| As SDNY
Probes Mount Vernon Police Press Questions
About Past Federal Convictions
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC
- Guardian
UK - Honduras
- ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 3 – A Federal
civil rights investigation
into the police department in
Mount Vernon, New York,
including for falsification of
evidence, was announced in a
December 3 press conference by
Damian Williams, the new US
Attorney for the Southern
District of New York and
Kristen Clarke,
Assistant Attorney General for
DOJ's Civil Rights Division.
Inner City
Press, which has reported on
the SDNY's cases in Mount
Vernon, including a murder
case that after a change of
counsel and ostensibly guilty
plea simply disappeared from
the docket, went to cover the
press conference.
After a
presentation including ways
for the public to have imput
into the investigation
(community.mvpd [at] usdoj
[dot] gov and 866-985-1378),
Inner City Press asked US
Attorney Williams, Will this
impact your Office's
prosecutions and even
convictions?
Will your Office
treat information from the
MVPD differently during the
pendency of the
investigation?
US Attorney
Williams said that is a
question for another day. Fair
enough. But may this begins
the day.
Or this one: on
November 24, 2020 Inner City
Press reported Raheem Jones
was charged with aiding and
abetting a murder in Mount
Vernon. He was assigned a
Criminal Justice Act lawyer,
Mark S. Demarco.
On May 17,
2019 U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New
York Judge Nelson Stephen
Roman relieved DeMarco and
appointed Donna R. Newman as
CJA counsel.
On
November 24, Jones pleaded
guilty to racketeering, and to
the aiding and abetting
murder, with a guidelines
sentence of 300 months or 25
years. Inner City Press
covered the change of plea
proceeding.
During the
proceeding Ms. Newman referred
to an earlier version of the
plea agreement which referred
to Jones as a career offender.
AUSA Andew
Fong Chow quickly pointed out
that was never filed with the
court.
Jones, who
said his first name was Lonzo,
was read his newly-explicit
Brady rights under the Due
Process Protection Act - and
then, as part of this plea,
appeared to waive any Brady
violation.
Ms. Newman
added she was not aware of any
such violations in his
case.
Sentencing was set before
Judge Roman for either
February 25, or March 4, at
10:30 am.
But now on
December 3, 2021, there is
nothing in the docket. The
case is US v. Jones, 15-cr-661
(Roman). We aim to have
more on all this.
***
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