| NYPD Officer
For Robbing WTC Program Pleads Guilty
Virtually, COVID Changes Mulled
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
August 4 – Sally Spinosa was
charged with ripping off the
World Trade Center Health
Program.
On August 4, U.S. District
Court for the Southern
District of New York Judge
Paul A. Engelmayer held a
virtual change of plea
proceeding. Inner City Press
covered it.
In the run-up to
the plea, Spinosa's counsel
explained why he preferred a
virtual proceeding. Judge
Engelmayer remarked that
during the pandemic, lawyers
have seemed to act more
collegial.
He also said that
is even more the case among
the criminal law bar, a
smaller group, than in the
civil litigation context,
where fewer lawyers know each
other. (Inner City Press would
add, other than in fields like
maritime law, and suing Amtrak
and MetroNorth).
Spinosa pled guilty and will
be sentenced on December 1.
Afterward the US
Attorney's Office put out a
press release including that
Spinosa "served as an NYPD
officer from in or about July
1986 until July 2019, and was
a sergeant in the
investigations unit of the
NYPD’s Patrol Services Bureau
of Staten Island September 11,
2001. In 2010, SPINOSA
participated in a screening
interview with the WTCHP in
which she falsely stated that
she worked for hundreds of
hours at the Fresh Kills
Landfill in Staten Island, NY
from September 2001 to June
2002....
However, contrary
to SPINOSA’s representations
to the WTCHP and the VCF, in
fact SPINOSA spent little to
no time at the Landfill.
While SPINOSA’s original
fraudulent application to the
VCF was denied in 2014, she
reapplied in 2017 and 2018
relying on the same false and
fraudulent information.
SPINOSA’s VCF claim remains
pending.
The case is US v.
Spinosa, 21-cr-206
(Engelmayer)
***
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