Exclusive: Yonkers Parks Employee Kidnapped Same Sex Paid Companion SDNY Argument Asserts

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, PatreonBBC - Decrypt - LightRead - Honduras - Source

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Feb 20 -- A four-year employee of the Yonkers Parks Department had been detained on charges of armed kidnapping - but Inner City Press has learned more than was included in the indictment and press release by the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office.

   Owen Drain's alleged victim was a male, long-time commercial sex partner who escaped running from Drain's black Cadillac Escalade after having his iPhone and iCloud wiped of images of their sexual relationship, Assistant US Attorney Ni Qian said in a bail proceeding only covered by Inner City Press. 

     SDNY Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses asked AUSA Qian if the Yonkers cell phone store employee who came out to the Cadillac where the victim was held and took his passwords was not, in fact, an accomplice. Qian said that is being investigated.

    Federal Defender Jonathan Marviny argued that Drain in his 35 years of live has had no convictions, and is now living with his wife and his father in Tuckahoe, New York. (The street address was said in open court but Inner City Press is voluntarily not publishing it in this format.) More on Patreon here.

  Drain was arrested in Harrison, New York on February 17 in the black Escalade, without a license plate on it but with two inside, along with a bottle of testosterone, an expandable baton illegal in New York, a gun and portable digital scale.

   While Drain was released on bail for that, the detective who accompanied him into the SDNY Magistrates Court got into an audible disagreement with U.S. Marshals, referring loudly to HIV and saying "What do you want me to do, a blood test?"  

After Judge Moses ordered Drain detained, she said that the FBI should take him to the hospital first. The proceeding went past 9 pm; Inner City Press had been in the Mag Court since 4 pm, asking for the docket numbers of cases presented and often being denied. There is sometimes a lack of transparency, including as to what is said in the robing room or behind locked Magistrate doors upstairs and why that is out of the public eye. But this is the story of Owen Drain, and it is an Inner City Press exclusive. The case is US v. Drain, 20-cr-145 (Moses). 

Murder of Shopkeeper from The Gambia and The Bronx Yields 7 Year Sentence For SDNY Cooperator

By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

Honduras BBC The Times (UK) The Source 

SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 16 –   Bubacarr Camara came to The Bronx from The Gambia, hoping to bring his wife and son to join him. Every day he woke up and went to work in the BNC General Merchandise T-shirt Spot on Manhattan's Upper West Side, on Amsterdam Avenue near 104th Street.   

  Then in the middle of the day on June 18, 2015 he was shot and killed by robbers. Along with the $279 they stole from Bubacarr Camara, they also took the store's rudimentary video surveillance camera.  They threw the camera and storage device, but not the money, into the river.

    Four and a half years later on November 15, 2019 a man who pled guilty to the murder of Bubacarr Camara came up for sentencing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York before Judge Paul G. Gardephe.

    In the gallery where Inner City Press was the only media, there were a number of Assistant US Attorneys but no family member or friend of Bubacarr Camara while he had been alive.    AUSA Jessica Feinstein, signing for US Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman, had a week before written to Judge Gardephe that "we have been unsuccessful at contacting the family members of murder victim Bubacarr Camara."

    Of course, this can happen when sentencing takes place long after the murder and also long after the guilty plea. The government's letter gives no indication of any attempt to reach Bubacarr's friends or co-workers such as Dong Kun Cho, or his many family members in The Gambia.

    Why in the courtroom's gallery along with Inner City Press were there detectives and Assistant US Attorneys? Was it to avenge Bubacarr Camara or avenge his distant family and still-young son?

No. It's that this defendant had, after the murder, agreed to cooperate with the US Attorney's office.

    Now he was asking to be released for "time served," and the US Attorney's office in context supported the request in their 5K1 letter.     Despite having covered the trial in which this defendant testified, Inner City Press is choosing here not to publish his name.

  His lawyer, whom we will also leave unnamed, argued that he will be in danger (though not as much, it must be noted, as Bubacarr Camara was at midday on the Upper West Side of Manhattan).

   AUSA Feinstein requested, and Judge Gardephe granted, the sealing of the transcript of the sentencing and most documents connected to it.

    The court docket is left with an indictment, under then US Attorney Preet Bharara, that did not even name the victim and decedent, Bubacarr Camara, and got the address of his place of work and place of death wrong, listing it as 2251 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan.

