| After
Pro Se Check Cash Fraudster
Stasiv Found Guilty,
Cooperator Bertulis Gets Time
Served
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon,
Periscope
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
May 16 – A defendant charged
with fraudulently cashing
checks in many U.S. states
appeared for trial that began
May 6, 2019 representing
himself, pro se, in the U.S.
District Court
for the
Southern
District of
New York
courtroom of
Judge Kevin
Castel.
Late
on May 15 the
jury returned
a verdict of
guilty on all
three counts.
Mid-afternoon
on May 15
Stasiv's
shadow counsel
was three
stories above,
in the gallery
for another
case about a
felon in
possession in
The Bronx.
Then he, and
Stasiv, were
gone.
Now
in 2021, on
June 2,
cooperator in
the case
Gediminas
Bertulis came
up for
sentencing.
The Assistant
US Attorney
praised him as
contrite and
useful, and
said he would
be surprised
if he returned
before the
court.
The
defendant
spoke of his
fathering, and
contrition. He
said where his
twenty year
old daughter
goes to
college. Judge
Castel,
showing mercy,
sentenced him
to time served
to be followed
- now - by
three years of
supervised
release. Then
the AUSA asked
to seal what
had already
been publicly
said about the
location of
the family,
that is,
daughter.
Inner City
Press is
voluntarily
not publishing
it. But it is,
or was, an
open
proceeding.
US v. Bertulis, 18-cr-259
(Castel).
U..
v Stasiv,
18-cr-259
(Castel).
Back
on May 6, 2019
the jury was
selected, with
Marko Stasiv
several times
making use of
the Ukrainian
language
interpreters
on hand.
On May 14, the
government's
case against
Stasiv plodded
forward, with
photographs of
cell cite
toward both
urban (on top
of a T-Mobile
shop) and
rural (made to
look like a
pine tree),
and and
explanation
for the jury
about how
pinging and
triangulation
work. Stasiv
sat at the
defendant's
table, looking
at his own
phone records,
with a (then)
home address
on East 82nd
Street in
Manhattan.
On the morning
of May 8
Stasiv
conducted some
cross
examination of
the FBI's CART
Agent Vincent
P Radice who
has partially
extracted a
Samsung Galaxy
phone. Stasiv
asked him
about the case
number and
name - not his
- under which
the phone and
SIM card were
searched.
Radice said
repeatedly
that he didn't
know.
Meanwhile the
government has
asked Judge
Castel to
redact racial
words from
text messages
they want to
introduce to
convict
Stasiv. For
example, as
the crew
drives around
waiting for a
check cashing
store, CW-1
texts
Razumovskiy
"It's such a
f*cking c*nt
of a black
neighborhood
here." The
government
wants to take
out the word
"black," so
that the jury
thinks between
of CW-1.
On May 7
Stasiv
conducted
cross
examination of
FBI Agent Fox,
who had a box
of seized cell
phones, ID and
bank cards in
front of her.
Stasiv asked
Agent Fox, Did
you observe me
in the check
cashing store?
No, she had
not. He
questioned her
about
the dates of
the complaint
and the
warrant but
she said she
was not part
of that
process. One
of the three
Assistant U.S.
Attorneys
facing off
against Stasiv
-- they are
Janis
Echenberg,
Noah Falk and
Jonathan
Rebold --
objected but
Stasiv, now
hopping around
on a cane,
prevailed.
Defendant's
Exhibits A and
B are now part
of the record.
Also now part
of the record
are IDs belong
to some of
those charged
along with
Stasiv in the
scheme,
including
Gennady
Toporov and
Mikhail
Dikler.
The government
says that two
will testify
against
Stasiv, among
a total of 28
government
witnesses.
Will the jury
view this as
overkill?
Could rooting
for the
underdog
result in a
verdict of not
guilty? No,
not in this
case. More on
Patreon, here.
***
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