At
SDNY Sentencing For Crack Sale
By Starbucks Manager Baby
Cries Echo In Empty Courtroom
By Matthew
Russell Lee
NEW YORK CITY,
February 13 – Twelve sales of
crack cocaine by a single
mother who works for Starbucks
were the subject of a
sentencing onFebruary 13
before Judge J. Paul Oetken in
the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York. The sentencing began
with the cries of a baby - the
defendants daughter - and
ended with a sentence of time
served. No media was present
other than Inner City Press,
in contrast to higher profile
sentencing in the SDNY of
Norman Seabrook, for example.
But this case was and is
heartbreaking in its way.
According to the US Attorney,
which did not call this a
proceeding of interest, "This
investigation began in
November 2017 after detectives
identified a phone number that
appeared to be used by a
narcotics dealer. In early
December, upon calling the
number, an undercover
detective (the “UC”) spoke
with a female later identified
as Kimia Coard. The UC
arranged with Coard to
purchase “three” and when the
UC arrived, a male later
identified as Abdul Roberson
sold the UC three small bags
of crack. After the
transaction, the UC called
Coard back and asked if she
was associated with Roberson,
and Coard confirmed she was."
Coard was
arrested and held overnight.
She lost custody of her
daughter and has spent months
trying to get her back from
New York City's ACS. She
reduced her hours as a
Starbucks manager to 32 in
order to go to court hearings
and seek visitation with her
daughter. She wore an ankle
bracelet that tracked her
location; the US Attorney's
office at the sentencing said
earlier this month instead of
returning from her shift at
midnight she "went to The
Bronx" until 5 am.
In the
courtroom there were only a
total of ten people, with
Inner City Press being the
only media, reduced to eight
when Ms. Coard's father took
the crying or vocalizing baby
out into the hallway. (The
clerk closed the courtroom
room because the baby's cries
still echoed.) Her
lawyer said, I am not trying
to play on your heart strings,
your Honor, this is just her
reality. A social worker Ms.
O'Boyle was in the courtroom
too. The sun set over Foley
Square, where trademark cases
pended and people lost their
children in the Family Court.
In this case, the sentence was
time serviced, with three
years of Supervised Release
and the mandatory $100 special
assessment. "Good luck," Inner
City Press told Ms. Coard on
the way out of the empty
courthouse. This case is, or
was, United States v. Kimia
Coard et al., 18 Cr. 391
(JPO). This too is Federal
court. On February 13. Kimia
Coard
Back on February
6 a sale of crack cocaine in
November 2015 on Third Avenue
in Manhattan made its way to
the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York, with the sentencing of
Kelvin Elliot who pled guilty
to selling the crack.
Judge Andrew L.
Carter began by asking the
government, "Is this some
retro thing going on?" He
asked if crack is back, or
these are old customers. Later
in the proceeding he told
Kelvin Elliot, now 50 years
old, If you lose your job,
"you can't go back to selling
crack." Elliot said he
understood, hard to understand
given the accoustics of the
high ceiling courtroom in the
Thurgood Marshall Federal
Courthouse.
But in light of
Mr. Elliot's job -- for $17 an
hour, his Federal Defenders
lawyer pointed out - and
taking care of his ailing
father, Judge Carter sentenced
him to time served and three
years of supervised release
(without mandatory drug
treatment). No forfeiture,
restitution not relevant; $200
special assessment, no search
condition. In the elevator
door, Elliot said to a
reporter heading two floors up
for a hearing about Phoenix
House in light of a new Second
Circuit decision (Velarde
v. GW GJ, Inc., No.
17-330, 2d Cir. 2019), You're
just wandering. Perhaps. It
was United States v.
Kelvin Elliot 16 Cr. 428
(ALC).
Last week, former
New York City Police
Department Lieutenant Paul
Dean who pleaded guilty to his
role in expediting gun permits
for prominent people and some
who paid bribes was sentenced
to 18 months in prison on
January 31 by Judge Edgardo
Ramos in the US District Court
for the Southern District of
New York.
Before
issuing the sentence, Judge
Ramos heard directly from Paul
Dean about his 22 years in the
NYPD, his time as a first
responder at the World Trade
Center site after the 9/11
attacks, and how he provided
information to the
authorities.
But citing
the need for deterence, Judge
Ramos imposed the 18 months in
prison, two years of
supervised release with drug
testing, a $7,500 fine and as
requested by the prosecution a
forfeiture of $1000, an amount
they said Dean had admitted to
taking. The other bribes,
according to Judge Ramos,
consisted of free meals, car
repairs, visits to strip
clubs.
