Prudenti’s boss, District Attorney Thomas Spota, asked the ethics board to determine if the bureau chief violated conflict of interest rules by renting his boat to those with whom he negotiated plea deals.
Before the vote, lawmakers spent 90 minutes Wednesday night wrangling over potential legal repercussions from releasing the documents.
Presiding Officer DuWayne Gregory (D-Amityville) opposed the rush to release them, warning they might only provide general information about income obtained from boat rentals without disclosing to whom Prudenti rented.
Bellone, however, has also raised the possibility that Prudenti failed to disclose any income from the party boat, which would be a violation of the county’s finance disclosure law. Spota has used the law successfully to prosecute others.
Legis. Bridget Fleming (D-Sag Harbor) chairwoman of the ways and means committee, broke the impasse by asking Trotta to change his resolution so that ethics officials would deliver Prudenti’s documents when they appear next week before the committee.

POBELL1006

Suffolk lawmakers order ethics board to deliver Prudenti forms

Legislature: Deliver DA bureau chief’s financials 

POBELL1006_WEB

Robert E. Kessler

Federal investigators are probing whether Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota and one of his chief assistants took part in the cover-up of the assault on a man who stole a duffel bag from the former Suffolk County Police Chief James Burke’s SUV, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Burke, a longtime Spota protégé, already has been convicted of violating the civil rights of Christopher Loeb, now 29, of Smithtown, by assaulting him and then obstructing justice by taking part, with other police officers, in a cover-up of the initial attack. Burke is being held as a danger to the community in a federal jail, awaiting sentencing now scheduled for Aug. 25. 
The investigation into whether Spota and the aide, Christopher McPartland, the head of the district attorney’s political corruption unit, also took part in the orchestration of the Loeb cover-up is only one of the dozens of cases that Spota and his office have been involved in that have been examined for the past several months for possible illegalities, the sources said.
The cases include the district attorney’s handling of the 2010 shooting in Huntington Station of a taxi driver, Thomas Moroughan, by an off-duty Nassau police officer; the still unexplained details behind the agreement of former Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy not to run for re-election; the handling of the criminal case against Robert Macdeonio, a prominent Suffolk County attorney, and the wiretapping of a Suffolk police officer, John Oliva, who had been working on gang cases with the FBI.
The probe is also exploring other cases involving investigations into Robert Stricoff, Donald Rodgers and Justin Meyers — figures associated with the administration of Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone — and whether the distribution by the district attorney’s office of millions of dollars in asset forfeiture money was improperly used by the DA’s office as a reward for favorites or for the office’s own political benefit. 
Newsday has reported that McPartland has been issued a target letter by the Justice Department, indicating he is the focus of an investigation. And Newsday also has reported that the handling of the wiretapping of Oliva and the case of Macedonio are being probed by federal officials.
But the far-reaching extent of the investigation by federal prosecutors, the FBI, and special Justice Department criminal investigators, working directly for Eastern District U.S. Attorney Robert Capers, has not been publicly reported, the sources said.
The sources stress that the federal investigation is ongoing, that an investigation does not mean that any crimes have been committed or uncovered, and that aside from Burke, no one has been publicly charged with any crime.
Spota has said he has done nothing wrong. McPartland and his attorney have declined to comment. People close to him say he has said that he has done nothing illegal.
The federal investigation includes situations uncovered directly by investigators as well as voluminous tips from outsiders, the sources said. 
But whatever the individual circumstances of the cases being investigated, the common thread is determining whether or not there was any violation or pattern of violations of federal law. These might include violations of civil rights or obstruction of justice. Those include, on one hand, the use of investigations or wiretaps for illegal purposes, such as spying on or deliberately targeting rivals or perceived enemies, while, on the other hand, ignoring complaints against people such as political supporters and people in the district attorney’s office who are close to Spota.
In response to questions about the scope of the federal investigation, Spota’s office released a statement late Friday afternoon, saying: “District Attorney Spota and the men and woman employed at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office endeavor to discharge their duties faithfully, ethically and professionally.”
The statement said: “McPartland is a dedicated prosecutor who has during his decades-long employment with the District Attorney’s Office conducted himself appropriately and lawfully. Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
The statement continued: “The District Attorney has issued multiple public statements on both the Levy and Moroughan cases. We stand by those statements and are confident both matters were resolved in an appropriate, lawful exercise of the District Attorney’s prosecutorial discretion . . . ”
“The investigation relating to Robert Stricoff was referred by the District Attorney to enforcement counsel for the New York State Board of Elections after an audit by an independent accounting firm was completed at Mr. Spota’s request,” the statement continued. “To the best of our knowledge the investigation remains with this state agency.”
“The investigation relating to Justin Meyers was promptly closed after it was determined the allegation was untrue,” the statement said. “All District Attorney’s Office Asset Forfeiture accounts are properly maintained and reported according to state and federal law and guidelines.”
