Completely Legal

Eight years for gun possession. 20 to life for a home break-in.

These are decisions handed down by two judges today in separate cases against two unlucky defendants from Yonkers.

The gun case first. In January, a jury convicted a 20-year-old Dante Thatcher of second-degree and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Authorities say he was acting suspiciously one night on Riverdale Avenue back in 2008, and when the cops approached him, he threw a loaded gun to the ground and ran off.  Police caught him two weeks later.

Thatcher has no felony convictions as an adult. And yet acting state Supreme Court Justice William A. Wetzel is sending him upstate for eight years. I’ve seen drunk drivers who have killed people in Westchester not get this kind of prison time. Granted, under the law, second-degree gun possession requires a 3 1/2 year sentence no matter what, and as a “C” felony, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. So it’s not as bad as it could have been. But still.

The other case involves a man who robbed a little old lady in her home on McLean Avenue in Yonkers last year. He went to trial and was convicted of third-degree robbery, burglary and having stolen property. The defendant, Robert E. Whittle, has been in and out of prison for the past 30 years on convictions for robbery, burglary and stolen property and drug possession.

Westchester prosecutors wanted him sentenced as a persistent violent felon, and today county Judge Barbara Zambelli granted their wish. Whittle, 48, will now be in prison for at least another 20 years and could die there. I’ve seen killers get 10 to 15 years on plea bargains. He’s a crook and he’s getting 20.

And people wonder why so many cases are pleaded out.

Walter Maddox has been convicted of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, and a slew of other sex crimes for three rapes in south Yonkers in 2008, one of them ending fatally.

Click here to read the story about the verdict. Now here’s the extra scoop:

The verdict came down at 2:15 p.m. One side of the courtroom was nearly filled with members of the Westchester District Attorney’s office, which is typical when verdicts are read in homicide trials. No one was there for Maddox, except the dozen or so court officers surrounding Maddox and guarding the door in case he tried to make a run for it.

Acting state Supreme Court Justice William A. Wetzel told everyone in the courtroom to remain seated and not react while the verdicts were read on all 13 counts. Everyone, including Maddox, complied.

After the courtroom emptied out, I waited around to interview jurors. And I waited. And waited. They must have been escorted out through the back passageways, because I didn’t even see them leave the third floor. I was hoping one of them would go to LoHud.com and comment on the online story (which some jurors have done in past cases) but no such luck.

I’d still like to talk to some jurors, so if you’re one of the 12 people who found Maddox guilty, please leave a comment here. Thanks!

The testimony keeps on coming in the case of Walter Maddox of Yonkers, who is one trial for raping three woman and killing one of them in a six-month span in 2008.

Yesterday’s testimony came from one of his accusers, a 25-year-old Yonkers woman who said Maddox came up to her as she was in O’Boyle Park the morning of June 30, 2008. He asked her the time, and they had a brief conversation about being from the south. He left, and a short time later, the woman said she was grabbed from behind, put into a choke hold and dragged behind a retaining wall, where she blacked out. When she came to, she said Maddox was raping her.

Maddox told police the woman was a prostitute that he paid to have sex with him in the park. During cross examination, defense lawyer Harvery Loeb noted that the woman pointed to another man in a police photo array as her rapist. When police told her it wasn’t him (DNA didn’t match), they showed her a second photo array with Maddox’s photo in it, and she pointed to his picture. She testified that she was “100 percent” sure that Maddox raped her. She said it was difficult at first to identify her rapist because he wore a ball cap during the attack; none of the men in the police photos wore hats. However, prosecutors said Maddox’s ex-girlfriend — who also has accused Maddox of raping her on Aug. 31, 2008 — had a cell phone photo of Maddox wearing the exact same type of ball cap that the alleged rape victim described.

Today’s proceedings included testimony from an employee at Yonkers Laundromat, who said she found Roberta Galicia-Lagos’ body, naked form the waist down, on the floor of the laundromat the morning of Dec. 8, 2008.

The trial will continue today and tomorrow. Fredric Green is the prosecutor, with Wendy Parra sitting second chair.

