“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

He’d killed thoughtlessly; he’d denied responsibility coldly. Only when the cuffs went on at sentencing did reckless thug David McKie — the petty-theft getaway driver who’d fatally mowed down a brilliant film editor on the Upper West Side — reveal something like a soul.

“I’m sorry,” McKie mouthed again and again yesterday, breaking into gasping sobs and turning toward the audience of a Manhattan courtroom where the friends of editor Karen Schmeer sat watching, themselves in tears.

McKie will serve five to 15 years for Schmeer’s January 2010 manslaughter. He’d struck Schmeer after blowing through four red lights on Broadway while trying to outrace cops after shoplifting a stash of cold medicines from a CVS at 86th and Amsterdam with a pair of buddies.

Schmeer was just 39 years old and at the height of her award-spangled career, having served as editor for such lauded documentaries as “Fast, Cheap & Out of Control,” and the Oscar winner “The Fog of War.”

A beautiful woman described as witty and warm by friends, she was carrying a bag of groceries across Broadway at 90th Street, just a block from her home, when McKie struck her. She was tossed into the air, bouncing off McKie’s car and a parked car before hitting the pavement.

“Her injuries were so extensive that no single cause of death could be determined,” lead prosecutor Peter Casolaro wrote in court papers.

“He looked me in the eye,” one of Schmeer’s friends, filmmaker Nina Davenport, said of McKie yesterday, after the emotional sentencing, sounding surprised.

Others among Schmeer’s friends, standing and embracing in a courthouse hallway, said the same thing — their dear friend’s killer had made a point of looking into the eyes of each of them before he was led away, his convulsive sobs audible even after he disappeared from sight.

“I’ll never know him; I’ll never see him again,” said Davenport, 45, of Brooklyn. “But at least he showed some sign of humanity,”

“I didn’t see it,” responded Maribeth Edmonds, 53, of South Hampton, one of Schmeer’s closest friends

“I hate him,” she said, in tears. “I’m just not open to it. Not yet.”

The defense lawyer had claimed during the sentencing that McKie, who had no criminal record, was a “salvagable” young man with a “brilliant future.”

Those words had stung Edmonds.

“He has a brilliant future?” Edmonds said, her voice choked by tears. “Karen had a brilliant future. We had a brilliant future together. We were going to grow old together.”

McKie was initially charged with murder under the legal theory that he had displayed a depraved indifference to human life. But a recent, precedent-setting state Court of Appeals reversal in a very similar Rochester case made it unlikely that a murder conviction against McKie could ever be sustained.

He was allowed to plead guilty in July, to manslaughter — leaving Schmeer’s friends grappling to understand how McKie’s actions could ever be construed as less than depraved, and as less than murder.

Schmeer’s work lives on, her friends noted. Her final film, Bobby Fisher Against the World, was lauded at Sundance. A fellowship for emerging young editors has been created in her name — the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship, the details of which are at KarenSchmeer.com.

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

laura.italiano@nypost.com

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A Columbia University student who was the main target of an undercover investigation of a ring that sold drugs from the campus will be sentenced to six months in jail after pleading guilty Tuesday to selling cocaine.

The student, Harrison David, is expected to begin serving his time on Rikers Island on Aug. 30, when he is formally sentenced.

Charges are pending against four other students — Christopher Coles, Adam Klein, Jose Perez and Michael Wymbs — who were arrested with Mr. David last December; their lawyers filed motions Tuesday as part of their requests for a drug-treatment resolution that could lead to their clients’ cases being dismissed.

Mr. David, 20, was charged with the most serious crimes of the five students, who were arrested under what the authorities called Operation Ivy League.

Mr. David will most likely be expelled from Columbia as a result of the guilty plea, and his felony conviction may compromise his efforts to get into a new university, said his lawyer, Matthew D. Myers.

“He has huge regrets about it,” Mr. Myers said. “I think he is taking responsibility for it. He is not being combative. He’s not disgruntled about the results.”

After he is released from jail, Mr. David will have to serve five years’ probation.

Mr. David left the courthouse without speaking. A spokesman for Columbia declined to comment.

The city’s Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor, which is handling the case, initially offered Mr. David a deal of one year in prison and two years’ probation. But William Novak, an assistant district attorney, said in court that the office believed the new arrangement served the interest of justice because it meant that Mr. David would have to be under supervision for a longer period of time after his release from jail.

The top charge against Mr. David, second-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, carried a mandatory minimum sentence of three years’ incarceration and a maximum of 10 years. Instead, he pleaded guilty to third-degree sale of a controlled substance, which does not have a mandatory minimum.

Mr. David, dressed in a dark pinstriped suit, admitted in court that he had sold cocaine last August to an undercover officer. The sale took place at Mr. David’s apartment, according to prosecutors.

Mr. Myers, Mr. David’s lawyer, said he thought the plea “was a fair resolution.”

It would have been too harsh to send Mr. David to a state prison, Mr. Myers said. Mr. David had never been incarcerated before, Mr. Myers said, adding that he was respectful and “has a very bright future.”

“You’re talking about a brilliant kid,” Mr. Myers said.

Mr. Myers said Mr. David, who studied engineering at Columbia, would apply for a certificate of relief from the judge, which would loosen some of the restrictions on him as a convicted felon, like on his right to vote.

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

A version of this article appeared in print on July 20, 2011, on page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: Columbia Student Admits Selling Cocaine on Campus.

The 20-year-old who’d faced the most serious drug sale charges in last year’s roundup of five Columbia University students is heading to Rikers for just 3 1/2 months under a deal struck in a Manhattan courtroom today.

Harrison David, son of a Boston-area plastic surgeon, had been a third year engineering student when he and four buddies were busted on charges they sold felony-weight quantities of coke, pot and pills out of their frats and apartments.

David — charged with selling just under an ounce of cocaine to an undercover on one occasion, and four grams in a second sale, for a total of just over $1,300 — pleaded guilty in Manhattan Supreme Court to criminal sale of cocaine.

He’ll turn himself in on August 30, and will be sentenced to six months jail and five years probation under a deal struck with the citywide Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

With good behavior and factoring in the two weeks jail he’s already served, he should be released after 3 and 1/2 months, said his lawyer, Matthew Myers.

Prosecutors has last month demanded David serve a full year of state prison and two years probation.

“While it will be less incarceratory time, an addition of three years of monitoring (via probation) will be in the interest of justice,” said lead prosecutor William Novak.

David has been suspended from Columbia since his arrest in December; he expects to be expelled now that he has entered a guilty plea, Myers said.

“It’s going to be difficult,” the lawyer said of David’s prospects in finding another school that will accept a student with a felony drug conviction. “And you’re talking about a brilliant kid.

“Hopefully, someone will take a chance on him at a smaller school,” the lawyer said.

Charges remain against the other four young men; prosecutors say they would agree to no-jail deals for them providing they still plead guilty to felony drug charges.

Reposted from: The New York Post

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

Harrison David, SEAS ’12, who was arrested last month for selling drugs, will seek a plea bargain that does not include jail time, his attorney said Tuesday.

David is one of five students who were arrested in an on-campus police raid last month and charged with selling cocaine, marijuana, MDMA, Adderall, and LSD, according to the New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office. David is the only one accused of selling cocaine.

David’s attorney, Matthew Myers, said a jail cell would be wasted on his client. While emphasizing that the allegations against David have not yet been proven, he said that David now understands that he cannot return to dealing.

“If the prosecutors feel as though some sort of period of jail would be appropriate—I just don’t see what purpose that would serve,” Myers said. “I think Harrison David has learned his lesson more than the average person.”

Myers said David has been suspended but not expelled from Columbia, and that he is taking the situation “very seriously.” He added that David is making plans to apply to other schools, as it is likely Columbia will expel him if he is convicted.

“I don’t want to put words in his mouth. It’s certainly a huge disappointment in light of the fact that he was able to gain acceptance into one of the best schools in the country, and now it’s in jeopardy,” Myers said.

Columbia will not comment on Harrison’s status at the University in accordance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which restricts educational institutions from releasing information about students.

Myers said that David is currently living in Florida with a former captain in the New York State Department of Correctional Services who is a family friend. Myers said this is meant to give David a disciplined environment to help him “get back on the right track.”

David said in an email to Spectator that he has been in touch with friends from home and school while in Florida.

“I’m happy here, just trying to move forward with my life, make some money and I’m probably looking to transfer schools,” David said in the email.

Myers noted that David’s father did not pay his son’s bail until two weeks after his arrest in an attempt to teach him a “hard-love lesson.”

“His father, along with counsel, thought that it may serve to deter future conduct, and that the situation was not to be treated lightly,” Myers said. “But of course the Department of Corrections is no place for a kid like Harrison David, so at some point we did the safe thing and bailed him out.”

Myers would not estimate the likelihood of David receiving a plea bargain that does not involve jail time. He said that the media attention surrounding the case—which the Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office dubbed “Operation Ivy League”—puts more pressure on prosecutors to seek jail time.

“They tend to let public perception get into their wheelhouse,” Myers said. “The bargains always involve higher jail sentences when you have the press lurking around in courtrooms.”

David has been charged with a Class A2 felony for selling cocaine, a crime that generally calls for a sentence of three to eight years, Myers said. The other defendants—Coles, Adam Klein, CC ’12, Jose Stephan Perez, CC ’12, and Michael Wymbs, SEAS ’11—have been charged with less serious offenses.

The five students are next due in court on March 1.

Stuart Ross, the down-on-his heels septaugenarian who brought the Surfs to the U.S. in the ’80s, was sentenced to at least two years probation today for a bizarre, $11 million extortion scheme against his son-in-law, London private equity giant David Blitzer.

Ross had pleaded guilty in August to demanding $5.5 million from Blitzer in return for having no more contact with Blitzer’s wife, who is Ross’s daughter, and another $5.5 million from Blitzer for having no more contact with Blitzer or his firm, the Blackstone Group.

Ross has tried repeatedly since then to withdraw that plea and re-assert his innocence, claiming he only admitted guilt so he could be sprung from Rikers, where he was undergoing what he termed as inadequate treatment for double pneumonia.

Ross left the courtroom today vowing to appeal Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Bonnie Wittner’s decision not to let Ross take back his plea.

“The only alternative I had was to sign the plea and I could leave immediately,” Ross said, insisting he never intentionally extorted anyone back in 2008. Ross’s lawyer, Matthew Myers, today called the threats, “alcoholic ramblings.”

Ross will undergo alcohol counseling as part of his sentence, and can’t contact the Blitzers, or his grandchildren, for at least eight years.

Until his indictment two years ago, Ross’s claim to fame was owning the North American rights to the bouncy blue Belgian cartoon creatures. The former investment made him millions — now lost, his lawyer says. He had been unable to post $200,000 bail before being sprung today.
Ross, originally of Aventura, Fla., suffers lymphonic leukemia and heart problems, said his lawyer. His co-defendant, lawyer Stuart Jackson, was acquitted this month of charges he helped in the scheme.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/

Friday, March 19th 2010, 4:00 AM

A Bronx man is suing the city for $1.5 million because he missed his father’s funeral when he was arrested for soliciting sex – a charge that was later dropped.

Clifton Quarles Jr., fought the criminal charges for one year, refusing to accept a conditional discharge and demanding a trial.

Prosecutors dismissed the case after the cops who busted Quarles, 51, never showed up for court appearances – but that was too late to honor his father.

“It’s very upsetting,” he said in a statement released by his lawyer. “My father was my best friend and I missed his funeral. I will have to live with that for a lifetime.”

A security guard at a homeless shelter, Quarles was arrested Jan. 7, 2009, around 9:45 p.m. near his mother’s home in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

He had just spent the day making funeral arrangements for his father, who died of cancer.

He was walking on Putnam Ave. near Broadway carrying a suit for the funeral when he was approached by a woman wearing a black mini-skirt, he said.

The suit claims the woman offered him oral sex for $10 and he laughed and walked away.

The woman, who turned out to be an undercover cop, called for him to stop – and Quarles was handcuffed by plainclothes cops.

“Mr. Quarles vehemently denied any negotiation or agreement with the undercover regarding sexual favors,” his lawyer Christopher Galiardo said.

The cops refused to issue a desk appearance ticket or a summons – even after Quarles explained that his father’s funeral was the next day, Galiardo said.

He spent more than 24 hours in custody, released only in time for the burial.

After prosecutors got the case, Quarles refused to cut a deal because he wanted to clear the name he shared with his late father and mend ways with relatives angry over the arrest.

He made 10 court appearances before the case was dismissed in December. The suit names the city and arresting Officers Jason Ianno and Lenise Walker-Wilson. The undercover cop is not identified.

