New York
Federal prosecutor in NY issues call for whistleblowers in bid to unearth corruption
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who presides over one of the largest and busiest offices of prosecutors in the nation in Manhattan, issued what amounts to a casting call for whistleblowers Wednesday in a bid to discover non-violent crimes his office doesn’t yet know about.
The prosecutor whose Southern District of New York staff in the last year won convictions in high-profile cases against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and a gynecologist who prosecutors said had sexually abused a ‘staggering number of victims,’ launched what was labeled as the ‘SDNY Whistleblower Pilot Program.’
In the last 15 years, the office has successfully prosecuted numerous terrorists, mobsters, sex abusers and white-collar criminals, including Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, who admitted fleecing thousands of investors out of roughly $20 billion over several decades, and Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking in a case stemming from financier Jeffrey’s Epstein’s decadeslong sex abuse of teenage girls.
Williams said he was hopeful that a whistleblower might alert the office to ‘the next Madoff case’ before the full harm had been done and at a time when prosecutors had not heard of it and it wasn’t known publicly. In return, he said, the whistleblower could earn a non-prosecution deal even if the individual had a minor role in the crime.
He said he hoped the program would ‘help us bring more misconduct to light and better protect the communities we serve.’
‘This program, this new policy, the idea behind it is we’re trying to figure out what we don’t know,’ he told reporters who cover the courts and meet informally with Williams at least once a year.
‘There are plenty of people, I imagine, out there who have some exposure who are laboring under the anxiety that they’ve done something wrong and they don’t want to live in fear, who, if they hear about it, we hope they end up giving us a call,’ he said. ‘There’s a path for them.’
He added: ‘Our message to the world remains: ‘Call us before we call you.’’
Williams also announced that his office, which employs nearly 300 prosecutors, is adding the fight against fentanyl and public corruption to priorities he has embraced since he took up the post in 2021. Existing priorities include prosecutions over violent crime, corruption in financial markets and civil rights violations.
Connecticut
Former mayoral candidate pleads guilty to Jan. 6 Capitol breach
A former Connecticut city alderman who won a Republican primary for mayor while facing charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor for his actions in Washington.
Gino DiGiovanni Jr., who lost the November election for Derby mayor, pleaded to a trespassing charge — entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds — during a federal court videoconference hearing. Sentencing was set for April 15. He faces up to six months in jail under federal sentencing guidelines.
His lawyer, Martin Minnella, said the plea deal was a fair resolution of the case, given DiGiovanni wasn’t violent that day. Minnella said police were holding the Capitol doors open when DiGiovanni entered the building.
‘He didn’t break anything. He didn’t force his way in,’ Minnella told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. ‘But he did remain in there when he wasn’t authorized. ... This is an aberration in his life and hopefully he can turn the page.’
Minnella added: ‘Certainly we don’t condone the conduct of a lot of other people. It was a terrible situation that got out of control.’ He said DiGiovanni was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to ‘exercise his rights as a citizen.’
On Jan. 6, supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
More than 1,200 defendants have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury. Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.
Despite his arrest in August, DiGiovanni won the Republican primary for Derby mayor in September, beating incumbent Mayor Richard Dziekan in the city of 12,400 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of New York City. He lost the November election to Democrat Joseph DiMartino, with Dziekan running as an independent after losing the primary.
DiGiovanni pleaded guilty during a hearing in federal court in Washington. He and Minnella were in Connecticut and appeared via videoconference.
Indiana
Judge orders state to strike Ukrainian provision from humanitarian parole driver’s license law
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge ordered Indiana to strike a provision in state law that allows people on humanitarian parole to obtain driver’s licenses but only if they are from Ukraine.
The judge granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to a group Haitian immigrants in Indiana who have sued the state over the recently passed law. The Haitian immigrants say the law is discriminatory and unconstitutional and are seeking to permanently ban the provision.
It was unclear Friday if the state will appeal the judge’s order.
The lawsuit was filed in August against the Commissioner of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and the National Immigration Law Center.
‘I plan to continue advocating for justice alongside the other plaintiffs, because getting a driver’s license should be dependent on following the rules of the road, not on the country where you were born,’ lead plaintiff Jeffson Saint-Hilaire said in a written statement provided by the ACLU of Indiana.
