In
SDNY US Attorney Gets Guilty
Plea to Identity Theft and
Wire Fraud in Alaska Net Scam
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Periscope
video
FEDERAL
COURTHOUSE, 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 U.S.
District Court
for the
Southern
District of
New York.
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. In the courtroom
were Inner City Press and two
other reporters; the
proceeding took less than half
an hour. Manhattan U.S.
Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman
said in a statement: “As
she admitted today, Elizabeth
Ann Pierce engaged in a
brazen, multi-year scheme to
obtain over $250 million from
investors by misrepresenting
that she had guaranteed
revenue contracts with
multiple telecommunications
services companies. But
in fact, the defendant faked
those contracts, forged other
people’s signatures on them,
and then lied to cover up her
fraud. She abused her
executive position and is now
being held accountable for her
crimes.” Her sentencing is set
for May 16 at 11 am. Inner
City Press last week covered
Ramos imposing sentence for
bribery in the NYPD's gun
license program. And there is
another sentencing in the
Thurgood Marshall courthouse
later on February 11. The
previous Friday on February 8,
before Norman Seabrook, former
head of the NYC Corrections
Officers union, was sentenced
on February 8 by the U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
to 58 months in prison, a
victim's statement to the
court cited what it called
Seabrook's racist rant on
YouTube.
Afterward on Worth Street
Inner City Press asked
Seabrook about the YouTube
video - actually, an audio
file with an array of still
photographs. Seabrook
told Inner City Press they
doctored it to make him look
bad. His (actual) answer on
Periscope here
- and here
now audio file on YouTube,
here.
In the
SDNY courtroom it was
cognitive dissonance: Norman
Seabrook who rose from poverty
to head of a union with 10,000
members, who endorsed Michael
Bloomberg; Norman Seabrook who
asked for tens of thousands of
dollars to steer union money
into a Cayman Islands hedge
fund which failed.
Prosecutor
Martin Bell referred to a
Ferragamo bag visible in
Seabrook's house for months.
When Seabrook spoke he said it
was a gift with cigars, taking
a cigar out of his suit
jacket.
Seabrook's lawyer
Paul Shechtman
cited
Seabrook's
work on the
so-called
feces bill to
make throwing
excrement at a
corrections
officer a
felony. On the
hand Seabrook
was accused of
threatening
his board
members with
returning to
work in a
prison as
punishment,
and of going
after anyone
who dared run
against or
otherwise
oppose him.
Seabrook felt
that it was
his time to
get paid, that
he was bigger
than the cause
he began
fighting for,
Bell said.
Shechtman also
spoke after the sentencing.
Inner City Press asked him
about Judge
Alvin K.
Hellerstein's
seeming
reversal of an initial
position that it would be hard
to leave Seabrook out on bail
pending appeal. Shechtman
replied affably that he had to
win something, after the 58
month sentence. Video here.
An issue
on a appeal will be whether
Seabrook's second jury should
have heard about the $19
million loss.
Inner City
Press asked Shechtman about
the restitution, how much
would be paid by hedge funders
Murray Huberfeld, Jona
Rechnitz and perhaps (Judge
Hellerstein
indicated)
Jeremy Reichberg. Shechtman
told Inner City Press, If
Norman wins $19 million in the
lottery, we'll have about
that. For now, $2500 is due in
60 days, through the SDNY
Clerk, for the union. We'll
have more on this.
Exiting the courthouse after
Seabrook, with a bag of Utz
potato chips and a copy of the
Daily News was New York Knicks
icon Charles Oakley. He said
that there are others who need
to be locked up as well, and
that the Knicks need better
players. There was no
rebuttal. Periscope video here.
Upcoming in the
SDNY is a recently-filed
complaint by the Bangladesh
Central Bank for the $81
million hacking of its funds,
which were then wired through
the Federal Reserve Bank of
New York, a case
that Inner City Press will
cover. Times change. Watch
this site.
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold
Station NY NY 10017
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2019 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com for
|
,