   While the US Sentencing Guidelines in this case of murder called for a life sentence - plus 15 years - Judge Gardephe imposed a sentence of seven years, which minus the 52 months to defendant has already served while cooperating with the government comes to 32 additional months, or two years and eight months.

    Seven years for a human life should be subject to scrutiny and public debate; certainly the victim's family, friends and community have a right to know, denied to them by the sealing of these records. It could have been worse, or more lenient: recently a man who bribed the United Nations, Francis Lorenzo, got time served at the urging of SDNY prosecutors, here.

    Inner City Press will have more on this. It is also covering at least three recent trials in which cooperating witnesses were used in exchange for 5K1 letters and requests for time served, starting with Daniel Hernandex a/k/a Tekashi 6ix9ine (who the US Attorney's Office also called a model cooperator), to be sentenced by SDNY Judge Paul A. Engelmayer on December 18. Inner City Press will live-tweet the proceeding if it can.

    Then there are those who took greater risk in testifying against the brother of Honduras' current president. One, Magdaleno, whose notebooks were introduced at trial before SDNY Judge P. Kevin Castel has since been assassinated in a supposedly maximum security prison in Honduras.

  It is unclear if the SDNY US Attorney's Office or DOJ have done anything about this crime which is presumptively traceable to the president of Honduras Juan Orlando Hernandez.

    Most recently Inner City Press has been covering the cooperation of OneCoin found Ruja Ignatova's brother Konstantin Ignatov, part of a $4 billion fraud. Inner City Press' coverage has been credited by the BBC, The Times (UK), Daily Mail, and in the crypto-currency media.   

   But who will cover this sentencing for the murder of Bronxite Bubacarr Camara originally from The Gambia? And not to write about it, even with this self-imposed restrictions, would be to become complicit in this very human life cut short right in Manhattan in the Southern District of New York, and to leave its judges and prosecutors without any oversight. Watch this site.

Bronx Theft of Cell Phones From Post Offices Results In Guilty Plea With 0-6 Months Jail Deal

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive; Video,pics

SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 9 – A soft speaking defendant pled guilty on July 9 to stealing cell phones from post offices in the Bronx; his plea agreement provides for a sentencing guideline of from zero to six months in prison. Other than a sidebar at the end, the proceeding was entirely open, unlike others.

  U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Analisa Torres went through the guilty plea script: have you been threatened? Have you discussed this with your lawyer? 

  Defendant Luis Feliz-Tejada three times asked for the questions to be repeated. At first he seemed to invite Judge Torres to read out loud the charges he was pleading guilty to; after conferring with his lawyer Richard Ma, he waived the public reading.

   At the end Judge Torres asked counsel to step forward. While it was unclear to Inner City Press if these will be part of the record, here's a prediction: community service at a senior center may be part of the sentence, perhaps a non-custodial sentence...

  Feliz-Tejada's co-defendant / co-conspirator Jose Hernandez-Aries has asked to move his Change of Plea Hearing to July 11 or 12. The case is USA v. Feliz-Tejada, et al., 19-cr-00183 (Torres). 

An hour before, in a court proceeding that began as open, with U.S. Marshals, the defendants' family members and even legal interns present on July 9, Inner City Press was specifically directed to leave, leaving no media or member of the general public present.

  It took place in SDNY Courtroom 12A before Judge Loretta A. Preska. Listed on PACER and in the SDNY lobby for 10 am before her was the case of USA v. Connors Person, et al, 17-cr-683, complete with letters of support from the head bank regulators of the state of Alabama.

  But when Inner City Press arrived at 10:10 am, there was a shackled defendant with cornrows at the defense table. His lawyer stood and summoned Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Balsamello out into the hall by the elevators.  When they returned, at the same time as two of the defendant's family members, Judge Preska asked about those present in the room, and summoned the lawyers up for a sidebar - with a court reporter, which may later be significant.

  After the sidebar discussion, Judge Preska called the case as US v. Santino-Barrero (phonetically - it was not written down anywhere.) Then Judge Preska asked the defendants' family members to stand, then the legal interns, then other interns introduced by one of the Marshals.

  "Is that you in the back, Mister Lee?" Judge Preska asked.  Inner City Press previously reported daily on the UN bribery trial and sentencing of Patrick Ho before Judge Preska, once answering in open court her question about press access to exhibits in that case. So the answer was Yes.

