Former
NYPD Lt Paul
Dean Asks Out
of Canaan But
US Says Must
Exhaust
Remedies
By Matthew
Russell Lee
NEW YORK CITY,
April 7 – 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, 2019 by
Judge Edgardo Ramos in the US
District Court for the
Southern District of New York;
Inner City Press covered it, here.
Now on
April 7, Dean serving his
sentence in USP Canaan in
Pennsylvania is asking Judge
Ramos to let him out amid the
Coronavirus. The Assistant US
Attorney is opposing "Paul's
request on the grounds that he
has not exhausted all his
administrative remedies with
Bureau of Prisons," a
requirement SDNY Judges
Carter, Castel, Cote and
others are saying there is no
way around. The US's reply is
due on April 9. The case is US
v. Dean, 17-cr-398 (Ramos).
Watch this site.
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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