Nicole Corrado, Appellate Division First Department Attorney, Sues the Court System

Attorney for Department Disciplinary Committee Sues Court System
The New York Law Journal by John Caher  -  May 16, 2012

An attorney for the Appellate Division, First Department's disciplinary committee alleges in a federal lawsuit that she was sexually harassed by two now-retired officials at the watchdog agency while a third retaliated against her for complaining.
  

Nicole Corrado also suggests that after she lodged a complaint officials retaliated by targeting her attorney in an unrelated property matter. She claims that the committee launched an investigation into allegations of bribery and forgery against her attorney, and then suddenly dropped the matter when he abandoned her case.  Additionally, Corrado claims she was punished for supporting a lawsuit brought against the court system by a colleague.  Corrado v. New York State Unified Court System, 12-cv-1748, filed in the Eastern District on April 10, alleges violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  Corrado, who has served as a principal attorney at the disciplinary committee since 2006, claims she endured years of harassment by her supervisor, Andral Bratton, and that the committee's chief investigator, Vincent Raniere, touched her inappropriately and forcibly kissed her on several occasions.
  

According to the complaint, when Corrado reported the "pattern of sexual harassment" by Bratton and Raniere in 2008, the court system referred the matter to its inspector general. However, only the allegations against Bratton were investigated, the complaint claims. The complaint states that Bratton admitted during the Office of the Inspector General probe that he was "smitten" with Corrado and crossed "an emotional boundary." Bratton was transferred to another unit at the same salary and Corrado was simply told to "avoid" him, according to the complaint.  Corrado alleges that while her sexual harassment complaint was pending, she retained an attorney to represent her in an unrelated action involving a property dispute. She claims the disciplinary committee instigated an investigation into that attorney—who is not named in her complaint—involving allegations of bribery and forgery.  

Corrado contends that after the attorney withdrew from her case and her claim was dismissed, all of the ethical charges against her lawyer were dropped. She claims that because of her attorney's abrupt withdrawal, her civil case was dismissed and she was "ultimately forced to settle her case for a fraction of its value."  Bennitta Joseph of Borrelli & Associates in Great Neck, who is representing Corrado in the civil rights claim, declined to identify the allegedly intimidated attorney who represented her client in Corrado v. East End Pool &  Hot Tub.  Corrado also claims in her complaint that she was retaliated against for supporting the claim of a colleague who accused the agency of racial discrimination.

The complaint does not identify that employee, but Joseph confirmed in an interview that it was Christine Anderson, a former staff attorney who alleged she was wrongfully discharged in June 2007 on a pretext of insubordination after she revealed that the panel was protecting well-connected attorneys. A jury rejected her claims, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the verdict (NYLJ, Oct. 30, 2009). Corrado contends that after she agreed to corroborate Anderson's allegations of "racial discrimination and other improper conduct" by the disciplinary committee, Alan Friedberg, the committee's chief counsel, threatened her and gave her an unreasonable workload. Additionally, Corrado says Bratton threatened her.  In light of Corrado's complaint, Anderson has asked the Second Circuit to reinstate her claim. Anderson contends in her petition that Corrado, who testified on her behalf at a deposition but not at trial, "was threatened and chilled into not testifying" at her trial, constituting a "manifest attack on our system of law and a clear denial of appellant's right to a fair trial." 

Corrado claims that because of the anxiety and stress from the harassment she endured at the disciplinary committee she took a two-year unpaid leave of absence between 2009 and 2011, returning only after Bratton, Raniere and Friedberg had left. According to the Office of Court Administration, all three took advantage of an early retirement incentive in the fall of 2010.  "She feels like she has to do something," Joseph said. "She took a two-year leave of absence because the environment had become so toxic, and then once all the offending parties left, she came back."  Raniere said the allegations are false. "I didn't do a damned thing," he said.  Friedberg declined to comment. Bratton could not be reached.  David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration, declined to respond, noting that the court system does not comment on pending litigation.  John Caher can be contacted at jcaher@alm.com.

Court Denies Sotheby's Request for Discovery Conference in Cambodian Statue Forfeiture Case

A federal judge sitting in the southern district court of New York yesterday denied a request by Sotheby's for a discovery conference.  That decision came in the matter of United States v. A 10th Century Cambodian Sandstone Sculpture Located at Sotheby's in New York, New York.

The case involves an effort by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to forfeit a Khmer statue known as the Duryodhana, claiming that the statue was stolen from a temple.  Sotheby's placed the statue up for auction this spring.  Now Sotheby's and Ruspoli di Poggio Suasa, who alleges that her husband purchased the statue in 1975 in the United Kingdom, are claimants in the forfeiture action.