In the Levy case, Spota said in 2011 when the then-county executive agreed not to run for re-election: “Today, our County Executive Steve Levy announced that he would not seek re-election and that he was turning his campaign funds over to the District Attorney’s Office. There is no question that while the investigation revealed serious issues with regard to fundraising and the manner in which it was conducted, including the use of public resources, I am confident that Mr. Levy did not personally profit . . . The decision to allow Mr. Levy to complete his term was carefully considered and involved weighing his conduct, the need for stability in government in these difficult economic times while affording a smooth transition after the 2011 elections.”
Nellin McIntosh, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Capers, declined to comment, as did Levy’s lawyer Stephen Scaring, of Garden City.
Burke’s lawyer, Joseph Conway, of Mineola, who also represented Macedonio, declined to comment on either case Friday, except to say that “since his arrest, in 2015, Mr. Burke has not spoken with federal authorities.”
Previously, Conway has said Macedonio’s relations with prominent figures in Suffolk law enforcement did not result in the circumstances of his case getting him any special treatment.
In the case of former police chief Burke, federal prosecutors, in arguing that Burke be held without bail, said that they had 11 police officers who would testify against the former chief’s account of what had happened in the Loeb case. Federal investigators are now probing whether Burke could have engineered the initial cover-up of his actions without the assistance of McPartland or Spota or both, the sources said.
Similarly in the case of Moroughan, the taxi driver, both Nassau and Suffolk police officers were involved in the original 2011 incident that resulted in Moroughan at first being charged with assault. However, a confidential NCPD Internal Affairs Unit report said the Nassau police officer Anthony DiLeonardo had been drinking heavily before the shooting and had recklessly escalated a roadside confrontation before opening fire on the cabdriver, who posed no threat.
Spota has maintained that he empaneled a grand jury to look into the matter, but that it could not develop a case, if any, against officers because Moroughan refused to cooperate, and instead deciding to sue civilly.
Mirel Fisch, an attorney representing Moroughan in an ongoing federal lawsuit against several entities including the Suffolk district attorney’s office, said that her client welcomed the federal investigation. 
“There is overwhelming evidence establishing not only that DiLeonardo committed various crimes when he shot Moroughan, but more disturbingly, that numerous members of the law enforcement community covered up that fact to shield an fellow officer from criminal prosecution,” Fisch said in a statement. “The District Attorney’s Office had this evidence at its disposal, but nonetheless would not prosecute DiLeonardo or those who concealed his criminal conduct.”
On the political front: federal investigators have been interviewing people who might have knowledge about why Levy in 2011 surrendered a $4.1 million re-election political war chest to Spota, and agreed not to run for county executive again.
Levy and Spota have not publicly disclosed the specifics behind Levy’s actions, and have declined to say why Spota took such drastic action if Levy had not done anything that might have been prosecutable. 
One person who has been questioned by federal investigators in the Levy matter has been the county attorney under Levy, Christine Malafi, sources say. Malafi was involved in handing out county contracts for title companies and lawyers, many of whom contributed to Levy’s political war chest. Levy and Spota have said that Levy’s decision not to run was somehow involved in his fundraising activities, but have not been more explicit. Malafi did not return a call for comment.
Also in the political area, federal investigators are looking into Spota’s investigations into a number of political officials, including Stricoff, the Babylon Democratic chairman; Rodgers, the former county information technology commissioner, and Meyers, former spokesman for Bellone, who is now the spokesman for the police department. They all have connections to Bellone, who has feuded with Suffolk Democratic chairman Richard Schaffer, who, in turn, is close to Spota.
Spota investigated complaints about Stricoff’s handling of party funds in 2014, but eventually sent the matter to the State Board of Elections. Stricoff’s lawyer has denied his client has done anything wrong.
Rodgers, who had been Bellone’s information technology aide, resigned and pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors in 2014 in connection with a county contract with Microsoft that had been funded by the legislature.
Meyers was investigated for allegedly doing political work on county time but eventually cleared, the sources said.
In one case involving a wiretap by Spota’s office, Oliva pleaded guilty in 2014 to a misdemeanor charge of official misconduct for leaking confidential information to Newsday. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether the wiretap was mainly operated not to determine if Oliva was leaking information, but to keep tabs on a then-federal investigation into Chief Burke because Oliva had been working on a federal anti-gang task force with FBI agents.
In a more extensive use of a wiretap by Spota’s office, the federal investigators are seeking to determine if information gleaned on a wiretap on Macedonio was used only to convict Macedonio of drug possession, while other information involving possible fraud by Macedonio, political corruption in the county and possible illegal activities by a member of Spota’s staff, was ignored, sources said.
In the case of asset forfeiture: Unlike the Nassau district attorney’s office, and the Nassau and the Suffolk county police departments, Spota’s office has declined to explain how the office dispenses money and goods seized in its cases.
In 2014, Spota spokesman Robert Clifford, when questioned about the program, only would say in line with other assertions that the office’s activities are legal: “The Suffolk County District Attorney’s office complies with the law and [state and federal asset forfeiture] guidelines at all times,” the statement said.