The law in question, Indiana House Enrolled Act 1050, provides an avenue for immigrants on humanitarian parole from Ukraine to obtain driver’s licenses and identification cards.
Four of the five Haitian immigrants — who are all on humanitarian parole — live in rural areas without public transportation, according to the lawsuit, and are seeking to have the same opportunities of the law provided to them. They rely on others for rides to work and other everyday activities such as grocery shopping, attorneys have said. The final plaintiff is a minor who wishes to receive an identification card.
Attorneys for the Haitian immigrants have argued that the law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. It also creates its own immigration classifications, which is an authority reserved by the federal government, they contend.
The Associated Press asked the Indiana Attorney General’s office, who is representing the Commissioner, whether the state will appeal the judge’s order. In a November court hearing, attorneys for the state argued that the law was adopted to mirror provisions in Congress’s Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, and therefore does not conflict with federal law or federal immigration classifications.
In her 45-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said the law distinguishes between classes of humanitarian parolees and there is a strong likelihood that the provision violates the Equal Protection Clause.
‘If the Indiana statute permitted all humanitarian parolees alike to obtain licenses, identification cards or titles, plaintiffs would not need to bring this suit,’ she wrote.
Pratt ordered Indiana to strike the Ukrainian provision language in her preliminary injunction, leaving the rest of the law in place.
The lawsuit also seeks class action certification, which is still pending.
‘We will continue to pursue this case to ensure that Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians have an equal opportunity to support their families and communities,’ Gavin M. Rose, senior attorney with the ACLU of Indiana, said in the statement.
Washington
Proud Boys member who wielded an axe handle during Capitol riot gets 4-year sentence
A jailed member of the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Friday to more than four years in prison for his role in a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago, court records show.
William Chrestman, a U.S. Army veteran from Olathe, Kansas, brandished an axe handle and threated police with violence after leading other Proud Boys members to the perimeter of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Chrestman pleaded guilty in October to obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. He also pleaded guilty to a second felony count of threatening to assault a federal officer during the Capitol riot.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Chrestman to four years and seven months in prison, according to court records.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of five years and three months, arguing that he ‘played a significant role during the riot due to his presence and conduct at pivotal moments during the day.’
‘Indeed, Chrestman regularly presented himself as a leader among the rioters including when he was part of the tip of the spear that created the breach at the Peace Circle, encouraged other rioters to move to the police barricades, told rioters to stop the arrest of a rioter, and thanked them for supporting the Proud Boys,’ prosecutors wrote.
Chrestman has been jailed since his arrest in February 2021. He’ll get credit for the nearly three years he already has served in custody.
Defense attorney Michael Cronkright argued that Chrestman never used his axe handle ‘to do anything remotely violent’ on Jan. 6.
‘To date, the worst thing that the government has asserted is that he used it to touch a security gate that was already going up,’ Cronkright wrote.
Chrestman also had a gas mask, a helmet and other tactical gear when he traveled to Washington with other Proud Boys members from the Kansas City, Kansas, area. On Jan. 6, he marched to the Capitol grounds with dozens of other Proud Boys leaders, members and associates.
Chrestman and other Proud Boys moved past a toppled metal barricade and joined other rioters in front of another police barrier. He shouted a threat at officers and yelled at others in the crowd to stop police from arresting another rioter, according to prosecutors.
Facing the crowd, Chrestman shouted, ‘Whose house is this?’
‘Our house!’ the crowd replied.
‘Do you want your house back?’ Chrestman asked.
‘Yes!’ the crowd responded.
‘Take it!’ Chrestman yelled.
Chrestman also pointed his finger at a line of Capitol police officers, gestured at them with his axe handle and threatened to assault them if they fired ‘pepper ball’ rounds at the crowd of rioters, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.
More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. About 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge. Over 750 of them have been sentenced, with nearly 500 receiving some term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
Dozens of Proud Boys leaders, members and associates have been arrested on Jan. 6 charges. The group’s former national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest for a Capitol riot case so far. A jury convicted Tarrio and three lieutenants of seditious conspiracy charges for a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election.
Federal prosecutor in NY issues call for whistleblowers in bid to unearth corruption
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, who presides over one of the largest and busiest offices of prosecutors in the nation in Manhattan, issued what amounts to a casting call for whistleblowers Wednesday in a bid to discover non-violent crimes his office doesn’t yet know about.
