Open Letter, Mayor Bloomberg

4/19/09

 

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

So your running for re-election. Good.

Now, maybe, you will help correct some injustices that have occurred in your town of which I have personal knowledge.

The one in Manhattan is quite old but still important and the one in Queens more recent.

In 1966, while a child, I was suborned into perjury by a Manhattan prosecutor in order to wrongfully convict a person for a crime he didn't commit. The charge was child molestation.

In 2006 I personally was falsely arrested in Queens for a crime that did not even occur. I hired a lawyer, fought it and the case was dismissed by Judge Bianchi. However, I was by far not the only person falsely arrested on this spurious charge but I actually stood up for Justice and hired a lawyer.

For the past two years my efforts to achieve Justice have been stonewalled by two District Attorneys who obviously believe that covering up for the illegal activities of law enforcement is what "Justice" means to the Bloomberg Administration.

I want YOU to prove them wrong.

I want YOU to pay attention to what I will say and then tell me, in writing, if you believe these situations are what Justice in NYC is all about. I want to know if YOU care about our Bill of Rights. And I want to know what YOU will do about this as the buck stops with YOU.

In the older, Manhattan case all I wanted to do was come clean and confess to what I did. I know now what I did was wrong but back when I was 13 I just did what the prosecutor told me to do. This resulted in a citizen, a Louis H Roman of Manhattan, born in San Juan, being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to a term in prison for a crime he did not commit.

The Manhattan DA's office, in the person of a Mr. Izquedera, has not only refused to address this crime but has even claimed that it keeps no records of its past employees. The prosecutor was very young, probably just out of law school, and would be in his late sixties now. I speculated he might be an important person now. Izquedera claims that Mr. Roman was not even arrested in 1966 giving 1964 as his only arrest. But when I requested he send me the details of that arrest as well as the mug shot, Izqueda refused to reply. Acting on the advice of an FBI agent I know I put in a FOIA request a full year ago that was also ignored. I am absolutely certain the event occurred in 1966 during the summer between 7th and 8th grades at PS 97 Q. After I did the perjury Mr. Roman plead guilty and was sentenced to a term in prison. My mother attended the sentencing. My father, a 20 year veteran of the NYFD, and my mother were with me at the defendant's hearing a few weeks after his arrest when the prosecutor removed me from their presence, took me to the side of the courtroom out of earshot of my parents, sat me down with my back to them and took my statement about the details of the incident and then instructed me to commit perjury because, he said, "I really want to put this guy away."

Now, all records of this event are missing but Izquedera does not find this remarkable and probably finds this par for the course of "Justice" in NYC. Apparently the records of the arrest and the subsequent incarceration of Mr Roman have all been removed. I would like you to find the records and other details of the fate of Mr. Roman.

My main fear is that he was harmed or murdered in prison as often happens to child molesters. If he was murdered the prosecutor can still be prosecuted for his role in falsely placing him in that situation. I myself looked for the arrest record in the NYC Archives. In those archives each year's arrests are alphabetized in each month and these monthly records are correctly alphabetized EXCEPT July which is correctly alphabetized up until the "Roman"s at which point they get out of order. It looks like someone rifled through them before microfilming and took out Louis H. Why would someone want to remove a single arrest record UNLESS that person was killed in prison and that someone wanted to cover his tracks?

Its all very suspicious but covering up for police abuse and criminal activity is the legacy of the Morganthau regime. I want to see if YOU have the courage and integrity to get to the bottom of this injustice and cover-up.

The situation in Queens involves MANY people, probably in the hundreds, who were falsely arrested by an Officer Waters of the 102. While arresting me Waters bragged that he does that EVERY night and he was processing those arrested with me on an assembly line of injustice. The charge was trespassing in Forest Park after closing hours. The time Waters arrested me was about 9:10pm though he wrote on the arrest ticket 9:45, when he got around to processing me.

The arrest occured in the Bandshell parking lot just off Woodhaven Blvd. While Waters was arresting me for being in the park after closing I pointed to a sign directly across the road from the parking lot that said the park closes at 1AM. Waters merely said the sign was wrong and refused to go over and look at it. He also bragged that he does this every night. I am originally from Woodhaven and used to hang out there and went back there for a stroll down memory lane.

After my arrest I contacted Mr Lamyre who runs Forest Park and he assured me that the Bandshell parking lot was open until 10PM and said there was a sign there that said so. He later told me the sign was missing and provided a letter re the closing time (enclosed.) I hired the law firm of Anthony Como which showed the letter to Judge Bianchi at trial and he dismissed the charges against me.

But only me. There are still hundreds of others who were also falsely arrested there between the hours of 9 and 10PM who put in a guilty plea, paid a fine, and got a criminal arrest record. This is not right. It is not right to do this to people who are totally INNOCENT. Richard A Brown, the Queens DA, refuses to correct this injustice. (I am sure you are aware that the Queens DA has had at least 85 convictions reversed due to prosecutorial misconduct.) I visited the Queens DA office and was met by a brick wall named Michelle who just laughed and said they would never fix this or go after the rabid cop who did this injustice. She couldn't care less about my documentation. Since Woodhaven is now largely Hispanic, most of Water's victims were Hispanic and so it looks like he's continuing the famous NYC practice of keeping people of color "in their place."

Nearly two years ago I wrote a letter about this to Mr. Brown who assigned the cover-up to a James Liander who describes himself as the head of the "integrity unit." I gave Liander full details of the event and pointed out that the arrest ticket itself says that "any misstatement of the facts is a crime." Officer Waters violated this law by changing certain facts of the arrest such as the time AND place of occurrence. I was arrested at 9:10pm but the time on the ticket said 9:45pm. This is important as some other people that Waters arrested BEFORE the 10pm closing time but who were not processed until AFTER 10pm still APPEAR to be guilty of violating the 10pm closing time even though they were ACTUALLY arrested before that time. Liander, the great prosecutorial ethicist, claims this is NOT a crime and is perfectly OK. I dispute this and I want to know if you agree with Liander or with me: Should people arrested for trespassin g in the park BEFORE closing hours be prosecuted and convicted even though hey did not violate the law? This is a very simple question and it goes to the heart of whether you deserve to continue being Mayor. I know perfectly well that many of the white residents of the City are happy when the police abuse persons of color, but I always believed you are a lot better than Giuliani re civil liberties and NOW is the time to give Justice to those people who have been abused by Waters.

The second crime that Waters committed has to do with what he listed as the LOCATION of the event. I believe Waters was trying to cover himself because I had pointed out to him that the sign across from the entrance to the parking lot said the park closed at 1am. Waters CRIMINALLY changed my arrest as occurring not in the Bandshell parking lot with all the other arrestees, but nearly a MILE drive away at the corner of Forest Park Drive and Park Lane South. Why would Waters change this location if not to cover up? Why not just say the Bandshell parking lot just off Woodhaven Blvd which is much more widely know? He did this as an attempt to obstruct justice to make it look like I was lying if I fought the arrest, which I indicated to him I would.

I don't know how many $$$ the City made from these false arrests but I am sure, and I am sure that the citizens of the City will agree with me, that ANY amount seized in this manner is unjust and undeserved.

Please look into this matter and make restitution and apologies to the victims and discipline Waters. The arrogance of this "law enforcement" official is monumental. If he is willing to do this to peaceful, honest citizens what ELSE is he willing to do as he bullies and intimidates his way through his daily routines. Please tell me of other citizen complaints against this crooked cop.

And if you don't fix this problem you will be hearing a lot more about it in the near future. And so will the voters.

 

Archimedes' Cockpit | Democracy Wall