1/31/2017
Judge's Decision In New York state Senator Malcolm Smith's Trial Expected Monday - WSJ
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
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NY CRIME
Decision in Malcolm Smith Trial
Expected Monday
Judge Can Declare a Delay, Mistrial, or Dismissal of Indictments
New York State Senator Malcolm Smith leaves the Federal Courthouse in White Plains with his lawyer on May 30. KEITH
BEDFORD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By SEAN GARDINER
June 13, 2014 6:24 p.m. ET
A federal court judge plans to decide Monday if state Sen. Malcolm Smith and two
defendants' political corruption trial will continue.
The case could be delayed, end in a mistrial or even result in a dismissal of the bribery
conspiracy indictments against Mr. Smith, former City Councilman Daniel Halloran and
former Queens Republican Party official Vincent Tabone.
At issue are 9,000 conversations-secretly recorded by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and involving a government cooperating witness-that prosecutors didn't
turn over to defense attorneys. Some of the conversations are in Yiddish.
Prosecutors said the recordings have nothing to do with the case in which Mr. Smith, a
Democrat, is charged with trying to bribe his way onto the GOP mayoral ballot for the
2013 election. Therefore, they weren't required to submit them to the defense,
prosecutors said.
Some legal experts said that the prosecution would have been better off turning the
tapes over. Usually, the government errs on the side of flooding the defendant with
information so they can avoid criticism for not turning documents over and because it is
time consuming for the defense to sort through all the materials, experts said.
Failure to turn over the tapes earlier "seems like a pretty big blunder on the part of the
prosecution," said Martha Rayner, a clinical associate professor oflaw at Fordham
University.
A mistrial is a particular risk for the prosecution now, she added.Lawyers for Messrs.
https://www.wsj .com/articles/judges-decision-in-new-york-state-senator-malcolm-smiths-trial-expected-monday-1402698286?KEYWORDS=vinoo+varghese
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1/31/2017
Judge's Decision In New York state Senator Malcolm Smith's Trial Expected Monday - WSJ
Former Queens GOP official Vincent Tabone leaves federal court in May. KEITH BEDFORD FOR THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL
Former City Councilman Daniel Halloran leaves federal court in May. KEITH BEDFORD FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
EARLIER
• €) Read the indictment
• Judge Considers Declaring Mistrial in
Malcolm Smith Case
• In Dan Halloran's New York, Republicans
Rule
• Malcolm Smith Had Two-Pronged Plan For
Mayor's Race
• Queens GOP Official Said He Was Plied
With Alcohol by Agent
• Lawmaker Allegedly Tried to Corrupt Race
for Mayor With Bribes
• Malcolm Smith Corruption Trial to Get
Underway
• Six Arrested in Bribery Probe
Halloran and Tabone said their limited
examination of the recordings found
information that would have made them alter
their opening statements.
The attorneys, Vinoo Varghese and Deborah
Misir, asked the judge to dismiss the
indictments against their clients.
"The government chose to make a deal with
the devil, a guy facing 4½ centuries in prison,"
Mr. Varghese said, referring to cooperating
witness Moses Stern, who worked undercover
hoping to reduce a potential sentence in an
unrelated fraud case.
Mr. Smith's attorney, Gerald Shargel,
requested the judge declare a mistrial, which means the government could try the case
again at a later date.
All three attorneys told Judge Kenneth Karas, in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y.,
that ifhe does plan to continue the trial after a "timeout," they would need at least a
week to analyze the material.
Prosecutor Justin Anderson said this office assembled nearly a dozen Yiddish
translators and will provide transcripts of approximately 28 hours of calls by Monday.
That would leave 48 hours of recorded calls, in English, to listen to, he said.
Mr. Anderson suggested that the defense lawyers and their staffs could do that over the
weekend and the trial could resume Monday.
Judge Karas disagreed, saying there is all sorts of "mental gymnastics" a defense
attorney must go through when analyzing new information. "It's not just like sitting
around listening to Beethoven," he said.
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1/31/2017
Judge's Decision In New York state Senator Malcolm Smith's Trial Expected Monday - WSJ
Yiddish is spoken by some 158,991 people in the U.S., according to figures from the
Census Bureau's American Community Survey in 2007. More than three-quarters of
those speakers live in the New York metro area and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
-Melanie Grayce West contributed to this article.
Write to Sean Gardiner at [email protected]
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