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By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon

SDNY COURTHOUSE, August 6 – More than a year ago Doctor Dante A. Cubangang and three others including his receptionist Loren Piquant a/k/a Loren Luna and John Gargan were indicted for illegally selling some six million Oxycodone pills, or 180 kilos of Oxy.

    On October 9, 2019, a week before receptionist Loren Piquant / Luna went on trial before U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Paul G. Gardephe, her boss Dante Cubangbang pleaded guilty.

    After the short and murky 2019 plea proceeding, Inner City Press asked Cubangbang's lawyer if the plea deal specified a sentencing guideline that the government will recommend. No, he answered.

    Inner City Press asked him, "Does the letter mention Section 5K1?"

     "No comment," he said and got on the elevator.

   5K1 is the section of the sentencing guidelines which can erase "mandatory" minimum sentences for cooperators.

On August 6 Judge Gardephe held the sentencing of cooperating but unused co-defendant Michael Kellerman, f/k/a Sealed Defendant 3. Probation suggested time served, and the US Attorney while less specifics produced the 5K1 letter.

  But Judge Gardephe was having none of it. He said that selling oxy is no better than selling crack on the street. He said he would sentence Kellerman to five years.

  Kellerman's lawyer cut in to say that his client came from Ukraine "in the former Soviet Union" at age 17 and didn't trust the government. Kellerman himself said he wished he hadn't believe Cubangbang. Judge Gardephe listened then repeated the sentence: five years. He expressed concern for Kellerman's femur injury and asked for a status letter in a week.

   Back on October 25, two days after the verdict, this: "Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JOHN F. GARGAN and LOREN PIQUANT were convicted Wednesday after a two-week jury trial for conspiring together and with others to unlawfully distribute oxycodone from a medical clinic in Queens, New York.  DANTE A. CUBANGBANG and MICHAEL KELLERMAN previously pled guilty to narcotics, health care fraud, and money laundering charges in connection with their participation in the oxycodone distribution scheme at that same clinic."

Will there be a press release about Kellerman's five year sentence?

 On October 21 in Courtroom 110 of 40 Foley Square the government's cooperating witness Ms. Reyes with a non prosecution agreement despite selling over $80,000 of Oxy describes a series of indignities. To be found to be using the Oxy she bought, she brought to the test her purchaser's urine in a Scope bottle tucked into her bra.

  In one visit, the government's cooperating witness for a 5K1 letter Doctor Cubangbang rubbed his genitals against her hand. Then after arrest she was wired up by the government to try to set up the receptionist, in conversation with whom the word pill was never used. 

 Inner City Press will continue to cover this case. It is US v. Cubangbang, 18-cr-00723 (Gardephe).

SW