In a case seemingly dominated by letters to the court--which are not easily accessible to the public as compared with the filing of formal motions--Sotheby's Inc. reportedly sent a letter to the court to ask for a discovery conference under Rule 37.  That Federal Rule of Civil Procedure is generally used to compel discovery.  The judge ruled: "Claimant Sotheby's Inc.'s letter request for a Rule 37.2 conference to seek the court's assistance with a discovery dispute regarding the production and translation of foreign law is DENIED."

The motions deadline in the case has been set for June 5, 2012.

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

SLAM Opposes Government's Motion to Reopen Ka Nefer Nefer Mummy Mask Case

Attorneys for the St. Louis Art Museum (SLAM) oppose reopening the case of United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer.  Last week U.S. Attorney Richard Callahan's office urged the eastern district federal court in Missouri to reconsider its March 31 dismissal of the forfeiture caselaunched to recover the mummy mask. SLAM's lawyers today filed their objection.

Mohammed Zakaria Goneim originally excavated the 19th Dynasty mask at Saqqara, Egypt during the 1950's. The museum bought it on the antiquities market in 1998. Federal authorities say that the mask is illegal contraband, while the museum maintains that it is the owner of legitimate property.

St. Louis Art Museum
 Source: Colin Faulkingham. Public Domain

SLAM's pleading argues that the district court should not reconsider its decision to dismiss the case, and the court should not permit the government to file a newly amended complaint. The museum's attorneys suggest that the government's remedy is to appeal the dismissal of the case to the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals.

The museum's lawyers complain that federal prosecutors

• did not state any new evidence that should reopen the case,
• failed to explain any exceptional circumstances that would prompt a reexamination of the dismissal,
• did not submit an amended complaint when it had the chance, and
• failed to show that Egyptian law declared ownership over cultural property prior to 1983.

Several passages from SLAM's memorandum of law, quoted below with legal citations omitted, provide both a sketch and the flavor of the museum's arguments.

"In the Eighth Circuit, where an order dismisses a complaint for failure to state a claim but remains silent on whether the order is final, whether it dismisses the entire action, and whether the plaintiff has the right to amend, the entire action is dismissed.... The March 31st Order of this Court is silent ...: it does not state whether it is final, whether it dismisses the entire action, or whether the Government may appeal. As such, the Order was plainly a dismissal of the entire action."

"In its Motion for Reconsideration, the Government does not allege that it has discovered new evidence since the Court’s dismissal of this action that would warrant alteration or amendment of this Court’s Order. Instead, the Government offers evidence it 'could' now present evidence that could have been presented before the dismissal of this case. The Government had ample time between its decision to initiate this lawsuit and the dismissal of this action to provide evidence necessary to bolster its case, but has now missed its opportunity to do so."

"In its Motion for Reconsideration, the Government did not allege any exceptional circumstances that warrant a reexamination of the Court’s final judgment in this case. The Government has had a fair and full opportunity to offer evidence in opposition to Claimant Museum’s Motion to Dismiss, either in the Government’s responsive pleadings or by way of an amended complaint. In fact, the Government now brings to the Court the very same arguments it made in its responsive pleadings to the Claimant Museum’s Motion to Dismiss. Other channels of relief are available to the Government, as it has the option to seek redress from this Court’s Order by appeal to the Eighth Circuit. For all these reasons, this Court should deny the Government’s Motion for Reconsideration."

"The appropriate time for the Government to submit an amended Complaint was at some point during the nearly eleven months between the Claimant Museum’s Motion to Dismiss and the Court’s Order dismissing this action due to those very insufficiencies. Now, more than a year after the Museum first identified the deficiencies of the Verified Complaint, the Government offers only facts it 'could' include in an amended Complaint. But the Government stops there, without submitting a proposed amended Complaint, any documentary evidence of the additional facts the Government 'could' provide, or even a specific description in its Motion of what facts exist to cure the myriad defects identified by the Court."

"[O]ne of the marked deficiencies in this case [is that] until 1983, there was no Egyptian law that unequivocally established Egyptian ownership of items like the Mask.  It is well settled that such a clear declaration of ownership is necessary before exportation of an article constitutes theft. The Government’s objection about being required to 'establish the date, location, or motive behind the stealing, let alone the identity of the thief' overstates what the court expected. In its Order, the Court used the absence of those very basic 'factual and logical steps' to illustrate the utter lack of any facts connecting the Mask’s absence from Egypt with its 'theft.'"

"[T]he Government in this case offered no facts regarding: the date (or even the year) of the theft; the place from which the Mask was stolen; the identity of the thief or thieves (or even so much as speculation as to the identity); the location of the Mask at any time between its suspected location in 1966 and its purchase by the Museum in 1998; the year in which the Mask was exported from Egypt; that there was any law enforcement investigation conducted and, if so, what it revealed; the chain or suspected chain of custody; the identity of any witnesses to either the theft, recording, transport, storage or possession of the Mask in the intervening three decades; or the Egyptian patrimony law that purportedly established Egypt’s ownership of the Mask."

"Nevertheless, the Government requests leave to amend its Verified Complaint. It is interesting that after more than six years during which the Museum has repeatedly sought--first from the Egyptian government, then from the United States government--any evidence suggesting theft or even that the Museum’s possession of the Mask was less than legitimate, the Government now hints at but still does not specify what additional facts may satisfy its burden. The Government has clearly had sufficient time, even within the time frame of this case, to amend its Verified Complaint to cure the deficiencies."

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

Gordon Ivory Smuggling Prosecution on Trial Track

The case of United States v. Victor Gordon appears on track for trial. The US District Court for the Eastern District of New York has issued a schedule that slates the trial for December 3, 2012. Motions are due in July.

U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch

A federal grand jury indicted Philadelphia art dealer Victor Gordon last summer for allegedly importing and selling illegal African elephant ivory. U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch's office is prosecuting the case.  Her office is also handling the alleged antiquities smuggling case of United States v. Mousa Khouli et al.

An indicted defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. 

CONTACT: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

Family Told How to Hide Inheritance, U.S. Claim

By BENJAMIN WEISER, NY TIMES

Harry G.A. Seggerman

May 12, 2012

LINK

The meeting of the Seggerman family at the elegant Four Seasons Hotel in New York in August 2001 was like many such gatherings of bereaved families: a patriarch had died and the children had come to discuss their inheritances.

In this case, the patriarch was Harry G. A. Seggerman, a respected investment fund president who had died several months earlier at age 73, leaving his family more than $20 million, the government said.

But the meeting that day, attended by Mr. Seggerman’s widow and four of his children, took an unusual turn, federal prosecutors in Manhattan said on Friday.

The family’s lawyer, Michael Little, who was also present, explained that half of Mr. Seggerman’s estate, more than $10 million, was in Swiss and other foreign accounts, and he told them how they might keep the money hidden to avoid paying United States taxes, prosecutors said.

The result was the hatching of a protracted tax fraud scheme involving Mr. Little and various family members, federal prosecutors said. One of Mr. Seggerman’s daughters has already pleaded guilty in Federal District Court in Manhattan, and on Thursday night, the lawyer, Mr. Little, was arrested on a conspiracy charge at Kennedy International Airport as he arrived from London.

Mr. Little, 61, who has residences in Hampshire, England, and in New York, would face a maximum of five years in prison if convicted. On Friday, a federal magistrate judge said he could be released on a $2 million personal recognizance bond.

Mr. Little’s lawyer, Elkan Abramowitz, said “we are confident that in the end we will be able to demonstrate that there is no merit” to the charges, according to The Associated Press.Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said on Friday that his office was prosecuting not only people who do not pay their taxes, but also “their enablers.”

“In addition to breaking the law by advising his American clients on how to break it themselves, Michael Little violated the most basic moral and ethical tenets of the legal profession,” Mr. Bharara said.

A federal complaint unsealed on Friday charged that Mr. Little had told family members how they could set up Swiss accounts and other entities with him and a Swiss lawyer, who would be paid annual fees for their services. He also explained how the family could bring money back to the United States in small increments using, for example, traveler’s checks.

Mr. Seggerman’s eldest son, a businessman who worked at his father’s firm, also once proposed that his siblings use code words when discussing the plan, the complaint said.

They would use the word “beef” when referring to money, “F.D.A.” for the I.R.S., and “refrigerator” for certain accounts in which money would be held, the complaint said.

Mr. Seggerman’s son Henry, who is listed on the Web site of the firm, International Investment Advisors, did not respond to a request for comment.

A grand jury investigation into the family’s handling of its inheritance is continuing, the government said, and it has focused on foreign advisers to the family, as well as the Swiss lawyer and a New Jersey accountant.

Two of Mr. Seggerman’s other children, who are not identified in the complaint, have provided information to prosecutors in hopes of entering into cooperation agreements.

One, a daughter, took extensive notes at the Four Seasons meeting on hotel stationery, which she turned over to investigators, prosecutors said.

Another daughter, Suzanne Seggerman, pleaded guilty in 2010 to conspiracy and tax charges, and is awaiting sentencing. She has become a cooperating witness in the investigation, the complaint said.

Her lawyer, Russell M. Gioiella, said on Friday that his client had “cooperated fully” in the case. “She sincerely regrets that she did not disclose the existence of these accounts from the outset,” he added.

Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.