  I'm going to have to ask you to leave, Judge Preska said. Inner City Press considered asking why, right there, but decided against it. It has recently been advised to not ask so many question, even as its question about a suddenly sealed June 17 sentencing by SDNY Judge Lorna Schofield remains unanswered, see below.

 Judge Preska's courtroom deputy followed Inner City Press out to the hall, then appeared to lock the courtroom door. No explanation was offered.

  The PACER terminal in the SDNY Press Room from which Inner City Press has been working for months does not list a Santino Barrero as a defendant. The Bureau of Prison's website is only searchable with a first name, which was not given. 

 For now Inner City Press notes that sentencing proceedings are presumptively open in the Second Circuit.  See United States v. Alcantara, 396 F.3d 189, 196 (2d Cir. 2005) ("There is little doubt that the First Amendment right of access extends to sentencing proceedings.").  

Before closing a proceeding to which the First Amendment right of access attaches, the judge should make specific, on the record findings demonstrate that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.  See United States v. Haller, 837 F.2d 84, 87 (2d Cir. 1988).

  If the "finding" was at the sidebar, will that be made public? When? Watch this site.

Back on June 17 the sentencing of a defendant seeking time served, seemingly for cooperation with the government, was abruptly declared "sealed" by SDNY Judge Lorna G. Schofield on June 17. 

She said she was going to seal the transcript, but that once this reporter walked into her open courtroom 1106 in 40 Foley Square, she moved the entire proceeding into her robing room, closed to the Press and public. 

 Now on June 18 Inner City Press hasrequested the name and number of the case, and that all portions that do not need to be redacted or sealed be provided or placed in the docket, citing in support this its requests: again,sentencing proceedings are presumptively open in the Second Circuit.  See United States v. Alcantara, 396 F.3d 189, 196 (2d Cir. 2005) ("There is little doubt that the First Amendment right of access extends to sentencing proceedings.").  

Before closing a proceeding to which the First Amendment right of access attaches, the judge should make specific, on the record findings demonstrate that closure is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest.  See United States v. Haller, 837 F.2d 84, 87 (2d Cir. 1988). United States v. Cojab specifically dealt with hearings (in that case, a pretrial hearing) conducted in the robing room.  

 Inner City Press is pursuing this because it is a precedent and trend. On June 18 affable SDNY Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn declared a proceeding in Courtroom 5A sealed with "delayed docketing;" in her two days in the Magistrates Court this week not a single filing has been made available on PACER. There's more - watch this site.

On June 17 when Judge Schofield, her Courtroom Deputy James Street and the shackled defendant, Assistant US Attorneys and US Marshals emerged twenty minutes later, Judge Schofield said only, "We're adjourned." There was no disclosure of the outcome of the proceeding - as Inner City Press walked in, the defendant's lawyer was asking for time served." 

Then Judge Schofield said she wanted to "shake hands with our visitors" and proceeded to do just that with the two other people in the gallery. Inner City Press left.

  No one where on the electronic board in the SDNY lobby at 500 Pearl Street was any proceeding before Judge Schofield at that time list. Nor in the day's PACER calendar.

  So it is both a confidential sentencing, and a confidential case? 

Judge Schofield's Rules for Criminal Cases, ironically, provide that there is a presumption that all sentencing submissions are public, and that if anything is redacted only those pages with redactions can be withheld from the public docket. 

  But no such distinction is possible when an entire proceeding is moved into the judge's robing room barred to the press and public, with no notice or opportunity to be heard. Inner City Press will have more on this - see also @InnerCityPress and the new @SDNYLIVE.

   Before Judge Schofield: Steven M. Calk of FDIC-regulated Federal Savings Bank was presented and arraigned on May 23 for financial institution bribery for corruptly using his position with FSB to issue $16 million in high-risk loans to Paul Manafort in a bid to obtain a senior position with the Trump administration, namely Undersecretary of the Army.

  Back on May 23 Magistrate Judge Debra Freeman accepted the government's proposal of $5 million bond with no co-signer (although that is usually required for moral suasion) and travel allowed throughout the United States (though more defendants are usually confined to the Soutern and Eastern District of NY and one other district). Money talks.

  Afterward in front of the SDNY courthouse Inner City Press asked Calk's lawyers Daniel Stein and Jeremy Margoles about Manafort saying he had misstated his financial situation to get the FSB loans. When did Calk know? They did not answer. Video here, Facebook video here.  Inner City Press' Alamy photoshere.