The prosecutor whose Southern District of New York staff in the last year won convictions in high-profile cases against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and a gynecologist who prosecutors said had sexually abused a ‘staggering number of victims,’ launched what was labeled as the ‘SDNY Whistleblower Pilot Program.’
In the last 15 years, the office has successfully prosecuted numerous terrorists, mobsters, sex abusers and white-collar criminals, including Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff, who admitted fleecing thousands of investors out of roughly $20 billion over several decades, and Ghislaine Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking in a case stemming from financier Jeffrey’s Epstein’s decadeslong sex abuse of teenage girls.
Williams said he was hopeful that a whistleblower might alert the office to ‘the next Madoff case’ before the full harm had been done and at a time when prosecutors had not heard of it and it wasn’t known publicly. In return, he said, the whistleblower could earn a non-prosecution deal even if the individual had a minor role in the crime.
He said he hoped the program would ‘help us bring more misconduct to light and better protect the communities we serve.’
‘This program, this new policy, the idea behind it is we’re trying to figure out what we don’t know,’ he told reporters who cover the courts and meet informally with Williams at least once a year.
‘There are plenty of people, I imagine, out there who have some exposure who are laboring under the anxiety that they’ve done something wrong and they don’t want to live in fear, who, if they hear about it, we hope they end up giving us a call,’ he said. ‘There’s a path for them.’
He added: ‘Our message to the world remains: ‘Call us before we call you.’’
Williams also announced that his office, which employs nearly 300 prosecutors, is adding the fight against fentanyl and public corruption to priorities he has embraced since he took up the post in 2021. Existing priorities include prosecutions over violent crime, corruption in financial markets and civil rights violations.
Connecticut
Former mayoral candidate pleads guilty to Jan. 6 Capitol breach
A former Connecticut city alderman who won a Republican primary for mayor while facing charges related to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor for his actions in Washington.
Gino DiGiovanni Jr., who lost the November election for Derby mayor, pleaded to a trespassing charge — entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds — during a federal court videoconference hearing. Sentencing was set for April 15. He faces up to six months in jail under federal sentencing guidelines.
His lawyer, Martin Minnella, said the plea deal was a fair resolution of the case, given DiGiovanni wasn’t violent that day. Minnella said police were holding the Capitol doors open when DiGiovanni entered the building.
‘He didn’t break anything. He didn’t force his way in,’ Minnella told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. ‘But he did remain in there when he wasn’t authorized. ... This is an aberration in his life and hopefully he can turn the page.’
Minnella added: ‘Certainly we don’t condone the conduct of a lot of other people. It was a terrible situation that got out of control.’ He said DiGiovanni was at the Capitol on Jan. 6 to ‘exercise his rights as a citizen.’
On Jan. 6, supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory.
More than 1,200 defendants have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. Over 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a judge or jury. Approximately 750 rioters have been sentenced, with nearly two-thirds getting some term of imprisonment.
Despite his arrest in August, DiGiovanni won the Republican primary for Derby mayor in September, beating incumbent Mayor Richard Dziekan in the city of 12,400 people about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of New York City. He lost the November election to Democrat Joseph DiMartino, with Dziekan running as an independent after losing the primary.
DiGiovanni pleaded guilty during a hearing in federal court in Washington. He and Minnella were in Connecticut and appeared via videoconference.
Indiana
Judge orders state to strike Ukrainian provision from humanitarian parole driver’s license law
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A federal judge ordered Indiana to strike a provision in state law that allows people on humanitarian parole to obtain driver’s licenses but only if they are from Ukraine.
The judge granted a preliminary injunction Thursday to a group Haitian immigrants in Indiana who have sued the state over the recently passed law. The Haitian immigrants say the law is discriminatory and unconstitutional and are seeking to permanently ban the provision.
It was unclear Friday if the state will appeal the judge’s order.
The lawsuit was filed in August against the Commissioner of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana and the National Immigration Law Center.
‘I plan to continue advocating for justice alongside the other plaintiffs, because getting a driver’s license should be dependent on following the rules of the road, not on the country where you were born,’ lead plaintiff Jeffson Saint-Hilaire said in a written statement provided by the ACLU of Indiana.
The law in question, Indiana House Enrolled Act 1050, provides an avenue for immigrants on humanitarian parole from Ukraine to obtain driver’s licenses and identification cards.
