DISTRICT ATTORNEY
QUEENS COUNTY
125-01 QUEENS BOULEVARD
KEW GARDENS, NEW YORK 11415-1568
718-286-6000

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced today that a former mortgage company employee whose civil lawsuit against the New York City Transit Authority was placed on hold earlier this year after the judge declared a mistrial and referred the matter to the District Attorney’s office for possible prosecution for fraud has, in fact, been charged with submitting false claims to the Transit Authority for which he received more than $16,000 in lost wages following a bus accident. In addition, while being processed prior to his arraignment, it was revealed that the defendant is wanted on a Pennsylvania warrant for an alleged 2004 rape.

District Attorney Brown said, “The defendant is accused of filing a false claim with the New York City Transit Authority for wages he said he lost after being unable to work in the aftermath of a bus accident. Claims like those allegedly filed in this case take money out of the pockets of all New Yorkers. While allegedly stealing from this agency is bad enough, it turns out that a warrant had been issued for the defendant who is wanted for the alleged rape of a minor in Pennsylvania.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Paul Hightower, 37, of 139-06 232nd Street in Laurelton, Queens. The defendant has been charged with third-degree grand larceny, third-degree insurance fraud, first-degree perjury and first-degree falsifying business records. He was arraigned last night before Queens Criminal Court Judge Suzanne Melendez and ordered held without bail because of his fugitive status. He refused to waive extradition to Pennsylvania. If convicted in the Queens case he faces up to four years in prison. His next court date is March 24, 2009.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, the defendant claimed to have been injured in a bus accident on September 11, 2006, at the intersection of Baisley Avenue and Bedell Boulevard. As a result of the alleged accident, he filed a no-fault insurance claim for lost wages with the New York City Transit Authority. The defendant later testified under oath about the lost wage claim in connection with a lawsuit he filed against the NYCTA. The defendant testified that his earnings were approximately $5,000 a month, and that he had earned $4,000 during the month of July 2006 and $5,000 during the month of August 2006, according to a transcript of the proceeding, while working at Discount Home Mortgage, which is located at One Cross Island Plaza, Rosedale, Queens.

Furthermore, the District Attorney said, a New York motor vehicle no-fault insurance employer’s wage verification request allegedly submitted to the NYCTA by the defendant in support of his lost wage claim indicated that the defendant earned $3,000 a month at Discount Home Mortgage. Investigators from the District Attorney’s Detective Squad, however, spoke to the defendant’s former employer – the president of Discount Home Mortgage – and learned that he never signed the wage verification form and that the defendant did not earn $4,000 during July 2006 and $5,000 during August 2006, but in fact earned $1,100 during that period.

In addition, the District Attorney said, the defendant was fingerprinted following his arrest and as the prints were processed a warrant for the defendant issued in Pennsylvania was revealed indicating that the defendant was charged in Harrisburg, in Dauphin County, on June 14, 2005, for the alleged rape by forcible compulsion of a person under the age of 14 on December 20, 2004.

According to District Attorney Brown, the investigation of the grand larceny case began after it was referred to the District Attorney’s office for investigation by Queens Supreme Court Justice Duane Hart, who was overseeing the civil lawsuit brought by the defendant.

The investigation was conducted by Detective Joseph Brancaccio and Detective Patrick F. Dolan of the District Attorney’s Detective Bureau under the supervision of Sergeant Evelyn Alegre and Lieutenant Robert J. Burke, and the overall supervision of Chief Lawrence J. Festa and Deputy Chief Albert D. Velardi.

Assistant District Attorney Mary M. Lowenburg, chief of the District Attorney’s Auto Crime and Insurance Fraud Unit, of the Organized Crime and Rackets Bureau, is prosecuting the case under the supervision of Gerard A. Brave, Bureau Chief, and Marc P. Resnick, Deputy Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Peter A. Crusco, Executive Assistant District Attorney of the Investigations Division, and Linda M. Cantoni, Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney.

It should be noted that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Pro Boxer Edgar Santana Busted As Part Of Alleged Major Cocaine Ring

By Teri Thompson, Michael O’Keeffe And Nathaniel Vinton
Daily News Sports Writers

Updated Friday, July 18th 2008, 4:58 PM
(Originally published on July 18 at 10:12 a.m.)

Edgar Santana, the junior welterweight boxer often billed as “The Pride of Spanish Harlem,” was arrested Friday as part of an alleged international cocaine distribution ring busted by the New York Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor and the New York Office of the DEA.

Santana, 29, was picked up at his home at the George Washington Carver Houses on 102nd St. in Spanish Harlem in the early morning hours Friday. Friends and acquaintances were stunned.

“Everybody has been blindsided by this whole thing because it’s just not something that you would think Edgar could be involved in,” said Ernesto Dallas, Santana’s manager for the last six years.

Santana and seven other alleged co-conspirators were led out of a DEA office building in lower Manhattan Friday just after noon and taken to New York State Supreme Court. They are expected to be arraigned on Monday on second-degree criminal conspiracy and first-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance.