VERDICT: SDNY Jury Finds James Felton Guilty Of 2 Bronx Murders Now Mandatory Life Sentence

By Matthew Russell Lee, Periscope, Photos

SDNY COURTHOUSE, June 19 – In the culmination of the one week jury trial of James Felton, accused among other things of killing Marvin Harris on the corner of 175th Street and Monroe Avenue in The Bronx on June 11, 2016, the jury on June 19 delivered guilty verdicts on all twelve counts.

   Inner City Press asked Felton's defense lawyer if he will work on the sentencing submission. He replied that there is a mandatory minimum life sentence. Still, U.S. District Court for the Southern District Judge William H. Pauley III has set the sentencing for October 4.

  After the verdict was read out, guilty after guilty, James Felton looked back at a half dozen people in the gallery throughout the trial, and pointed at his heart. Judge Pauley said to him, It must be a difficult day for you. Then Judge Pauley went to speak with the jurors.

 Earlier on June 19, the jury passed out notes requesting a chart of drug sales, some of the video of the Harris murder, Ezekiel Burley's testimony on the Harris murder, and Facebook postings of defendant James Felton. 

  Defense counsel had objected to the indictment being sent in to the jury, and wanted to make a Rule 29 motion. James Felton, smaller than both of his lawyers, glanced around at the Bronxites in the gallery. It was down to the small strokes. 

Back on June 18 in the government's summation, Assistant US Attorney Frank J. Balsemello said that James Felton "is a cold blooded murderer." He described how James Felton provided muscle, or gun play, to allow his younger relatives to sell crack in 240 East 175th Street, adding that it was lucrative because it was so near the rehab center PROMESA -- who as Inner City Press long ago reported had its bookkeeper shot and killed on East Tremont Avenue.

  Balsemello's multi-media presentation used audio from prison phone calls ("you have one minute remaining") and pole camera footage of the whole gang dealing drugs to those PROMESA customers. The jury perked up at the complaints of a resident of 240, about having to go to work walking past all these guys - and a lone female, Ginger a/k/a George - dealing crack.

  The argument the government appears to be trying to fight off is that James Felton was somehow defending not only his drug turf but himself, or his son James Diaz a/k/a Chunky. Inner City Press will have more on this.

 On June 17, the fifth day of the trial, proceedings ended with Judge Pauley setting the rules for closing arguments. The government with get an hour and 45 minutes, then a 15 minute reply by Assistant US Attorney Matthew Hellman.

  The defense, which Judge Pauley said pointedly knows it can pace around the room, gets an hour and a half. The docket reflects that until right before trial, Ms Jean Barrett was going to be among James Felton's two lawyers. There's a longer story here, soon to be told.

Earlier on June 17 an NYPD Detective who arrested Felton at 2228 Adams Place testified how Felton's pinging cell phone led them there, and about the gun they found under a duffle bag a closet in Apartment Six David. But the monitors at the defense table, and in the jury box and gallery, did not work.

  Judge Pauley told the jury that back in the old days, lawyers used to hand out photographs of exhibits; the Assistant US Attorney instead held a copy out and walked slowly in front of the jury box while the NYPD detective described putting Felton's two phones back in his pocket for transfer to the 46th Precinct. 

 There followed testimony about a number of short phone calls made on 11 December 2016 when Benny White (real name Jose Morales) was shot and killed - for which James Felton's son James Diaz a/k/a Chunky has already pled guilty, albeit requesting a ten year sentence. We'll have more on this.

 In the run-up to the trial James Felton's lawyer Lloyd Epstein told the government and 
Judge Pauley that "we're dealing with a neighborhood here where people are talking about people getting killed, that in neighborhoods where some of us live, we might talk about how Johnny was accepted at Yale or, you know, generally is going on to social work school, but here, this is what people talk about."

  But Epstein's point at the final pre-trial conference on 22 February 2019, beyond trashing the Mount Hope neighborhood, was to try to exclude the introduction into evidence of some prison phone calls. He said, "They talk about the cookouts at Rikers Island, they talk about the NBA, they talk about getting sneakers for little kids." Yes, that too. Though it is not what is being heard in the SDNY trial. Watch this site.