LIDA0611

Sources: Federal probe focuses on Spota, chief assistant

Federal probe focuses on Spota, assistant, sources say

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Hundreds attended the funeral for Edeedson Cine Jr., 23, in Dix Hills on Friday.

Final farewell for CVS worker

A Three Kings Day event took place at the Knights of Columbus in Brentwood on Sunday. The celebration provided a warm, welcoming environment in a time of uncertainty, according to some attendees. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

'Show a little love and compassion'

Hundreds of people attended the candlelight vigil in Lindenhurst Monday evening for Edeedson Cine Jr., who was fatally stabbed while working at CVS on Christmas.

Victim's father speaks at vigil

Dozens gathered in cold and rainy weather in Central Islip to protest alleged ICE detention conditions at the federal courthouse. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

'We have to say it's not okay'

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Jeffery Vernot, 36, was charged with third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

Police: High School basketball player punched by man during game

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The DEC set a new May 1 deadline for the town to finish the report, which is expected to outline plans for cleaning up the landfill.

State pushes back deadline for Brookhaven landfill cleanup report

The Kings Park, Commack, Northport, Smithtown and East Northport fire companies responded to the scene, the Suffolk Fire Marshal's Office said.

Fire breaks out in Kings Park home

Originating in Brooklyn, the shawarma spot offers mostly bowls, wraps and sandwiches.

NYC restaurant opens 2nd LI location

Many worry about their families in a home country now in chaos, and about their own fate in the U.S.

Venezuelans on LI wonder what happens next after Maduro's arrest

The lawmakers were sworn in last week after winning their election in November.

