New York
Super Bowl sex, drug arrests underway in NYC
NEW YORK (AP) — Police were rounding up 18 people in New York City on Thursday on allegations they sold “party packs” of cocaine and sex to high-end clients and texted their customers to advertise ahead of this week’s Super Bowl festivities.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office said the arrests follow an 11-month investigation by the state Organized Crime Task Force, the Department of Homeland Security and the New York Police Department. About half of the 18 suspects had been arrested by 9 a.m. Thursday and brought to a Manhattan police precinct for processing before arraignment, a spokesman said.
Authorities said electronic and other surveillance and reviews of business records show the ring laundered money and credit cards through clothing, wig, beauty supply and limousine businesses and targeted wealthy, out-of-town customers, especially during large events. Prostitutes would bring cocaine to clients who ordered the so-called party packs.
While authorities say the criminal conspiracy extended to Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island and the Hudson Valley, the operation was based in Manhattan. A text to regular customers saying “new sexy & beautiful girls R in town waiting for u” was sent 10 days before Sunday’s Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands, which is expected to draw some well-heeled football fans to the city.
The ring also promoted the suspects’ business with advertisements on the Internet and public access television and sometimes billed for cocaine as equivalent “hours” of prostitution, authorities said.
They allege that after clients were impaired by drugs, the ring would flood the room with additional prostitutes and repeatedly charge clients’ credit card, at times more than $10,000 for one night. Through the front businesses, the group would charge credit cards for legitimate goods and services that were not provided, according to investigators.
“Drug trafficking and prostitution are a scourge on communities across our state,” Schneiderman said.
California
Judge rejects man’s claim to $372M emerald
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge has rejected a businessman’s bid to be declared the rightful owner of an 840-pound emerald that has been appraised at $372 million.
Judge John Kronstadt ruled Wednesday that the claims of Anthony Thomas to the Bahia Emerald were “not credible.”
But the long fight over the huge gem isn’t over. Two more parties — gem buyer Mark Downie and business Ferrara Morrison Holdings — both claim ownership and another trial awaits.
A judge in 2011 tentatively dismissed the claim of Thomas, who said he’d bought the emerald from Brazilian miners for $60,000. But when that judge was promoted, Kronstadt declared a mistrial and reheard the case himself last year.
The 3-foot-tall Bahia is one of the world’s largest emeralds with about 180,000 carats.
New York
Merchant says he sneaked 39,000 piranhas into NYC
NEW YORK (AP) — Federal authorities say a tropical fish merchant has admitted smuggling more than 39,000 piranhas into New York City and mislabeling them as common aquarium fish.
The Justice Department says Joel Rakower and his Queens company, Transship Discounts Ltd., pleaded guilty Wednesday and agreed to pay $73,000 in fines.
Piranhas are illegal in New York City and more than two dozen states.
Prosecutors say Rakower imported the piranhas in 2011 and 2012 and resold them to fish retailers in several states. Only 850 were recovered.
His lawyer tells Newsday that Rakower had been in the wholesale tropical fish supply business for 30 years. He says the 66-year-old Melville man made an error in judgment and is now paying for it.
Sentencing was set for April 24.
West Virginia
Dec. trial set for lawsuit against ex-Mingo judge
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — A lawsuit alleging former Mingo County Circuit Court Judge Michael Thornsbury sexually harassed and wrongfully fired his secretary is scheduled to go to trial in December.
Judge Tod Kaufman set a Dec. 15 trial date for Kim Woodruff’s lawsuit during a hearing Wednesday in Kanawha County Circuit Court, media outlets reported.
Thornsbury pleaded guilty last October to federal charges of conspiring to deprive a convicted drug dealer of his constitutional rights. He resigned from the bench and is scheduled to be sentenced April 21.
Thornsbury and former Mingo County prosecutor Michael Sparks were charged with protecting the late Sheriff Eugene Crum from revelations that Crum bought drugs from George White, a campaign sign maker. Authorities said Sparks and Thornsbury kept White from talking to the FBI about Crum, who was killed in an unrelated shooting in April 2013.
Sparks pleaded guilty last year to depriving White of his constitutional rights. He will be sentenced later this year.
Kaufman said a deposition from Thornsbury in the civil case can wait until after he is sentenced. Thornsbury’s lawyers had requested the delay.
William Slicer, who represents Thornsbury in the civil case, and Steve Jory, who represents him in the criminal case, both said the federal judge could consider Thornsbury’s responses in the civil case when he is sentenced.
“It’s the appearance, your honor,” Jory said. “He has been cooperating with federal authorities.”
Slicer also presented a motion to dismiss Woodruff’s lawsuit, saying the statute of limitation ran out because the sexual harassment allegations happened more than two years ago.
Richard Neely, one of Woodruff’s lawyers, said Kim found about the alleged plot to fire her after the criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Kaufman did not rule on the motion.
In exchange for Thornsbury’s guilty plea in the criminal case, federal prosecutors said they would dismiss charges against him in a separate criminal case in which the judge was accused of repeatedly trying to frame Woodruff’s husband, Robert Woodruff, for false crimes to eliminate him as a romantic rival.
Robert Woodruff has filed a lawsuit against Thornsbury in federal court alleging malicious prosecution, false arrest and wrongful imprisonment.