His arms handcuffed behind him, a grim Santana, who is scheduled to fight in an ESPN-televised match on Aug. 6, said nothing as DEA agents led him to a waiting car. On his black T-shirt was the following slogan in yellow letters: “The pressure of survival in the big city will make you lose sight of your dream…hang in there – de la Vega.”

James de la Vega, the Spanish Harlem artist who designed the T-shirt, was shocked by the news. “He’s a huge symbol of pride in Spanish Harlem,” de la Vega told the Daily News. “I’ve walked down the streets with him in the neighborhood and people love him everywhere. … He’s a friend of mine. We have a lot of love and respect for him here.”

The investigation, known as “Operation Special Delivery,” was the result of a cooperative effort by the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, in conjunction with the DEA and the the New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, which is composed of agents from the NYPD, the IRS, the Homeland Security and the FBI, among other agencies.

Agents arrested 12 individuals and recovered $450,000 and at least a kilogram of cocaine in the one-year investigation into a plot to mail cocaine from Santana’s native Puerto Rico to addresses in Manhattan and the Bronx, according to the DEA.

Santana, according to investigators, brokered a deal on behalf of ringleader Angel Colon, and is accused of selling a kilogram of cocaine. Because the case originated with the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s office, it will be prosecuted in New York state court.

“This organization abused the U.S. Postal Service and used packages to smuggle illicit goods into our country,” said New York DEA special agent in charge, John P. Gilbride. “This shows the lengths drug distribution organizations will go to achieve their goal, but they will not be successful, and will face the consequences of their actions as today’s arrests demonstrate.”

A headline attraction in promoter Lou DiBella’s Broadway Boxing Series, Santana was out of boxing briefly, working as a barber in Spanish Harlem, before making a comeback.

Santana, whose record is 24-3 with 15 knockouts, last fought in April, when he won a 10-round decision over Josesito Lopez in Miami on April 11.

Contacted by the Daily News Friday, DiBella was shocked that Santana had been arrested.

“This is completely out of character for him. He was close to everybody in our office,” the promoter said. “My staff is sick about this. He was just talking about opening a barbershop. I’m hoping this is a mistake. But obviously if he’s done something against the law, he’s going to have to pay,” DiBella said.

Santana began his career in a gym in Spanish Harlem and then moved to the reknowned Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn, where he worked with Hector Rocca, who helped train Hilary Swank in Clint Eastwood’s Academy Award-winning drama “Million Dollar Baby.”

Dallas, Santana’s current trainer, was with Santana the night before the arrest and said there was nothing in the young boxer’s demeanor to suggest trouble on the horizon.

“In our conversations there were only two things on his mind lately and that was continuing to move up in boxing and getting his barbershop started,” Dallas said. “We were looking at the lease for a place for the barbershop and working out the final plans for the place. He was getting that off the ground. I was with him until 8:30 last night and there was nothing in his demeanor that would indicate anything like this was happening.”

In a 2005 interview for the boxing Web site Doghouse Boxing, Santana talked about what a blessing it was to find boxing as a youngster growing up in dangerous circumstances.

“When I started boxing, I went with seven of my friends to Mickey Rosario’s gym in Spanish Harlem,” Santana recalled. “I remember he told us, out of all seven of us, only one or two of us were going to make it. He said the rest would go into a life of drugs or end up getting killed.

“Looking back, I’m the only one left. Everyone else is either in jail or is getting killed.”

Source: New York Daily News

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

Two Arrested In Drugs And Guns Scheme

By Christopher Flaherty
Special to The Sun – March 22, 2007

City Law Enforcement Officials arrested two men charged with running a criminal network that used drug profits to purchase and sell guns on the streets on New York.

In the scheme, three suspects, Peguy Desir, 27, Joshua Pierre, 30, and a man yet to be apprehended who is knows as “Big Man” purchased drugs in the city and sold them for large profits in the South, the officials said. They would then purchase guns in Southern states and resell them for higher prices in New York, the Manhattan District Attorney, Robert Morganthau, said at a press conference yesterday.

Some of the guns were bought at pawnshops in Virginia, the police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, said.

Mr. Morgenthau said the suspects were arrested on Tuesday evening at 182 South St. after a sting operation conducted by a joint task force from the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the police department’s Firearm Investigation Unit.

During the investigation, which commenced in January 2006, officials confiscated 83 guns and large quantities of crack, heroin, and marijuana, Mr. Morgenthau said.

Using cell phones, the suspects would send the undercover officials digital pictures of the weapons. Many of the investigators said that it was the first time they had seen illegal gun vendors use digital photography.

“It was part of merchandising the weapons — a new high-tech phase of weapon sales,” the chief assistant district attorney for Manhattan, James Kindler, said.

The suspects sold the guns to the undercover operatives for about $840 each, the chief of the police department’s Organized Crime Control Bureau, Anthony Izzo, said. Illegal gun vendors resell out-of-state guns in the city for about two times the purchase price, Mr. Kelly said.

Elected officials in many of the Southern states find it difficult to restrict gun sales, Mr. Kelly said, because of pressure from the National Rifle Association.

It is believed that the guns confiscated by undercover officers represent only a fraction of the weapons sold by the suspects on the city’s streets, he said.

Source: The New York Sun – March 22,2007

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers