North Country Gazette



Wiese Attorney Says Cuomo Abusing Powers

Posted on Wednesday, 3 of December , 2008 at 7:36 pm

By June Maxam

 

Embattled Daniel Wiese has an engagement on Thursday.

 

The Attorney General’s office has made him an offer they say he can’t refuse.

 

It’s called a subpoena, demanding his appearance before the special prosecutor and advisors who have been hired by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as a result of Gov. David Paterson’s directive issued on March 31 to determine if there has been political interference with the New York State Police.

 

Michael F. Armstrong and Robert B. Fiske Jr.,  the special advisors appointed by Cuomo to oversee the investigation, have threatened if Wiese doesn’t answer the questions posed to him, that they will hold him in contempt.

 

Wiese, a retired colonel in the New York State Police, former head of the Executive Security Detail for former Gov. George Pataki and ousted inspector general of the New York Power Authority, has been at the heart of the investigation which is being headed by special prosecutor Sharon McCarthy and is now in its ninth month.

 

“The AG’s office, under the guise of conducting a legitimate and authorized investigation, has gone far afield without any regard for the injustices caused thereby”. Wiese’s attorney told the Attorney General’s office.  “In fact, the investigation which you are overseeing, I respectfully suggest, has taken on tones worthy of Joe McCarthy or Maurice Nadjari”.

 

Wiese has already been interviewed by the Attorney General’s office, most recently in June.  After receiving yet another “office” subpoena commanding his appearance Nov. 18 before special advisors Armstrong and Fiske, Wiese’s attorney, Kevin J. Kitson of White Plains, penned a letter to the duo, sent “in the genuine belief that the investigation originally commenced some time in April 0f 2008 has drifted far astray of its purpose”.

 

“The original direction given to the New York Attorney General by Gov. Paterson has been ignored and the accompanying power abused”, Kitson told Armstrong and Fiske. “What started out as an inquiry into the existence of a rogue unit of the State Police has now, some eight months later, become aimless harassment of Mr. Wiese and others, driven not by facts, but by the need to find some justification for the investigation, and I suggest, political motives.  After these many months, I do not know what is being investigated”.

 

“I do not believe that either of your gentlemen would condone a politically motivated investigation and I asked that you intervene now to stop the continued destruction of Daniel Wiese”.

 

Kitson said when he was a “much younger attorney, I read ‘the capacity for evil of an individual, no matter how mean-spirited, is small, but that of the government, no matter how well intentioned, is almost limitless.  Mr. Wiese’s life has been irreparably  and unjustifiably damaged.  I ask for you to independently review this matter and bring it to and end”.

 

“Since his dismissal from the NYPA, and despite the finding of no wrongdoing on his part, my client has been unable to obtain employment and has been vilified in the press”, Wiese’s attorney said.  “He was even denied any severance consideration given in the normal course to executives leaving the NYPA”.

 

Kitson said that after receiving the second office subpoena to appear on Nov. 19 for an additional round of questioning, he inquired of Ms. McCarthy as to the areas that she wished to question Wiese.  Kitson said he “was informed, among other things, that she wanted to inquire about a 1997 U.S. Attorneys’ Eastern District investigation that was closed concerning Gov. Pataki’s granting of paroles”.

 

He said that he was also informed by McCarthy that she wanted to inquire about another case which was approximately 11 years old which involved a complainant named Patrick Doherty and a New York City Police investigation also closed many years. “Other lines of inquiry equally removed from the Governor’s directed area of investigation were also raised”, Kitson said.

 

Kitson told Armstrong and Fiske that he had already confirmed with Ms. McCarthy that after speaking with his client that he would in fact exercise his Fifth Amendment right and refuse to answer any of her questions.  He said that in addition to Wiese’s previous testimony in June, should he receive a Grand Jury subpoena that he would again answer any and all questions put to him but would not answer any questions contemplated by the “second office subpoena”.  Kitson also requested that she withdraw the subpoena in the interest of fairness. 

 

But instead of withdrawing the subpoena, in a stinging response written Nov. 25, Armstrong and Fiske advised Kitson that the “second office subpoena” for questioning of Wiese had been reissued for Dec. 4.

 

They said among the topics that would be covered were Wiese’s “knowledge of the following”.

 

  1. Any situation in which the New York State Police, at the insistence of any political figure, gathered or collected or disseminated negative information concerning any other political figure, including information reflecting traffic violations and/or State Police responses to individuals’ homes.

 

  1. Any political involvement in the State Police’s decisions regarding the operations of the Executive Services Detail.

 

  1. The use of the State Police by political figures to monitor and/or interfere with investigations being conducted by other law enforcement agencies.

 

  1. Politically influenced appointments to and promotions within the State Police.

 

“These areas of inquiry fall squarely within the Governor’s directive that the AG determine whether there has been political interference with the State Police”. Armstrong and Fiske wrote in the letter that Kitson provided to The North Country Gazette.

 

The first 10 years of Kitson’s legal experience were as an assistant district attorney, first in Bronx County and thereafter as a senior trial attorney in the Westchester County district attorney’s office.  Kitson told Armstrong and Fiske he served under district attorneys Mario Merola and Carl Vegari, both of whom “made it clear that as prosecutors, we above all others, had the burden of being fair and professional in the exercise of the significant power with which we were entrusted”.

 

“As a result of the executives of the New York Power Authority being concerned about adverse publicity, Dan Wiese has found himself dismissed without cause from his position as Inspector General of the New York Power Authority and he is unable to secure employment as a result of the continuation of this investigation and the accompanying false publicity. Each of you gentlemen has a reputation of being fair and professional.  I believe that if you knew the irregularities and abuses that have taken place within the investigation, for which you are acting as special advisors, you would put an end to it now”, Kitson said in his Nov. 17 letter.

 

“I accompanied Mr. Wiese to the AG’s office on June 18 in response to an office subpoena for his appearance.  At various times during the course of Mr. Wiese’s questioning, I was told that I was not allowed to make a statement and my client was threatened with contempt if he did not answer the questions posed to him.  At that time, Wiese cooperated in answering the questions posed to him and previously had provided documents requested by subpoena.  I have been dealing in this regard with Sharon McCarthy and I would welcome your examination of the transcript of Mr. Wiese’s previous testimony to get a sense of what has gone on here”, Kitson wrote.

 

“I firmly believe that at this point, the AG’s office is convinced that no evidence of any criminal conduct exists and that no rogue unit of the State Police been discovered.  Do either of you know what we are now investigating?  Why, if there is a basis to believe there have been violations of the law, has no Grand Jury been convened?” Kitson asked.

 

Wiese, 55, who had been NYPA inspector general since he retired from the State Police in 2003, was fired from his $181,000 a year position on May 22 by former NYPA president Roger B. Kelley.

 

Wiese says the reputed “rogue element” as asserted by Paterson, former Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and others simply doesn’t exist in the State Police.  He says he’s the target of a smear campaign and is willing to take a lie detector test to prove that there isn’t and never was any impure and unholy political agenda within the State Police. http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/06/21/paterson_paranoi/

 

Wiese had been indefinitely suspended from his post at the NYPA on April 1 after a report was issued March 28 by Albany County District Attorney David Soares about the Troopergate scandal involving the alleged improper use of state aircraft by Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).

 

On May 19, Wiese sent a letter to the Kelley and the NYPA trustees telling them that he wanted to be reinstated to his position from which he had been suspended on April 1 because he had done nothing wrong. He volunteered to submit to a polygraph, or “any number of polygraph examinations, by examiners not of my choosing, on any of the issues…or on any other issues which the (NYPA) board may deem relevant or appropriate”.

 

Instead of taking Wiese up on his offer, then NYPA president Roger Kelley and the NYPA board of trustees fired him.

 

So far, the Attorney General’s office hasn’t taken Wiese up on his offer to submit to a polygraph, they just keep issuing subpoenas and continue on what many have deemed a “political witch hunt”.

 

“In his law enforcement career, Wiese has been credited with the breakup of the Gambino crime family and their control of the garment industry in New York City when he was assigned to the New York District Attorney’s office.  At that time, Robert Morgenthau described Wiese as being the finest investigator who ever worked for me”.  He now finds his reputation destroyed”, Kitson said.

 

In their Nov. 25 response, Armstrong and Fiske said they disagreed with Kitson’s conclusion that the investigation had strayed from its purpose.  They said they were confident “that the investigation has been and continues to be conducted in a proper and professional manner”.

 

“As you are aware by letter dated March 31, Paterson directed the Attorney General to conduct an investigation pursuant to Executive Law Sections 63(3) and 63(8) into whether there has been political interference with the NYSP”, the prosecutors wrote.  “The Governor’s mandate is broad and does not in any way limit the investigation in time.  Nor is the investigation limited to determining whether there is a ‘rogue unit of the State Police’.  Indeed that language appears nowhere in the Governor’s letter”.

 

The prosecutors said that Wiese has been issued subpoenas pursuant to Executive Law 63(8) which authorizes the AG to “inquire into matters concerning the public peace, public safety and public justice”. 

 

“Nothing in the Governor’s letter requires the Attorney General to initiate a grand jury investigation, your suggestion to the contrary is inaccurate”, the advisors told Kitson.  “You complain that during his interview on June 18 Mr. Wiese ‘was threatened with contempt if he did not answer the questions posed to him’.  The full context of the colloquy makes it clear that Mr. Wiese was advised that he had a Constitutional right not to answer any questions that might incriminate him but that, in the absence of a privilege, he was required to answer the questions put to him. 

 

“Indeed, Section 63(8) specifically provides that ‘if a person in attendance upon such inquiry shall, without reasonable cause, refuse to be sworn or to be examined, to answer a question or to produce a book or paper, when ordered so to do by the officer conducting such inquiry, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor’”.

 

The AG’s advisors say that Wiese was properly warned of that statutory provision.  “You also complain that you were told that you were not allowed to make a statement during the June 18 interview.  In fact, you did make a statement of the record during the interview.  Neither Section 63(8) nor Civil Rights Law Section 73, which applies to Section 63 proceedings affords an attorney the right to make a statement on the record”, they told Kitson.  “Civil Rights Law Section 73(5) does provide that “a witness who testifies at any hearing shall have the right at the conclusion of his examination to file a brief sworn statement relevant to his testimony for incorporation into the record of the investigatory proceeding. Had you requested that Mr. Wiese be permitted to file a statement for inclusion in the record, your request would have been honored”, they claim.

 

“You state in your letter that during the interview on June 18 ‘Mr. Wiese cooperated in answering the questions posed to him, and previously had provided documents required by subpoena’, they continued.  However, they claim that Wiese initially refused to comply with a subpoena served on him on April 2 forcing the AG’s office to obtain a court order directing his compliance”.

 

Wiese and Kitson had unsuccessfully tried to quash the April subpoena but was ordered on May 19 by Justice Carol Edmead to turn over the documents sought, ordering that he surrender communications between himself and the State Police, other public officials or employees and the press.  He was also ordered to produce any documents such as diaries, journals, datebooks and calendars which indicate meetings with members of the State Police.

 

But knowledgeable sources say that the Attorney General’s office continues to demand from Wiese the production of documents which do not exist.  They say that the judge seems to be having difficulty grasping the rather basic concept that a litigant cannot produce that which he does not possess.

 

In regard to Wiese’s involvement in the 1997 federal investigation about the alleged sale of paroles by officials in the Pataki administration, one reliable source has told NCG that Wiese’s claimed assertion of his Fifth Amendment rights when questioned by a federal grand jury in the matter was illegally leaked to the media by the assistant U.S. attorney on the case who was frustrated over her failure to indict her targets and an alleged attempt to smear Pataki for political reasons.  Several parole officials were convicted of criminal charges in the case but no charges were brought against Wiese or Pataki.

 

According to the source, the prosecutor’s boyfriend was a state trooper fired by Wiese and when she failed in her efforts to indict Wiese and destroy his career, the Fifth Amendment story was allegedly planted.

 

Reliable sources have told The North Country Gazette that Wiese has been questioned repeatedly about the decade-old case and, according to McCarthy, herself a former federal prosecutor, the AG’s office intends to question Wiese about the old case yet again on Thursday.

http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2008/11/23/patersons_folly/   12-03-08

 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This article may not be reprinted or reproduced  in its entirety in any medium without the express written permission of The North County Gazette.

The North Country Gazette, like everyone else, is being impacted by the economy and is in need of funds to continue operations. NCG undertakes reports and commentaries into cases and issues that the main stream media will not due to politics or fear of losing advertisers, fear of retaliation, etc. NCG is hampered in what it can do due to a lack of finances. There is free access to virtually all of the material offered at www.northcountrygazette.org

Anyone who wishes to support the efforts of NCG may do so by using the PayPal button on the home page or by patronizing our affiliate advertisers, many of whom are offering terrific holiday bargains, or by subscribing to the NCG Daily Digest. If you do not wish to use the PayPal option, please contact us at news@northcountrygazette.org for a mailing address.

Category: Constitution, Courts, Crime, Government, New York State, Police, Politics

COPYRIGHT 2009 - NORTH COUNTRY GAZETTE All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the express written permission of the publisher.