The city Law Department said it had not seen the suit.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/

Papa Smurf is broke – and behind bars.

Lawyer Stuart Ross made millions introducing the bizarre blue Smurf cartoon characters to the U.S. in the 1980s. Now he stands accused in a twisted plot to extort as much as $11 million from his rich son-in-law, Blackstone Group exec David Blitzer – and unable to make his $200,000 bail.

“He’s not in a position to afford bail like that,” Ross’ lawyer Matthew Myers said outside a Manhattan courtroom yesterday.

“He made some bad investments,” Myers said.

Ross, 73, concocted a scheme that would make the evil Smurf nemesis Gargamel blush.

He threatened to smear Blitzer’s reputation – and drag his good name through the mud.

Ross even went after his own daughter, Allison Blitzer, court papers say. At one point, Ross told the then-pregnant woman he hoped her child died – and that her gravestone “should be carved with a vile obscenity.”

The attempt to bilk Blitzer fell apart two years ago as the threats escalated – and when law enforcement was called in.

Ross and his co-defendant Stuart Jackson, his former lawyer, were indicted in 2008 for grand larceny and attempted grand larceny .

“These threats escalated to a point where Ross, through his attorney, defendant Jackson, told Blitzer’s attorney, Roger Stavis, that for $5.5 million, Ross would not try to visit his daughter or grandchildren and would stop harassing Blitzer and contacting his business,” State Supreme Court Judge Bonnie Wittner wrote in legal papers.

Other court documents mentioned figures as high as $11 million coming from Jackson.

At yesterday’s bail proceeding, Ross – who is essentially homeless and on the brink of divorce – laid out a sob story about his failing health.

“I have leukemia,” he said. “Almost every month I was in the hospital.” He also announced plans to represent himself at trial when a date is set at a hearing scheduled for June 28.

“You want to represent yourself,” Wittner told him. “I know you’re a lawyer. You know the risks.”

Ross once owned the North American rights to the Smurfs, investing in the blue cartoon figures from France in 1976, before they hit it big.

The Smurfs are bound for a new round of popularity: A live action movie starring Neil Patrick Harris, Katy Perry, Hank Azariaand Alan Cumming is due out next year.

Written by Melissa Grace for the New York Daily News – mgrace@nydailynews.com

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

Written by Jason Fink with Newsday

Bernie Madoff will learn today whether he will die in prison. A few victims of the disgraced Wall Street financier, who faces a maximum 150 years in prison, will get their chance to tell Judge Denny Chin of the havoc the fraudster wreaked on their lives. Some of the thousand of other victims have already written to the court pleading for a harsh sentence. “He has condemned his investors to a life of hell.” wrote Emma DeVita of Pennsylvania, who said she invested with Madoff for 20 years and is now broke.

Hundreds are expected to descend on the lower Manhattan Federal courthouse where Madoff, 71, will be sentenced. His attorney Ira Sorkin has asked for 12 years, arguing that Madoff’s life expectancy is only another 13.

Prosecutors have asked that everything Madoff owns, including the substantial assets of his wife Ruth be surrendered. The money will be used to compensate the victims. While the last statements Madoff sent to investors in November totaled $65 billion, investors believe the true losses will run $13 billion to $21 billion. One attorney who has represented white-collar criminals said he expects Madoff to help prosecutors recover some of the money he stole – as well as provide information about any co-conspirators – in exchange for a reduction in the sentence after it’s handed down.

“He has to get some benefit or else why not just have a big circus of a trial?” said lawyer Matthew Myers.

QUEENS, NY (WABC News) — A Queens teacher is under arrest Wednesday, accused of sexually abusing a student.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says a 48-year-old teacher at a Springfield Gardens middle school, abused a 14-year-old boy in a classroom after school hours.

“The charges are very disturbing,” Brown said. “A classroom should always be a safe place for a child. If true, this teacher destroyed his student’s trust.”

The teacher, of the Hollis section of Queens, was employed as a teacher at Intermediate School. He was suspended during the pendency of the criminal case.

MSG Result: On June 23, 2009, after a two week trial, the teacher was acquitted of all criminal charges.

Attorney for the defense: Matthew D. Myers

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 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.

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.

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

The Defendant is being represented my Matthew D. Myers.