Acting state Supreme Court Justice Richard A. Molea had a fantastic suggestion for beating the heat in his courtroom today, even if he was only kidding. I’m not talking about beating the heat of criminal prosecution here, but about it being 81 degrees (!) in his third-floor courtroom this morning.

“We’re going to serve pina coladas,” Molea said, causing a few lawyers to chuckle. But I thought … frozen drinks certainly would lubricate the wheels of justice, wouldn’t it? It would give new meaning to “passing the bar.”  And it certainly would make those long court calendar days a much more pleasant experience.

While it was roasting in the courtroom, there was no fire, even though dozens of members of the Yonkers Fire Department were present, They came en mass to stare down Rafael Roldan, who is charged with setting a revenge fire in a multi-family house that killed Yonkers firefighter Patrick Joyce. Roldan, 33, faces a six-count felony indictment that includes second-degree murder, second-degree arson, first-degree assault, second-degree burglary and second-degree criminal mischief.

Roldan is due back in court April 22. And that’s no joking matter.

Just got word that the three defendants in the Yonkers corruption case are going to be in court Friday for their first appearance before the judge who will handle their case, U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon.

Sandy Annabi (pictured left), Anthony Mangone, and Zehy Jereis have a 2:15 conference scheduled in McMahon’s Manhattan courtroom Friday afternoon. The appearance is in Manhattan because McMahon is assigned to the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl St. But she has been taking on cases based at the White Plains courthouse due to a backlog created by the deaths of judges Charles Brieant and Wiliam Conner.

U.S. District Judge Cathy Seibel was appointed to replace Brieant. But she is limited in the number of criminal cases she can handle because of her previous gig as a high-ranking member of the U.S. Attorney’s office. Seibel was the number two person in the U.S. Attorney’s office, serving as then-U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia’s chief deputy. Seibel cannot oversee cases that started as investigations while she was still in the U.S. attorney’s office. The Yonkers case began in March 2007, more than a year before Seibel was nominated to the federal bench.

There’s no indication that the Yonkers case will be moved to Manhattan. McMahon sits in the White Plains courthouse one Friday a month, and future court appearances will probably be timed to that schedule. McMahon also has the high-profile terrorism case involving four Newburgh men charged with trying to blow up synagogues in the Bronx. That case has remained in the White Plains courthouse.

Completely Legal has returned after a week off, and we have lots of news to share.

The big story today is the U.S. Attorney’s public corruption indictments of three Westchester County political insiders: former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandi Annabi, former Yonkers GOP Chairman Zehy Jereis and lawyer Anthony Mangone. To read the full story, click here.

Tomorrow, in Westchester County Court, pre-trial hearings begin for Manhattan jeweler Werner Lippe, accused of killing his wife, Faith Lippe, whose remains have yet to be found. Lippe, who lived in Cortlandt before his arrest, is charged with second-degree murder.

The hearing may give some insight into what evidence the prosecution wants to introduce at trial, such as forensic evidence and statements that Lippe made to police after he was arrested Oct. 30. Investigators theorize that her body may have been burned shortly after Werner Lippe reported her missing – a ruse, they say, that was intended to throw police off the trail. Police have brought in experts in biochemistry and forensic anthropology to help build a case against Lippe, 67.

Faith Lippe, 49, was a well-liked nutrition consultant for the Ossining school district. The couple had two children – Andrew, 15, and Stephanie, 13.

Photo courtesy of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office

Vance Major is a happy man today, having been found not guilty of gun charges that his attorney said could have sent the Yonkers convict to prison for 30 years.

Major, 29, has two prior felony convictions – a 2000 weapons charge and a 2006 drug possession charge – and was on trial for felony gun  charges after plainclothes police officers said they saw Major toss two guns into a trash can on Oliver Street the night of Sept. 10, 2008.

Other people hanging around the area said they saw Major ditch the guns in the garbage as well, but the jury chose to believe two other witnesses who testified that they were with Major that night and he had no part in any gun-tossing. The panel dismissed the entire five-count indictment.

In what will be entered as the Understatement of the Year, his attorney, the indefatigable Barry Warhit,  said his client was “relieved” by the verdict, adding that Major ”is anticipating getting on with his life.”

New York State has handed a cool half-million dollars to the Westchester County District Attorney’s office to help them fight crime with some local police departments.