 On June 14 cooperating witness Andre Felton described how James Felton told him he had shot Benny White, and how he took the two guns and threw them in a river. When James Felton returned from Massachusetts, Andre Felton let him stay in his apartment in 2228 Adams Place.

  The government put into evidence photographs of that apartment, with vacuum sealed bags for selling marijuana, a heroin spoon and bags, a digital scale and a gun (which Andre Felton showed to James Felton, offering that he could use it.)

  Andre Felton said that alongside selling drugs he was working as a concierge at a building in Manhattan - full time - until in a traffic stop he was found with 10 grams of cocaine. Now he is cooperating.

  The government said they may have another cooperating witness on Monday, and may close their case then or on Tuesday. The defense may recall witness Ezekiel Burley for some questions then put on a "short case" "probably" not including James Felton taking the stand.

  Judge Pauley said he will send them a draft jury charge later on June 14, and asked the government to submit a proposed jury form. Judge Pauley does not send the exhibits into the jury room but only a list, from which the jurors can make requests.

  Just before the jury was released for the weekend there was a sidebar and instruction. As the government asked Andre Felton about his offer to help get James Felton a lawyer, the defense asked to speak drowned out by white noise. Afterward Judge Pauley told the jury that James Felton's lawyers are court appointed and are paid by the United States. If there was any doubt.

  On June 13 another cooperating witness, Gonzalez, was cross examined about his question for a 5K letter from the prosecution and how far he would go to get out from under the otherwise applicable 45 year minimum sentence. Gonzalez sold crack in the area; when his testimony was over he was led back into the cell block by two US Marshals.

  The jury filed out and those in the gallery including Inner City Press, some neighborhood resident including one with a small child and some from the prosecutor's office were told to wait in the courtroom until they all went down on the elevator.

  In the lull Felton's lawyers argued for the admissibility for jailhouse recorded calls showing that Felton had gotten a construction job. Judge Pauley said he would think about it overnight, but that it seemed clear Felton knew he was being recorded, impacting reliability.

 Felton's lawyer said those on the call talked about "everything." Judge Pauley noted that they also sold drugs under the eye of multiple pole cameras. The trial will continue on Friday from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm then break for the weekend. Inner City Press has requested exhibits. Watch this site.

Earlier on June 13 the prosecution put on the witness stand a video expert who has enhanced and audio synched the videos, with the gunshots audible. A man already dying on the sidewalk was shot, again, and spasmed. The jury leaned forward. Next up was a witness from T-Mobile law enforcement relations, about responding to a warrant.

  It is not only emails and text messages that trip up today's defendants, as in the USA v. Ahuja and Shor trial across Pearl Street. Now there are so many surveillance cameras that shootings like this are captured from multiple angles, and can be enhanced. The jury can identify with those on the sidewalk running for cover.

 Overnight the prosecution wrote to Judge Pauley to suggest a jury instruction that "the death penalty is not a potential punishment for the defendant in this case." It's come to that.

 Back on June 12 there was the testimony by Ezekiel Burley, hoping for a 5K letter for cooperating, turned to the shooting of Benny White and another in December 2016 in the same neighborhood. The dispute about about who was robbing the drug sales workers. 

A girlfriend was left to "clean up" the apartment of drugs and baggies and a gun, which Burley said he "threw in a lake by my house."

  Burley in early 2017 got shot himself in a barbershop on 175th and Morris Avenue. He was interviewed by police while on morphine, he told the jury. He told only what he thought they had on video. Later he proffered by only partially. Finally he told the prosecutors he gave the gun to Felton in June 2016. Now his faces life in prison - or as he said under the "new law," only 70 years. But he could get less for cooperation. What will the jury think? 

  Felton's defense team later on June 12 asked Burley if Felton hadn't in fact tried to tell Chunky to reach a deal rather than fight, and hadn't had concerns beyond drug sales.

  This stood at odds with that Felton's lawyer Ms. Jean D. Barrett of Ruhnke & Barrett said at the final pre-trial conference on February 22, 2019, Transcript at 8, that "our understanding is that this is a neighborhood where people sell drugs, and there's a lot of violence in this neighborhood. This is what this neighborhood is like all the time... It's just what the neighborhood is and what everybody in the neighborhood is doing." Really? Inner City Press will continue to cover this trial, even without exhibits. See @InnerCityPress and the new @SDNYLIVE.