Meet Suffolk's new county legislators

In November, the Suffolk County 250th Commemorative Planning Committee released a guidebook of historic sites and exhibitions for the year to come.

USA 250 on LI: What's planned, and what do stakeholders want to see?

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Laney McGowan died after a long and courageous battle with Dravet syndrome, a severe form of genetic epilepsy. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

'We always prayed and we wished they would have a cure'

Drones and helicopters flew over the sites of the fires in Suffolk Monday as investigators determined the cause of the fires. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

Burn ban remains in effect

Scenes from Westhampton on Saturday evening as firefighters battled the brush fire.

Watch: Firefighters battle Westhampton fire

The first naturalization ceremony since the government shutdown was held in Central Islip, where 86 people from 37 countries became U.S. citizens. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

'I finally accomplished that goal'

Christine Lehmann and her son Nicholas Lehmann died in a house fire Sunday in St. James, and another occupant was hospitalized, officials said.

Mother and son killed in house fire ID'd

Officials say drivers should feel safe while ongoing repairs are made to the bridge. NewsdayTV's Jamie Stuart reports.

'We can no longer defer maintenance'

Local families took part in a National Adoption Month ceremony at the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead on Friday. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

'Such a powerful message'

Family members sifted through the ashes Thursday after a fire destroyed barns and killed a number of animals at Wells Farm in Northville, in Riverhead Town. NewsdayTV's Doug Geed reports.

'So much loss'

Firefighters from at least 10 departments were needed to bring the blaze under control. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

'The fire caused the roof to collapse'

Native to South America, capybaras are the world's largest rodent species and can grow to more than 100 pounds.

Game farm welcomes capybara pups

Immigrant advocates say a man was pinned under the tire of a car during his arrest by ICE agents. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

'Fear and chaos' on the East End

The driver was killed and a passenger injured when a garbage truck overturned off Sunrise Highway Thursday.

Driver killed after truck overturns off Sunrise Highway

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Newsday's third annual Cheer Fest was held at Hofstra University on Sunday. Participants spoke about the thrill of competing and watching teams from other divisions. Newsday's Jared Valluzzi has more.

Energy, pride and school spirit: Newsday's 3rd annual Cheer Fest

New York became the first state to require health insurers to cover scalp cooling treatments, which help to reduce hair loss during chemotherapy. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie reports.

Health insurers must cover scalp cooling treatments

NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano joins Newsday food writer Marie Elena Martinez at Hometown Bakeshop in Centerport to try customizable bacon, egg and cheese sandwiches.

Bacon, egg and cheese with a twist at this LI bakery

Commuters are expressing frustration over a new MTA policy that imposes an $8 surcharge for activating mobile tickets after boarding. Newsday's Alfonso Castillo reports.

Last-minute ticket surcharge irks LIRR riders

Port Washington's Rapid Response Network aims to prevent or stop federal officials from making arrests by warning immigrants of ICE sightings. NewsdayTV's Virginia Huie has more.

Rapid Response Network tracks ICE presence in Port Washington 

I.FLY opens its first Indoor trapeze school at Samanea in Westbury. NewsdayTV's Elisa DiStefano reports.

Flying high: New indoor trapeze school opens

NewsdayTV's Doug Geed takes us to the Custer Institute and Observatory in Southold for an up close look at the stars.

Out East: Custer Institute and Observatory

Each semifinalist will receive $2,000 and their school will receive a matching amount. NewsdayTV's Ken Buffa reports.

33 LI students named Regeneron Science Talent Search semifinalists 

Newsday Washington reporter Billy House describes the chaos of the Jan. 6 insurrection from inside the U.S. Capitol, and how he sheltered in the House chamber.

Newsday reporter recounts being inside Capitol during Jan. 6 insurrection

After 44 years, the Oak Chalet Restaurant in Bellmore closed its doors. NewsdayTV's Doug Geed talked to Gisela Wedel and her family about their restaurant.

One of LI's oldest German restaurants closes

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