Four of the five Haitian immigrants — who are all on humanitarian parole — live in rural areas without public transportation, according to the lawsuit, and are seeking to have the same opportunities of the law provided to them. They rely on others for rides to work and other everyday activities such as grocery shopping, attorneys have said. The final plaintiff is a minor who wishes to receive an identification card.
Attorneys for the Haitian immigrants have argued that the law violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. It also creates its own immigration classifications, which is an authority reserved by the federal government, they contend.
The Associated Press asked the Indiana Attorney General’s office, who is representing the Commissioner, whether the state will appeal the judge’s order. In a November court hearing, attorneys for the state argued that the law was adopted to mirror provisions in Congress’s Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act, and therefore does not conflict with federal law or federal immigration classifications.
In her 45-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt said the law distinguishes between classes of humanitarian parolees and there is a strong likelihood that the provision violates the Equal Protection Clause.
‘If the Indiana statute permitted all humanitarian parolees alike to obtain licenses, identification cards or titles, plaintiffs would not need to bring this suit,’ she wrote.
Pratt ordered Indiana to strike the Ukrainian provision language in her preliminary injunction, leaving the rest of the law in place.
The lawsuit also seeks class action certification, which is still pending.
‘We will continue to pursue this case to ensure that Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians have an equal opportunity to support their families and communities,’ Gavin M. Rose, senior attorney with the ACLU of Indiana, said in the statement.
Washington
Proud Boys member who wielded an axe handle during Capitol riot gets 4-year sentence
A jailed member of the Proud Boys extremist group was sentenced on Friday to more than four years in prison for his role in a mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago, court records show.
William Chrestman, a U.S. Army veteran from Olathe, Kansas, brandished an axe handle and threated police with violence after leading other Proud Boys members to the perimeter of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Chrestman pleaded guilty in October to obstructing the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress for certifying the Electoral College vote. He also pleaded guilty to a second felony count of threatening to assault a federal officer during the Capitol riot.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly sentenced Chrestman to four years and seven months in prison, according to court records.
Prosecutors had recommended a prison sentence of five years and three months, arguing that he ‘played a significant role during the riot due to his presence and conduct at pivotal moments during the day.’
‘Indeed, Chrestman regularly presented himself as a leader among the rioters including when he was part of the tip of the spear that created the breach at the Peace Circle, encouraged other rioters to move to the police barricades, told rioters to stop the arrest of a rioter, and thanked them for supporting the Proud Boys,’ prosecutors wrote.
Chrestman has been jailed since his arrest in February 2021. He’ll get credit for the nearly three years he already has served in custody.
Defense attorney Michael Cronkright argued that Chrestman never used his axe handle ‘to do anything remotely violent’ on Jan. 6.
‘To date, the worst thing that the government has asserted is that he used it to touch a security gate that was already going up,’ Cronkright wrote.
Chrestman also had a gas mask, a helmet and other tactical gear when he traveled to Washington with other Proud Boys members from the Kansas City, Kansas, area. On Jan. 6, he marched to the Capitol grounds with dozens of other Proud Boys leaders, members and associates.
Chrestman and other Proud Boys moved past a toppled metal barricade and joined other rioters in front of another police barrier. He shouted a threat at officers and yelled at others in the crowd to stop police from arresting another rioter, according to prosecutors.
Facing the crowd, Chrestman shouted, ‘Whose house is this?’
‘Our house!’ the crowd replied.
‘Do you want your house back?’ Chrestman asked.
‘Yes!’ the crowd responded.
‘Take it!’ Chrestman yelled.
Chrestman also pointed his finger at a line of Capitol police officers, gestured at them with his axe handle and threatened to assault them if they fired ‘pepper ball’ rounds at the crowd of rioters, according to a court filing accompanying his guilty plea.
More than 1,200 people have been charged with Capitol riot-related federal crimes. About 900 of them have pleaded guilty or been convicted after trials decided by a jury or judge. Over 750 of them have been sentenced, with nearly 500 receiving some term of imprisonment, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
Dozens of Proud Boys leaders, members and associates have been arrested on Jan. 6 charges. The group’s former national chairman, Enrique Tarrio, was sentenced to 22 years in prison — the longest for a Capitol riot case so far. A jury convicted Tarrio and three lieutenants of seditious conspiracy charges for a failed plot to keep Donald Trump in power after the Republican lost the 2020 election.