Lawyer Little Charged With 11-Year Swiss Tax-Fraud Scheme

By Patricia Hurtado - May 11, 2012

LINK

 

The U.S. charged Michael Little, an attorney, with participating in an 11-year conspiracy that defrauded the Internal Revenue Service using Swiss bank accounts and sham mortgage transactions.
Little and unidentified co-conspirators, including five members of an U.S.-based family, first met at a New York hotel in August 2001, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a criminal complaint filed today.
During the meeting, Little advised family members, identified in court papers as the “S Family,” on how they could bring back to the U.S., without paying taxes, $10 million in overseas accounts that belonged to the family’s recently deceased patriarch.
Little assisted family members with opening an account at UBS AG in Switzerland and conducting sham mortgage transactions designed to get the money into the U.S. without alerting the IRS, the government alleged in the filing in federal court in Manhattan.
From 2001 and 2008 Little met with the matriarch of the family to discuss the transfer of funds and “caused millions of dollars” to be sent from offshore to the U.S. account of an entity she controlled, according to the complaint. The matriarch “made personal and other use of the money,” prosecutors said.
Other unidentified people involved in the scheme include a New Jersey accountant, a lawyer in Switzerland and the eldest member of the S Family, described as a New York businessman who also inherited funds in offshore accounts.
One of the relatives has pleaded guilty to federal charges and is cooperating with the government’s investigation, prosecutors said. Two of that person’s siblings have also provided information to the U.S., prosecutors say.
The case is U.S. v. Little, 12-MAG-1241, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
To contact the reporter on this story: Patricia Hurtado in New York at pathurtado@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net

British Lawyer Charged in Swiss Bank Mess Related to UBS Account (5/11/12)

Cultural Property Law Course at Plymouth State University, College of Graduate Studies

Registration is now open for Cultural Property Law, part of Plymouth State University's Historic Preservation program.  This graduate studies course examines the international, national, and state legal frameworks covering the protection and movement of cultural property.

This concentrated course starts July 3 and meets Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday over the course of two weeks. The final class is a field trip to a major museum.

The class meets in Concord, New Hampshire--an easy drive from Boston, Massachusetts and other points in New England.

Trial Tip: Dealing With Inferential Hearsay or Bolstering

by


Jill Paperno, Special Assistant Monroe County Public Defender


Often the DA will try to introduce hearsay testimony as well as what is considered inferential hearsay and bolstering testimony at trial.  They may ask an officer, "Did you talk to the witness Mr. So and So" and then ask the officer, "And after talking to that witness, did you arrest the defendant."  The testimony is trying to get the jury to infer that based on the conversation, which was likely inadmissible hearsay and bolstering of other evidence, the officer learned information that provided a basis to arrest the defendant.  In other words, the witness told the officer the defendant did it.  Perhaps this initial conversation was had with a witness who is not testifying at trial, or might not come in any way.  So the DA is trying to backdoor that the defendant was identified as the culprit right at the scene. 


In People v. Spicola, 16 NY3d 441  the Court of Appeals  addressed the definition of "bolstering": 


In People v Buie, 86 NY2d 501 (1995), we considered whether the admission of a 911 tape under the hearsay exception for present sense impression, where the declarant was available and testified at trial, improperly bolstered his trial testimony. We explained that the term “bolstering” has “doctrinally referred to two distinct situations, both related to the rule against hearsay” (id. at 509–510). The first common use of the term arose “in the context of eyewitness identification, [where] the testimony of a third party (typically, a police officer) to the effect that the witness identified a defendant as the perpetrator on some prior occasion [was] generally inadmissible” because the “identification evidence [was] hearsay, not falling within any exception” (id. at 510,). Second, the term “bolstering” “refers to the fortification of a witness's testimony and credibility through the use of a prior consistent statement ... Such evidence may be admissible, but only to rebut a claim of recent fabrication ... A prior consistent statement is admitted under these limited circumstances as an exception to the hearsay rule” ( id. [citations omitted] ). 


You should consider objecting on hearsay, inferential hearsay and/or bolstering grounds when you hear this type of testimony coming at trial.  Sometimes courts will permit it as narrative or background information, but if that happens request an instruction that it is not to be considered for the truth of the alleged statement. 


If you object and some or all of the testimony is kept out, listen carefully to the prosecutor's summation (which you should be doing anyway).  As we all know, there are a lot of errors that constitute misconduct going on in summations here in the Fourth Department.  In a recent trial, the prosecutor in my case argued to the jury that "you heard that (complainant) identified the defendant at the scene."   They never heard any such thing, in part, due to the objections that were sustained.  They did hear that my client was arrested at the scene over my objection, and the judge, over my repeated argument about inferential hearsay and bolstering,  did allow the prosecutor to say that he was arrested at the scene. 


Do not let the prosecutor belittle or demean the defense strategy at trial by characterizing it inappropriately.  The prosecutor in my recent trial argued that the defense was merely an effort to confuse the jury.  The judge sort of sustained my objection to the DA's argument that "you heard the defendant was identified at the scene " - letting  him argue that he was arrested at the scene, but not that he was identified and that the jury's recollection is what counts.