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From
NY1:
Two Brooklyn landlords this week answered to charges of harassing and illegally forcing rent-stabilized tenants out of their apartments.
Joel and Aaron Israel own several buildings in Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg.
The brothers were arrested in April, accused of deliberately destroying the kitchens and bathrooms in several apartments under the guise of renovations.
Prosecutors charged they wanted to remove rent-stabilized tenants, to rent the apartments at market rate.
As part of a deal, the two have pleaded guilty to scheming to defraud and unlawful eviction.
Both will receive five years probation, perform community service, and pay a nearly a quarter-million dollars in restitution.
From the
Daily News:
A general contractor who worked on the buildings that exploded in the East Village earlier this year pleaded guilty to bribery in an unrelated case Wednesday.
Dilber Kukic, 40, copped to bribery, a felony, in Manhattan Supreme Court Wednesday morning.
He admitted to handing off $600 to an undercover officer in the investigator's car in an effort to get violations cleared from a pair of buildings he owns on W. 173rd St. on an expedited basis.
Justice Marcy Kahn offered a sentence of probation and 200 hours of community service in exchange for his admission.
He will also have to cough up a $4,000 fine.
From the
Daily News:
Disgraced ex-State Sen. Hiram Monserrate is struggling to pay his court-ordered restitution — and he doesn’t visit his elderly parents despite claiming to live with them, new filings and his father revealed.
The crooked Queens pol, who was expelled from the Senate after assaulting his girlfriend, earns $1,244 a month working at a Brooklyn law firm and $2,227 a month from pension and other benefits, new filings show.
Ten percent of those earnings is supposed to go to the government every month to pay $79,434 in restitution, filings show.
But between March and May 30, Monserrate only made one payment, prompting the U.S. Department of Probation to notify Manhattan Federal Court Judge Colleen McMahon on Tuesday of the “noncompliance,” which was subsequently rectified. He says in court papers that he’s now caught up.
Filings noted Monserrate, 47, lives with his 80-year-old mother, Hilda, and 79-year-old father, Manuel, in Bellerose, Queens. But his father said he rarely even visits.
From the
Queens Chronicle:
Brian McLaughlin is a free man.
The former Flushing assemblyman, who served six years for racketeering and other charges, was released Friday from Schuylkill Federal Correctional Institution in Pennsylvania.
He will remain on supervised release, under supervision of the Department of Probation for three years. Probation will also be monitoring his employment as part of his release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
McLaughlin, 62, was sentenced to a 10-year term, but in May a federal judge reduced the sentence as a reward for his cooperation with the government.
According to court papers, prosecutors said that his help, by wearing wires and taping conversations, assisted the government in putting away state Sen. Carl Kruger of Brooklyn, Assemblyman Anthony Seminerio of Ozone Park and David Rosen, CEO of the MediSys Health Network, which operates Flushing and Jamaica hospitals.
The judge also applauded McLaughlin for working as a counselor in prison for drug addicts and alcoholics.
From the
NY Post:
A political ally of embattled Brooklyn Assemblyman Vito Lopez got her wrist slapped yesterday for lying to the feds about her exorbitant pay for running a nonprofit Lopez founded.
Christiana Fisher was sentenced to a year of probation after pleading guilty to criminal contempt — a charge that carries up to a six-month jail sentence.
Manhattan federal Magistrate Judge James Francis IV — who cited Fisher’s “lifetime record of good works” — also ordered her to pay a $2,500 fine and forfeit the $170,000 in compensation at issue in the case.
Fisher admitted knowing documents given to the FBI falsely claimed the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council board of directors had approved boosting her annual pay package to $782,000.
Fisher has served as campaign treasurer for Lopez, a council candidate and ex-Brooklyn Democratic boss. accused of sexually harassing female Assembly aides.
From the
NY Times:
Prosecutors did not ask Judge Francis to send Ms. Fisher to jail, but requested in their own memorandum that he “recognize the seriousness of the offense.” An assistant United States attorney, Carrie H. Cohen, elaborated in court, saying that Ms. Fisher had not simply provided an untruthful answer when questioned unexpectedly, but had engaged in a more deliberate deceit.
“This is a case where the defendant created false compensation documents or got false compensation documents to be created,” she said. “She set in motion a very detailed and somewhat sophisticated fraud.”
From the
Daily News:
A former top executive for one of the city’s biggest construction firms dodged a lengthy prison sentence in a massive overbilling scheme after his lawyer pleaded for leniency in a Brooklyn federal courtroom “he literally built.”
John Hyers, Sr., received one year of probation for his role in a scheme by Bovis Lend Lease to submit $19 million in fraudulent bills over the past decade.
"In a courtroom which he literally built, I beg you to let him off as leniently as your awesome powers allow," defense lawyer Mark Baker said to Judge Allyne Ross.
Hyers had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud — and eventually came forward with information about the scam, prompting federal prosecutors to also urge the judge to go easy on the company exec.
Hyers faced more than 10 years in prison under sentencing guidelines, but will pay a mere $15,000 fine.
He’s the second Bovis Lend Lease official to be charged yet receive no jail time. Last month, former Bovis executive James Abadie was also sentenced to probation and fined $175,000 for his role in the scam.
