The Walton Reporter reported recently that the Delaware County social worker Carolyn Massey who recently resigned because of her "ethical violations", was indicted - not for an attempted grand larceny, but for a puny misdemeanor.
I frequently report about the ethical violations of not only Carolyn Massey,
who is obviously used as a scapegoat and to show that something is
being done to control rampant misconduct in Delaware County
"government", but of other public officials in Delaware County.
Here, apparently the special prosecutor and the judge presiding over the Massey criminal case joined in the fray of misconduct.
The special prosecutor on the case is Joe Ermeti, the defense attorney for my friend Barbara O'Sullivan who refused to make motions to recuse a judge and to disqualify the prosecutor John Hubbard despite obvious misconduct of both, because he reportedly claimed that John Hubbard (law partner of recently retired judge Carl Becker who never disclosed of the connection and the resulting conflict of interest during child abuse and criminal proceedings over 13 years) is an "honorable man".
Joe Ermeti reportedly claimed that he continues to investigate "related" issues around Carolyn Massey's conduct.
To investigate the "related issue", Ermeti needed to open up the whole hornet's nest - and, possibly, look whether Carl Becker was involved in Moon's misdeeds.
The question also is why Moon was not indicted for anything, even though it was Moon who filed the probate petition of the will that Massey is criminally charged for obtaining, Moon was obviously involved in the case and quickly retired and disappeared to Sullivan County during the pendency of the investigation.
It is clear that Massey, who worked for Delaware County for 17 years (some of them under Carl Becker as attorney for Delaware County DSS), would not be acting alone, without "guidance" from her superiors in such a case.
Ermeti was too timid to indict Moon? Was too timid to look at other misconduct of Moon? Too timid to look whether Becker had a role or payoffs from Moon's "deals"?
Ermeti was most definitely very timid as a defense attorney to make motions to recuse a judge and disqualify a prosecutor - making it clear to my friend Barbara O'Sullivan that he wants to be able to continue to work in the local courts, and will be banned if he goes after the local public officials.
So, that's why he chose to go after the low-level employee Carolyn Massey and not the "old boys' club"?
It is also clear that Ermeti most definitely could not combine his duty as a special prosecutor investigating Delaware County and representing Barbara O'Sullivan where the footprints of Delaware County official's misconduct (possibly, of those same officials who Ermeti was supposed to investigate as a special prosecutor) were all over her case.
I understand that the money offered by Barbara's family to defend Barbara in the case was too much to resist for Ermeti, but, Ermeti who was appointed a special prosecutor earlier than he took that money and representation of Barbara, had to know that representation of Barbara presents a conflict for him.
Yet, he accepted the case, did not hire investigators, did not make motions to disqualify or recuse - first, because hiring investigators would cut into his share, and second, because then his conflict of interest between his duty as a special prosecutor and Barbara's defense attorney would have been even more readily visible.
But also - look at who is presiding over Carolyn Massey's criminal case.
It is none else than the newly-elected Judge Gary Rosa who promised voters in his election campaign to be fair and impartial.
Fairness and impartiality presupposes not presiding over cases where the judge has a distinct conflict of interest.
Yet, it is an established fact, from records of Delaware County Surrogate's Court, that the Delhi lawyer James Hartmann represented the victims of Carolyn Massey in the Surrogate's Court and exposed the whole criminal scheme.
And James Hartmann is none else than the husband of Judge Gary Rosa's law clerk Nancy Deming.
So, when Judge Rosa is presiding over the People v Massey case, it is as if the victims' attorney James Hartmann is presiding over that case.
That is called "personal interest in the outcome of the case", a strict disqualification under Judiciary Law Section 14, making all rulings of Judge Gary Rosa void, but don't count on New York courts honoring Judiciary Law 14, they usually don't, and claim that recusal and disqualification is within the "sound discretion" of the presiding judge, no matter what the conflict of interest is.
Happened all the time with Gary Rosa's predecessor Carl Becker - and worked like a charm.
So, don't hold your breath waiting that Gary Rosa will suddenly see the light and recuse from the case. I am sure he knows what he is doing - and who he is doing it for. He is working off the support the Hartmann/Deming family gave Rosa for his election. Remember, Deming was on the judicial qualification committee in the Appellate Division 3rd Department - and ended up Gary Rosa's law clerk, likely as a result of her support in that committee.
Of course, Deming was disqualified from providing support to Rosa in both the judicial qualification committee and in his political election campaign - but when did anything like ethics deter a promise of good steady well-paying job with benefits, especially to a lawyer practicing in a county that quickly loses population, and so her practice is not doing that great, neither is her husband's (otherwise Hartmann wouldn't have undertaken representation in the Mokay case claiming to the court he represents a person who recently came forward saying that he never was a plaintiff in that case and that his signature on the retainer agreement was forged. Hartmann had to know that.)
Deming got a payoff job in return for support from Rosa before his election was even confirmed. The payoff continues in Rosa presiding over proceedings where Hartmann - and Deming as Hartmann's wife - has a financial interest as attorneys for the victims.
When Deming pens Rosa's decisions in People v Massey case, it is as if Hartmann pens those decisions.
Which is disgusting and stinks of corruption.
And, of course, the timid special prosecutor Joe Ermeti would not make a motion to recuse Judge Gary Rosa - same as he did not make a motion to recuse Judge John Lambert in Barbara O'Sullivan's case despite an obvious bias, because, as he told Barbara, he still wants to work in the judge's court.
So, to hell with the prosecutorial duty to be fair to the criminal defendant. A judge whose law clerk is married to the victims' attorney will secure a conviction for Ermeti - and 5 minutes of "tough on crime" fame for his possible run for public office in the future.
I guess, courts, and especially criminal courts, in Delaware County continue function as they always did - on political connections, favors, conflicts of interest and unrestricted corruption.
Promises to voters that Judge Gary Rosa made to get elected were needed only to get to the cozy judicial position, and then all promises will be forgotten, and Gary Rosa is going to be as dirty and rotten as Carl Becker before him - only for Rosa's own favorites.
THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:
"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.
“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).
“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.
It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.
" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.
"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.
“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.
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