D.A. Vance plans to overlook a bulk of cases because of work overload from bail reform law

CBS NY

There may end up being a startling and some say worrisome consequence of New York’s controversial criminal justice reform laws.

CBS2’s Marcia Kramer has learned that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. is considering dropping some cases over an inability to comply with new evidence rules.

Overwhelmed by paperwork and what he calls the “unsustainable hours” required to comply with the new so-called “discovery” rules enacted by state lawmakers as part of the new laws, Vance is considering the drastic step of simply letting some bad guys off the hook, not indicting them, Kramer reported.

“We are evaluating whether to defer or even decline prosecution in certain classes of cases,” Vance said in a Jan. 24 email to the approximately 500 assistant district attorneys who work for him.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

CBS2 urban affairs expert Mark Peters said Vance is being driven to consider the extreme solution by new rules that require prosecutors to turn over evidence to defense attorneys within 15 days of an arrest.

“That’s a real public safety concern,” Peters said. “Whenever you’ve got a situation where prosecutors feel like they need to start declining cases — not because they don’t have enough evidence, not because they’re not convinced of guilt, but simply because the burdens of discovery make it impossible to get the work done — that’s going to impact public safety"

How much work was Cy overloaded with when he blew off witness accounts of Harvey Weinstein's sexual assaults and Donald Trump and his kin's screwing over their clients from his former Soho building?

D.A. Vance's assistant prosecutor hid trial evidence to protect developers and contractors

THE CITY 

 The head of the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.’s vaunted Construction Fraud Task Force left her post this week after allegations surfaced that she withheld damaging evidence about a key cooperating witness in seven major bribery cases, THE CITY has learned.

Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence had prosecuted most of the high-profile cases involving construction wage theft, bribery and worker deaths brought by Vance in the last few years.

He appointed her “attorney-in-charge” of the task force when he formed it in August 2015 to crack down on wrongdoing in the industry.

Florence stepped down Tuesday shortly after allegations emerged in court papers that she kept secret a 38-minute audiotape in which the key informant in a series of construction bribery cases denied under oath to city investigators that he’d accepted any bribes.

Ifeanyi “Manny” Madu, a former city Department of Environmental Protection manager who was involved in picking vendors, was Florence’s star witness in cases she prosecuted against several contractors who’d received millions of dollars in city work.

Madu cooperated with the DA and claimed that in exchange for steering work to favored vendors, he received bribes of hotel stays, Broadway show tickets, gifts, extravagant meals and work for a subcontractor he secretly controlled.

He was the sole cooperating witness in seven criminal cases that were announced at an April 2018 news conference in which Florence stood next to Vance.

Unknown to the defendants, on Feb. 13, 2015, Madu made an audiotaped statement to city 

Department of Investigation agents involved in the bribery case, during which he was placed under oath.

According to court papers reviewed by THE CITY, Madu told DOI “among other things that he broke no laws, and that he did not take gifts, things of value or bribes from contractors.”

In court papers, Florence denied deliberately withholding evidence in the bribery cases, but did not address the allegation regarding the Madu DOI tape. She did not immediately return a phone message from THE CITY.

The allegations threatened to unleash a stampede to throw out cases and convictions involving Madu and Florence.

The accusations also marked the latest strife for Vance, who faces calls for his resignation over his handling of some high-profile cases involving the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and family members of President Donald Trump.

Cops dig up Kissena Park looking for MS-13 victims

From the Daily News:

Cops were digging in a Queens park Friday afternoon for the bodies of two possible victims of MS-13, according to sources.

Police could be seen unloading heavy excavation equipment at Kissena Park near 164th St. and Underhill Ave. in Flushing around 5 p.m., witnesses said.

One source said that cops were investigating after they received a tip and another law enforcement source said that the bodies could be related to MS-13 killings.

Smoking gun memo revealed

From Bowery Boogie:

The Department of Investigation, whose scathing report last week proved a mishandling by the de Blasio Administration in the Rivington House deed fiasco, released evidence late yesterday that the Mayor’s office deliberately covered up crucial information regarding the ongoing investigation.

Specifically, a deal memo from July 2014 that weighed the pros and cons of allowing the sale of the Rivington House nursing home and potential deed lifting that required use of the facility as a nonprofit. Take a look at “Option 2″ of the document (go to link),”transfer property to another nonprofit.” The advantage to keeping it so was listed as “maintaining property under city oversight and creates needed housing in a high value neighborhood.” But the drawback stated was “no revenue” presumably for the city.

The Allure Group purchased the Rivington House from VillageCare in 2015 for $28 million, paid the city $16.1 million to lift a restrictive deed, then sold the property to developers Slate Property Group, China Vanke Co., and Adam America Real Estate for $116 million earlier this year.

meanwhile, de Blasio was cracking jokes about it while attending the DNC.

Police evidence destroyed by storm

From the NY Times:

Perched on a narrow crook of land jutting into New York Harbor, the Erie Basin auto pound and evidence warehouse seems a logical place to store hundreds of seized cars, thousands of guns and 9,846 barrels of evidence containing sensitive DNA material.

It is easy for the New York Police Department to safeguard the secluded bunker, in Red Hook, Brooklyn, from potential thieves.

But not, it turns out, from the surrounding water.

As Hurricane Sandy lashed the city, the surge breached the warehouse’s roll-top doors and hurtled hundreds — perhaps thousands — of its barrels into the wet muck. The storm wreaked similar havoc at another Police Department warehouse by the water, along Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Now, the damage is having an impact on the courts.

In at least six criminal trials in recent weeks, a police official has had to testify that evidence was inaccessible, but still existed, said Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers said they were concerned that many more cases could emerge. “This is likely to be the tip of the iceberg,” said Steven Banks, chief lawyer for the Legal Aid Society.