Long Island crime briefs for Friday, Feb. 12

WESTBURY

Four charged with bilking

church members

A Westbury minister's son and four other members of a Uniondale investment firm charged last year in federal court in Brooklyn with bilking parishioners of their church out of $9 million have agreed to plead guilty, legal sources said Thursday.

Joseph Coleman of Westbury, the son of the senior pastor at the Local Christian Assembly church in Forest Hills, and four other defendants will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud with a maximum sentence of 5 years, Coleman's lawyer said.

"We've negotiated what we think is a fair resolution," said the attorney, Douglas Burns of Westbury. Attorneys for three of the other defendants - including alleged ringleader Isaac Ovid, an ordained minister from Trinidad - also confirmed the deal.

Prosecutors charged that Coleman, Ovid and three leaders in a Pennsylvania branch of the church used their ties to church members to raise money for an investment company, Jadis Management - mixing together prayers for the success of the venture with promises of returns as high as 75 percent.

Some of the money came from elderly parishioners' retirement funds, prosecutors alleged, and it was wasted on ill-advised trades, extravagant business expenses and perks that included a $200,000 Bentley.

Two of the Pennsylvania defendants are scheduled to enter their pleas Friday. Coleman's plea is set for Feb. 26, and Ovid's for March 5, their attorneys said. Prosecutors did not comment.

- JOHN RILEY

NORTH LAWRENCE

Jury in arson case

to deliberate Tuesday

The jury in volunteer firefighter Caleb Lacey's murder trial ended their first full day of deliberations Thursday without a verdict.

Jurors, who began deliberating late Tuesday and had Wednesday off because of the snowstorm, asked to watch several videos that prosecutors say show Lacey's car near the North Lawrence fire at the time it started Feb 19, 2009. The fire killed Morena Vanegas and three of her children, Saul Preza, 19, Andrea, 10, and Susanna, 9. Vanegas's husband, Edit, escaped the fire by jumping out a window with two of their sons.

In addition to the videos, jurors asked for trial testimony to be read back, including some about Edit Vanegas escaping the fire. They also asked for considerable testimony from two detectives to be read back. That testimony will be read when the jury resumes deliberations Tuesday after the Presidents Day weekend.

Prosecutors say Lacey, a probationary volunteer firefighter, set the deadly blaze in the hope that he could help put it out and look like a hero.

But Lacey's attorney, Christopher Cassar of Huntington, said there is no concrete evidence linking his client to the case. - ANN GIVENS

MANHATTAN

Madoff's right-hand

man granted bail

Bernard Madoff's right-hand man in the giant Wall Street Ponzi scheme was granted $10 million bail Thursday, but not before the federal judge who signed the order took a swipe at prosecutors for what he said was a "misguided" position in supporting the release.

Frank DiPascali Jr., 52, who pleaded guilty last August for playing a major role in orchestrating the multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, will be able to go free once he posts the bond, which is to be secured by $2 million in property of family and friends, ordered Manhattan District Court Judge Richard J. Sullivan. He will also be under house arrest and wear an electronic bracelet.

"We are thrilled that Judge Sullivan granted the bail application," said defense attorney Marc Mukasey.

A spokeswoman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Thursday.

- ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO