Judge Judy’s Son vs Chief Judge of New York State
Complaint Against DiFiore, Filed by Former Putnam DA Levy, Could Result in Her Disbarment
By Dan Murphy
Former Putnam County District Attorney Adam Levy has filed a grievance complaint against NYS Chief Judge and former Westchester County DA Janet DiFiore. Levy, the son of “Judge Judy”, filed the complaint with the Appellate Division of the NYS Supreme Court, 2nd Department, seeking DiFiore’s disbarment.
“I submit this grievance against Janet DiFiore arising from her failure to recuse herself as District Attorney from the prosecution of Westchester Defense Attorney George Galgano, and her failure to report his unethical conduct. “
“I further report her willful obstruction, also when she served as District Attorney of Westchester County, of the Putnam County District Attorney’s Office’s investigation and prosecution of Galgano, her office’s investigation and prosecution of Galgano, and this Committee’s investigation into Galgano.
Last month, Yonkerstimes.com reported about Galgano, and the fact that while accused in a Westchester Courtroom of tampering with a witness, and after State Police found Cocaine in his White Plains law office while completing a search warrant order, he remains an active criminal defense attorney in Westchester, and was never convicted of any crime.
How did Galgano skate free? One possibility is that Galgano served as the Finance Chair of DiFiore’s finance campaign for re-election as District Attorney.
Levy seeks to have DiFiore disbarred, “Based on this overwhelming evidence that Janet DiFiore violated NY Rules 3.3, 4.1, 8.3 and 8.4 and obstructed both the Westchester and Putnam criminal investigations and prosecutions of Galgano.”
Levy’s complaint reviews all the unethical conduct that Galgano has been accused of and caught on a wiretap discussing. Galgano’s text messages, which were also secured by Levy during his attempted prosecution of Galgano and his clients, and are now a part of the public record, add to a troubling portrait of both Galgano and DiFiore.
Galgano’s interaction with former DA Levy began in 2013, when Galgano defended a Putnam County restauranteur accused of raping one of his teenage employees.
Levy’s complaint includes the following:
George Galgano was retained as the defense attorney for a Putnam County restauranteur charged with the rape of a teenage waitress, and the forcible touching of another waitress in his restaurant.
In September of 2013, Galgano engaged in conduct specifically designed to embarrass, intimidate, and dissuade the teenage rape victim from testifying.
Galgano hired Andrew Kuchta, a former Detective Investigator with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office who served as the head of Janet DiFiore’s protective detail.
Using Kuchta’s Facebook account, Galgano posed as Kutcha online and sent Facebook Messenger messages to the teenage rape victim’s friends and family, making crass, embarrassing, and false allegations about her, for the purpose of humiliating and intimidating her into silence. Galgano directed Kuchta to contact all of the teenage rape victim’s friends and family, under false pretenses and in furtherance of Galgano’s efforts to silence the teenager.
Galgano even went so far as directing Kuchta to stand outside of her home, on her birthday, taking pictures of all the cars and people coming out; “if nothing else, it will give her anxiety,” Galgano texted.
Galgano also obtained the teenage rape victim’s cell phone records through a fraudulently and unlawfully issued Judicial Subpoena. Therefore, I was not surprised in April of 2014 when the mother of the forcible touching victim came forward and reported that Galgano was involved in a conspiracy in which he hired an armed robber to tamper with and bribe her daughter, claiming she was “not safe” if she testified. He later offered her money to ensure she did not show up to testify.
My office opened a Grand Jury Investigation, and by June of 2014, there was sufficient evidence to corroborate Galgano’s involvement through witness interviews, call pattern data, controlled calls, cell phone triangulation, surveillance, recorded calls, and text messages. Thus, he was formally made a target of the investigation.
On 6/6/14, my office obtained a Court Order authorizing the wiretap of Galgano’s phone.
On 7/2/14, a search warrant was executed for Galgano’s home and Westchester County Law Office. Galgano and his law associate, Eric Sharp, were found JO possession of a cache of illegal narcotics and arrested.
Law enforcement also seized Galgano’s electronic devices, including his iPhone and computers. It was not until May of 2015 that a Court Order granted my office access to the content of computers, which included backup copies of his text messages. Galgano’s text messages revealed the extent of his drug abuse. There were hundreds of texts of Galgano purchasing narcotic drugs from his clients and distributing them to people in his office.
On 6/19/14, Janet DiFiore assigned Steve Vandervelden, Chief of the Organized Crime Bureau, as lead prosecutor for the jury tampering charge. They notified the Court that Galgano had tampered with a prospective juror, who was now a seated juror, and thus Galgano had “contaminated and impugned the integrity of the proceeding with ‘juror misconduct,” and because he engaged in “gross misconduct,” and the “inherent prejudice” merited a mistrial.
Judge Zuckerman convened and ex parte conference where McCarty disclosed the nature of Putnam County’s investigation, the content of the Galgano recording, and evidence received through subpoenaed phone records, which confirmed Galgano’s “substantial misconduct” in tampering with a juror.
On June 25, 2014, unaware of the evidence presented in the exparte, Galgano filed a false letter memorandum with the Court, in which he lied to the court by denying that he had any contact with the prospective juror directly or through a third party.
Putnam First Assistant Lisa Ortolano then sought a retroactive amendment to the eavesdropping warrant, notifying the court of the jury tampering, and Galgano’s purchase of illegal narcotics from people later identified as his former clients, and on 7/2/14, Galgano was arrested for narcotics possession during the execution of the search warrant at his office.
Suspicious as to DiFiore’s decision, which was contrary to the evidence and pertinent to the instant grievance complaint, I directed an investigation to determine if there were any financial or political connections that might explain this decision.
Galgano was a large campaign donor to Janet DiFiore, and text messages revealed that while she was District Attorney of Westchester County, Galgano was the co-chair of her fundraising campaign. Beyond that, Galgano bundled the donations of his businesses and business associates, to DiFiore’s campaign.
Among the bundled donations DiFiore accepted from Galgano were those from individuals who were identified in financial crime investigations of her office.
After learning of Galgano’s campaign contributions, on 7/7/14 I sent a letter to DiFiore requesting recusal on this basis [it was later revealed, as listed above, he was in fact the co-chair of her fundraising committee], and I personally notified her of Kuchta’s misconduct as Galgano’s private investigator.
DiFiore, through Luciano, indicating that she would not recuse, misleadingly citing bad law in furtherance of this position.
Luciano also lied to Putnam Chief Assistant Chana Krauss, claiming Zuckerman did not permit an ex parte, providing our office with only the transcript of the on the record conference before Zuckerman.
Thus, through Luciano, DiFiore willfully and unlawfully obstructed justice by impeding, obstructing, hindering, and preventing my office’s investigation and prosecution, Westchester County District Attorney’s Office’ investigation and prosecution, and this Committee’s investigation into George Galgano, by withholding documents and impeding the governmental function of his prosecution, and preventing prosecutors from performing their official function to take legal action against Galgano by means of her interference.
On 1/29/15, Putnam County Chief Assistant Chana Krauss followed up with Luciano asking whether a grievance against Galgano was ever filed; Luciano refused to answer the question and stated, “we are closing the door” to information exchange between our offices, further obstructing the investigation
DiFiore’s obstruction is revealed JO her office’s internal communications which show she was involved, aware, and controlling the Galgano investigation and decisions relating to his prosecution.
Despite Luciano and DiFiore’s efforts to obstruct, hinder, and impede the investigation and sharing of information, my office continued to work in good faith to prosecute Galgano for his crimes. ADA Andres Gil even went so far as to review text messages for Westchester and highlight all messages relevant to Westchester’s narcotics case.
As DiFiore memorialized in an email, this also included a meeting between James McCarty, Ted Livingston and Putnam Executive ADA Heather M. Abissi and ADA Andres Gil.
During this meeting, Abissi shared with McCarty and Livingston her memo outlining the sufficiency of the evidence contained in the warrant applications for the warrants underlying both Putnam’s Tampering with a Witness case, and Westchester’s Narcotics case.
Additionally, there were continued efforts on the part of Putnam DA Investigator Henry Lopez, who previously obtained from the Westchester County Intelligence Center, FINCEN and ACISS Reports, that implicated Galgano in structuring and money laundering.
ADA Kennedy was, also, directly contacted by a detective in the Broward County Sheriff’s Department in Florida seeking to confirm if Galgano was a licensed attorney in NY because he was serving as a bail surety for known mobster Patsy Capolongo.
However, DiFiore’s obstruction continued as she willfully failed to act upon information in her Office’s possession, which corroborated and substantiated Galgano’s connection to money laundering and structuring.
DiFiore dismissed the charges filed by New York State Police against Galgano for the narcotics found at his office
Despite the extensive evidence DiFiore compiled, which included a wiretap intercept, phone records, call pattern data, the 6/17/l 4 jury selection transcript, 6/24/14 record and ex parte proceedings, Galgano’s 6/25/14 false letter memorandum, and proceedings from that same date, all of which supported the viability of such charges, no such charges were brought.
DiFiore made the decision not to file charges or a grievance against Galgano for Jury Tampering, Conspiracy, or Offering a False Instrument for Filing with directives filtered through and shielded by oral conversations with Livingston or others “up the ladder”.
Beyond that, neither Luciano nor DiFiore notified Putnam County District Attorney’s Office that Judge Zuckerman, the Judge presiding over their prosecution had pre-existing knowledge of their defendant Galgano that he failed to disclose to anyone, creating a built-in appellate defense for Galgano in the event of his conviction in Putnam County.
In fact, despite Luciano’s statement to Judge Zuckerman and to my office that Westchester County District Attorney’s Office would be filing a grievance against Galgano, no grievance was ever filed, and she couldn’t explain why, except to say DiFiore would have had to approve any grievance
Despite Luciano’s sworn testimony, no one from DiFiore’s office interviewed any witness to the juror tampering; not Galgano, not Eric Sharp whose attorney indicated he wanted to give a proffer and cooperate against Galgano
DiFiore was fully briefed and aware of Galgano’s criminal conduct and the evidence against him. She also knew that our office had an active investigation against Andrew Kuchta, her former Detective Investigator assigned as head of her protective detail. Still she refused to recuse, never filed a grievance and instead obstructed the investigations.
On December 9, 2015, DiFiore directed that her office file a motion to dismiss the case. Galgano was also not prosecuted for jury tampering, conspiracy, or offering a false instrument for filing, and no grievance was ever filed by DiFiore’s office.
In addition to my belief in the viability and propriety of a prosecution against Galgano, and the impropriety of DiFiore’s conduct as outlined above, this conclusion was also independently reached by 45-year veteran prosecutor and expert witness, Christopher Belling
Belling believed DiFiore should have recused her office from the prosecution of Galgano because he was both a defendant and a criminal defense attorney in her County, the co chair of her fundraising committee, a major contributor, and had hired her former personal security detail as his private investigator. Belling set forth the complete body of evidence in support of Galgano’s prosecution and the reasons DiFiore’s conduct was improper in an extensive written report.
Belling’s comprehensive report stands in stark contrast to that of Galgano’s expert Ellen Yaroshefky, who never served as a prosecutor, but, for $750 an hour, opined that Galgano was a “good lawyer,” “other than the jury tampering.”
Notably, during my tenure as District Attorney, two Putnam County Grand Juries were convened and voted to indict Galgano for tampering with a witness and other related offenses. Judge Zuckerman dismissed both indictments, rendering legally inconsistent decisions, ignoring the overwhelming evidence of Galgano’s criminal conduct that was presented to the Grand Jury, and failing to provide any analysis whatsoever pertaining to the warrants. Thus, insinuating that Zuckerman’s assignment to the Galgano matter, just months after he heard evidence during an ex parte, which should have disqualified IJN from presiding over the Putnam County case, was by design.
Unlike DiFiore, in December 2014, I filed a grievance against Galgano that included the jury tampering and filing a false statement with the court.. My complaint was transferred to Brooklyn on 1/2/15 and dismissed on 2/10/16. This Committee’s decision to close the matter, in Galgano’s favor, without conducting any investigation reeked of a coverup.
Despite having acknowledged receipt of my December 16, 2014 complaint, no one from this Committee contacted me for an interview or asked for evidence that support my complaint; I would have gladly provided it.
No one from this Committee contacted DiFiore to inquire about her knowledge of Galgano’s efforts to tamper with a juror.
And, Janet DiFiore never provided this Committee with the mountain of evidence in her possession, that proved the accuracy and reliability of those claims, despite telling members of my office that she would do so.
Editor’s Note: Levy meticulously documented all of his claims in the grievance to the Committee with evidence attached. Currently Levy and Galgano are suing each other in Federal Court. Levy is suing Galgano for defamation, and Galgano is suing Putnam County and Levy as DA, for wrongful prosecution.