The money comes from Operation IMPACT, which stands for Integrated Municipal Police Anti-Crime Teams, and targets areas that have problems with violent crime. The District Attorney’s office will use the dough to hire three new prosecutors, a criminal investigator and a crime analyst.

Operation IMPACT is sending a total of $1.6 million to Westchester County, specifically for police departments in Yonkers, Mount Vernon, White Plains, New Rochelle and Greenburgh, as well as the county Departments of Probation and Public Safety.

Here’s the breakdown:
District Attorney – $511,342
Yonkers – $423,222
Mount Vernon – $363,530
Co. Dept. of Public Safety – $132,555
Co. Dept. of Probation – $99,821
White Plains – $24,750
New Rochelle – 20,071
Greenburgh – $20,000

To learn more about Operation IMPACT, click here

Federal prosecutors are in the process of deciding whether to seek the death penalty against three Yonkers men charged in the drug-related slaying of 22-year-old Tyrone Bergmann in January 2008.

Davon Young, Thomas Chambliss, and Gregory Fuller are charged with murder in the case. The U.S. attorney’s office says the case is death penalty eligible. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick McQuaid said at a hearing before Judge Cathy Seibel that prosecutors in White Plains should reach a determination by December. Then they’ll let the U.S. Attorney General know what they think. But it is ultimately A.G. Eric Holder’s office that’ll make the decision about whether or not to seek death in the case. Defense lawyers will submit memos to federal prosecutors (called mitigation submissions) that will make the case why federal prosecutors should forego a death penalty prosecution and seek a maximum of life imprisonment instead. Those are due by October, Seibel said.

There have been two cases in the last five years in White Plains where federal prosecutors weighed the death penalty. In one case, that of Paul Douglas, a former cop from Jamaica who murdered Brinks ATM technician Milton Moran Jr. in a Yonkers robbery, the feds elected not to seek the death penalty. Douglas is currently serving a life sentence. In the other, the feds did seek death for Khalid Barnes, the convicted leader of a Peekskill drug gang who killed two other drug dealers in a Manhattan apartment and robbed them of $20K worth of cocaine. A federal jury in White Plains spared Barnes’ life after convicting him. He was sentenced to life in prison.

OK, it’s not a legal term. But it should be after yesterday.

With all the activity surrounding the breaking terrorism case in the Brieant Courthouse yesterday, I was only able to pop in and out of the Wayne Simoes trial for a few minutes. Here’s what I caught: The prosecution rested after finishing up with Yonkers cop Todd Mendelson. Interestingly, Mendelson did not draw the same glares from some of the assembled throng of Yonkers cops that his partner John Liberatore did after he testified for the prosecution earlier this week.

Mendelson testified that he did not see Simoes throw Marquez to the ground of the restaurant and that Simoes seemed shaken up aftter the incident. But he also testified he didn’t see Simoes’ foot slip as the defense contends happened when he grabbed Irma Marquez inside La Fonda Restaurant. He said Marquez was loud and intoxicated but not a threat. He said he was too close to Simoes and Marquez to actually see what happened. But he said he saw no reason to take her to to the ground.

That was yesterday. Today, Simoes’ side called its video expert, the owner of La Fonda Restaurant, and a Yonkers emergency services cop.

Interestingly, the defense didn’t cross-examine either Julian Santos, the bar owner, or Chris Kowatch, the ESU cop. 

And Judge Kenneth Karas said he was expecting an objection from the prosecution when defense lawyer Andrew Quinn asked video expert Grant Fredericks if he thought Simoes threw or dropped Marquez. Fredericks said he dropped her. Prior to the trial, Karas had ruled that Fredericks wouldn’t be allowed to offer his interpretation of that, just what was happening in each of the 199 frames from the video of the incident .

But the prosecution didn’t object when Quinn asked Fredericks that question. Karas said after the jury left the room today that he expected an objection from the prosecution team of Anna Skotko, Cynthia Dunne, and Benjamin Torrance. But none came. Quinn said he asked because he felt the prosecution had opened the door with its cross-examination of Fredericks. The judge didn’t think so.

“I don’t know why you didn’t object,” the judge said to Skotko.

“It came out of left field,” Skotko said.