SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 18 – Wade Hayward was ready to be sentenced on July 18 for gun sales when the lack of information about his two youthful offender convictions caused a hitch.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge P. Kevin Castel said he need to see documentation, which Probation refused to provide, about the two convictions. Hayward's Federal Defender said she had tried to get the information but had been unable; she asked that Castel not put back the sentencing all the way to September since her client was anxious to know what sentence he will get.
Finally she and Assistant US Attorney Lindsay Keenan asked, if they were able to belated get the youthful offender documentation that afternoon if the sentencing could be put back on. No, Judge Castel said.
He said he wanted to know how the law applied, specifically the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution. How could state court records be withheld from a Federal judge? He picked up his phone and called Ms Tyler of Probation.
But unlike the time Inner City Press exclusively reported on SDNY Judge Jed Rakoff making such a call and getting through, Ms Tyler was not there, or was not answering. Judge Castel left a voice mail. And the next day, if he gets the documents, is August 1. The case is US v. Harward, 19-cr-61 (Castel).
Four siblings who together evaded taxes and then cut cooperation deals with the U.S. Attorney to provide some information about each other and more about the lawyer who helped them, Michael Little, received three and two months of jail time on June 26.
Judge Castel looked behind the government's 5K1.1 cooperation letters and asked why, for example, Suzanne Seggerman's husband with his $50,000 account and daughter who moved undeclared cash from Europe, were not prosecuted.
The Assistant U.S. Attorneys present did not answer that question. Judge Castel mentioned the academic pedigrees of each sibling, noting that Edmond John Seggerman worked for two U.S. representatives from Rhode Island and Suzanne used her annual trips to Davos to smurf cash back into the U.S..
At the end of the more than an hour proceeding, Judge Castel sentenced Henry Seggerman to 180 days in prison and a $10,000 fine, for having known longer of his father's offshore accounts, and the other three siblings each to 120 days in jail, no fine. All got three years Supervised Release, to end when the yet to be specified restitution is paid.
Judge Castel made a point of saying that poor people, if they lie to get Section 8 housing or immigration benefits probably go to jail - so why not the Seggerman's? Where's the beef?
In the trial of Michael Little for cooperation in which the siblings expected to get mere time served sentences, Suzanne Seggerman was asked by Little, representing himself, "Direct your attention to page 3. So the first line of that highlighted section is, 'I met with two lawyers yesterday to talk about the beef.' Now 'beef' is a term of art, isn't it, in your code?"
Suzanne Seggerman: A term of art?
Little: Yes. It's a code word, isn't it?
Suzanne Seggerman: It is.
Little: It means illegal money, doesn't it?
Suzanne Seggerman: It does."
So now we know where the beef is, at least for two month following the August 20 self-surrender date...
When Elizabeth Ann Pierce appeared to be sentenced for a multi million dollar fraud in Alaska on June 19, she launched into a lengthy speech about how she had wanted to help the Alaska Native Corporations but was pushed around by the restructuring experts who invested in the venture.
Judge Edgardo Ramos of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York was not amused. He sentenced Pierce to 60 months in prison.
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s at FCF Bryant near Georgetown, or Austin, Texas...
As Inner City Press reported about her guilty plea back on February 11: A fraud involving forged contracts and a fiber optic cable network in Alaska resulted in guilty pleas on February to 8 counts of identity theft and one count of wire fraud before Judge Edgard Ramos of the . Judge Ramos asked Elizabeth Ann Pierce, who pled guilty eight days before her trial was to have begun, if she understood and if she had, for example, consumed any drugs or alcohol in the last 24 hours. "One Tylenol, Your Honor," she replied. What the prosecution called forgery she called using signatures without authorization - but she admitted it. Or did she?
By comparison, Pierce's speech was a (much) longer version of the elevator statement NCAA bribery case defendant Merl Code after conviction in a jury trial before Judge Ramos: I didn't do anything wrong. But he went to trial and is free to maintain that. After you plead guilty?
Back on June 7, former University of South Carolina and Oklahoma State assistant basketball coach Lamont Events was sentenced to three months in prison on June 7 by U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Edgardo Ramos. Evans will also have to pay back $22,000 he received.
But there's more: Evans' lawyer former Assistant US Attorney Martin told Judge Ramos that despite Evans being in the US since he was two years old he is not a citizen and he may face removal proceedings.
Martin prefaced the argument by saying that in the Second Circuit he is not permitted to argue, nor Judge Ramos to consider, this. Judge Ramos did not refer to it in imposing sentence, on his third coach in as many days. He permitted Evans to wait until July 26 to self-surrender, so he can finish basketball work with his son.
On June 6 before Judge Ramos passed sentence, like Evans on June 7, Emanuel "Book" Richardson spoke for himself. He said he's from New York City and has lived in all boroughs except Staten Island. He said his mother gave birth to him when she was fifteen years old. He said he has emptied out his 401(k). He is apparently teaching basketball to teenagers, for $40 to $50 an hour.
Judge Ramos imposed a sentence lower than Merl Code, for example, got in the first case, but higher than the previous day's sentence on USC's Tony Bland, who received only the two years probation for taking a $4,100 bribe from Christian Dawkins. Lamont Evans is still out there, and Inner City Press will continue to cover this case.
Judge Ramos said the University of Arizona has been injured, by prospects de-committing and by what he seemed to accept is an impending or begun NCAA investigation specifically of University of Arizona.
The day before on June 5, Bland's defense lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman who with a colleague was again in Judge Ramos' courtroom on June 6, speaking afterwards with Richardson and then his lawyer - described Bland's tough childhood in Watts, comparing it to his own and to that of Assistant U.S. Attorney Eli Mark (who was present but did not do the speaking for the government on June 6).
Lichtman and Mark has faced off at a sentencing on June 4, of Municipal Credit Union former CEO Kam Wong who, for stealing $9.8 million to spend on lottery tickets was sentenced to 66 months in prison by SDNY Judge John Koeltl. Inner City Press coverage here.
