Please join me tomorrow morning, 9 am, at Supreme Court, 18 Richmond Terrace; we need a lot of people to show support for David Jones, David Thomas and Rachel Goodman. They have been indicted by a Special Prosecutor as a result of their work on the Debi Rose campaign in 2009.
David Jones is charged with grand larceny and stolen-property possession as a result of being compensated $5,000 for his work in the Primary campaign (the Special Prosecutor claims this is a crime since he can't find a contract). Everyone who was part of that campaign knows how hard David worked. It is nothing short of outrageous that David is being charged with a crime for being paid to work on a campaign.
All three are being tried over expenditures and filings that are routinely corrected or penalized through audits by the Campaign Finance Board (CFB). A Special Prosecutor was assigned because District Attorney Dan Donovan recused himself -- but we don't know why, as he sealed his reasons and won't divulge them (and now he wants to be our Congressman). The CFB can not pursue their audit as long as the case is being investigated.
The New York Times published several articles exposing the bizarre nature of this case.
The Special Prosecutor, Adler, was rebuked by a judge in another election law case for abuse of the grand jury process, i.e., for bringing in slanted witnesses and permitting hearsay only when it hurt the defendant. Meanwhile, we know how strict the CFB is: they denied funding to John Liu in his campaign for Mayor, and questioned funding for our Borough President candidate because the word 'discount' appeared on a bill.
A lawsuit covering some campaign expenditures was settled over five years ago at one-tenth of what the plaintiffs (known associates of Guy Molinari) requested. US Attorney Preet Bharara declined to investigate this matter -- the same investigator who just brought down Sheldon Silver. A previous CFB Chairman, Fritz Schwarz, wrote, "To launch a criminal investigation of the ordinary campaign activities of one city council race when there is an agency that is fully suited to the job is not only unnecessary but a seriously bad precedent."
https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/let-campaign-finance-board-do-its-job
Please join me tomorrow morning in a show of support for these three hard-working activists.
Tom Shcherbenko [pictured above]