"No one
was getting rich," he said.
Only the day before in the
SDNY Judge Ramos accepted the
guilty plea of a basketball
coach who steered NBA
prospects to financial
advisers for the grand total
of $22,000 (see Inner City
Press story here).
Paul Dean's defense attorney
during the sentencing
proceeding emphasized that
there are others more
responsible than this client,
at one point saying "the actor
did have a felony conviction."
Inner City Press hopes to have
more on this.
After publication
of the above, the prosecution
issued this: "Manhattan U.S.
Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman
said: “As a high-ranking
officer and supervisor in the
NYPD’s License Division, Paul
Dean was entrusted with
ensuring the integrity of the
process for issuing gun
licenses in New York
City. Instead of
embracing that trust and
focusing on the safety of New
Yorkers, he monetized it for
his own benefit, and enabled
officers under his command to
do the same. Together
with our partners in law
enforcement, my office has
worked tirelessly to make sure
those efforts by Dean and
others involved ended not with
dollar signs, but in prison
cells. We will continue
to root out corrupt law
enforcement officers where we
find them, while commending
the vast majority of officers
who, unlike Dean, serve the
City of New York honestly and
honorably.”
According to the
Indictment and Complaint filed
in this case, other public
filings, and statements made
during the plea
proceeding:
DEAN was a member
of the NYPD from 1994 through
2016, and was assigned to the
License Division from 2008
through 2016. DEAN, a
lieutenant, was one of the
highest-ranking members of the
License Division and, from
approximately November 2014
through November 2015,
regularly ran its day-to-day
operations. Co-defendant
Robert Espinel was a member of
the NYPD from 1995 through his
retirement in 2016, and was
assigned to the License
Division from 2011 through
2016.
From at least
2013 through 2016, multiple
NYPD officers in the License
Division serving under DEAN’s
command, including David
Villanueva and Richard
Ochetal, solicited and
accepted bribes from gun
license expediters – including
Frank Soohoo, Alex
Lichtenstein, a/k/a “Shaya,”
and co-defendant Gaetano
Valastro, a former NYPD
detective – in exchange for
providing assistance to the
expediters’ clients in
obtaining gun licenses quickly
and often with little to no
diligence. DEAN, aware
of this bribery arrangement,
approved many of the gun
license applications submitted
by these expediters, despite
the fact that no substantial
due diligence had been
performed on them. As
part of the scheme, licenses
were issued for individuals
with substantial criminal
histories, including arrests
and convictions for crimes
involving weapons or violence,
and for individuals with
histories of domestic
violence.
DEAN accepted
things of value from the
expediters whose applications
he approved, including $1,000
cash from Lichtenstein,
catered meals and alcohol from
Soohoo, and gun equipment from
Valastro. DEAN also
accepted gifts and favors
directly from applicants whose
licenses he approved,
including free meals at
restaurants, free liquor from
a liquor distributor, free
beer and soda from a beverage
distributor, free car repairs
from car shops, and free
entertainment.
In 2015,
dissatisfied with the fact
that private gun expediters
were profiting thousands of
dollars per gun license
applicant when DEAN and others
did the work to approve those
applications, DEAN and Espinel
decided to retire and go into
the expediting business
themselves. In order to
ensure the success of their
business, DEAN and Espinel
planned to bribe Villanueva
and Ochetal, who were still in
the License Division, to
enable their clients to get
special treatment. They
also agreed with Valastro to
run their expediting and
bribery scheme out of
Valastro’s gun store.
According to the plan,
Valastro would benefit from
the scheme because DEAN and
Espinel would steer successful
applicants to Valastro’s store
to buy guns. They also
tried to corner the expediting
market by forcing other
expediters to work through
them. Specifically, DEAN
and Espinel attempted to
coerce Frank Soohoo, another
gun license expediter, into
sharing his expediting clients
with them by threatening to
use their influence in the
License Division to shut down
Soohoo’s expediting business
if Soohoo refused to work
with, and make payments to,
DEAN and
Espinel.
Espinel and
Valastro have previously pled
guilty and are awaiting
sentence. Villanueva,
Ochetal, Lichtenstein, and
Soohoo have also pled guilty
in case number 16 Cr. 342
(SHS). Lichtenstein was
sentenced by the U.S. District
Judge Sidney H. Stein to 32
months in prison, and the
remaining defendants are
awaiting sentence." Inner City
Press wil continue to cover
these cases. Watch this site.
***
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