| CONTENTS:
ABSTRACT
METHODS
CASE OVERVIEW
The Eye Witness
Accounts
The Forensic Evidence
The McGohan Statement
The Star Witness
The Mystery Caller
The Altered Police
Report
David Weinstein et al.
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES
ADDENDUM
Letter to James Vargeson, D.A.
The Komanecky Interview
The Bertonica Interview
Monserrate's Ruling
PUBLIC OPINION
MEDIA E-MAIL
POLITICAL E-MAIL
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David Weinstein et al.
If Mr. Weinstein was satisfied that all of the questions about Paul
Carbonaro had been answered, published accounts make it clear that the questions about him
were just beginning. This headline appeared on the front page of the Syracuse
Post-Standard on April 13, 1996:
Auburn Lawyer, Guards Face Drug Counts
By Mike McAndrew
Auburn attorney, David Weinstein, who has represented high-profile defendants in Cayuga
County courts, is now a defendant himself. (DW-1)
Weinstein, three Auburn Correctional Facility employees and five other men have been
charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and with illegally possessing firearms. The
charges, all felonies, were in a federal grand jury indictment unsealed Friday afternoon
in U.S. District Court in Syracuse (DW-2)
. . . . . . . . .
The indictment stems from a state Organized Crime Task Force probe that resulted in
authorities raiding Weinstein’s Auburn home, four other Auburn sites and several
Syracuse residences on June 29, 1994. (DW-3)
. . . . . . . . .
"What they’ve done to me in this case makes what Mark Fuhrman look like a Boy
Scout playing marbles in the schoolyard," the 48-year-old attorney said."They
brought in client after client of mine and grilled these people to death to try to say bad
things about me. This is what I get for being a good lawyer." (DW-4)
Two years earlier, on July 21, 1994, this article appeared on the
front page of the Auburn Citizen:
Cuomo Approves Task Force Request
Michele Locastro
The Citizen
. . . . . . . . .
As expected, Gov. Mario Cuomo has approved the Organized Crime Task Force’s
request to bring in it’s own prosecutor …. (DW-5)
That prosecutor will handle any grand jury action and any prosecution of crimes
stemming from an OCTF sweep here several weeks ago. (DW-6)
This article appeared in the Syracuse Post-Standard on September 24,
1997:
Lawyer Loses Effort to Bar Evidence
By David Tobin
A federal judge has denied David Weinstein’s effort to suppress evidence in his
upcoming federal trial on drug and weapons charges. (DW-7)
U.S. District Judge Rosemary Pooler denied Weinstein’s motion to suppress evidence
obtained in a police search of his house in June 1994. (DW-8)
. . . . . . . . .
Weinstein, a prominent Auburn lawyer, is charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine
and possession of cocaine. He also faces five weapons charges involving a handgun, which
police say was altered to make it an automatic weapon. (DW-9)
. . . . . . . . .
Please read these next six paragraphs very carefully.
Weinstein’s lawyers, Emil Rossi and Michael Vavonese, both of
Syracuse, had argued that state police investigator Kenneth Giovanni and his partner,
former Auburn police detective Wayne Smith, were determined to ruin Weinstein’s law
career. (DW-10)
Toward that end, Vavonese and Rossi argued, when Giovanni applied for a
warrant to search Weinstein’s house, he deliberately omitted information that might
have dissuaded a judge from issuing the warrant…. (DW-11)
Pooler, in her 12-page ruling, rejected both arguments. (W-12)
She also questioned the truthfulness of testimony
given by two of Weinstein’s witnesses – Thomas Fraher and Richard Noga – at
Weinstein’s July 2, 1997, suppression hearing. (DW-13)
Fraher, a heating contractor, testified he was at
Weinstein’s house when a telephone conversation between Weinstein and David Walsh,
co-owner of Rood Utilities, a heating equipment dealership in Auburn, took place. He
described the nature of that conversation, then contradicted himself under
cross-examination, Pooler said. (DW-14)
Noga, former Cayuga County undersheriff, testified
that investigators Smith and Giovanni were out to get Weinstein. Pooler noted that
Weinstein has yet to bill Noga for legal services performed from 1992 through 1994. (DW-15)
This headline appeared on the front page of the Auburn
Citizen on December 29, 1995:
Chief’s Ties to Lawyer Under Probe Questioned
By Michele Locastro
The Citizen
AUBURN – When Police Chief Tom Piscotti announced his decision to retire, he did
so through a statement released Saturday by lawyers Simon Moody and David Weinstein… (DW-16)
… Piscotti as a captain nearly two years ago was in a position to oversee officers
working on an investigation that included the wire tapping of Weinstein’s phone. (DW-17)
. . . . . . . . .
Many law enforcement officials inside and outside the Auburn Police Department said the
fact that Piscotti would even consider going to Weinstein’s law firm under the
circumstances ahs caused them to shake their heads in amazement and disbelief. (DW-18)
. . . . . . . . .
Francis Neely, an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms confirmed the
fact that ATF was conducting an independent investigation of their own at the same time
the Organized Crime Task Force was conducting theirs. "Although we had a separate
investigation, we targeted the same people," Neeley said.
Piscotti couldn’t be reached for comment yesterday nor could Weinstein….
Weinstein’s lawyer, Emil Rossi, also couldn’t be reached for comment. (DW-19)
Moody, reached last evening, said he was actually Piscotti’s lawyer of record. (DW-20)
This headline appeared on the front page of the Syracuse Post-Standard
September 18, 1998:
Jailed Lawyer: Feds Hunted Cayuga Corruption
An Auburn attorney says prosecutors
believe he was involved in covering up
the 1981 murder of Julie Monson
By David Tobin
The Post-Standard
After years of denial, David Weinstein has admitted his addiction to alcohol and drugs.
He has admitted what it cost him: his law practice, his marriage, his home, his thoughts
of ever becoming a judge. (DW-21)
But Weinstein says the state and federal prosecutors who brought the drug charges
against him and 10 others were after more than dealers. He says they were after proof of
corruption in the Cayuga County court system dating back to 1981 and Thomas Bianco’s
trial for the murder of Julie Monson. (DW-22)
Weinstein said prosecutors asked if he ever made illicit deals with former District
Attorney Paul Carbonaro or former Assistant DA Dennis Sedor. There was no corruption to
tell about Weinstein aid. Grant Jaquith, assistant U.S. attorney would not comment. (DW-23)
"They thought there was corruption in the legal and court system, that lawyers
were
buying pleas and that I was one of the ones involved in it, and it wasn’t
true," said Weinstein, 51, who in July began a 16-month sentence on drug and weapons
charges at a minimum-security federal prison camp in Allenwood, PA. (DW-24)
. . . . . . . . .
Fifteen years after Monson’s body was found, her unsolved murder remains
Auburn’s most perplexing legal drama. To this day, some believe that Bianco,
convicted and then absolved of the slaying was a fall guy for the real killer. They say
Bianco’s trial was orchestrated by some in the Cayuga County legal community to
protect their friends. (W-25)
In retrospect, Weinstein made this comment about Thomas
Calescibetta’s recantation:
"My problem with Calescibetta was not his lying, it was (his)
telling the truth. Some days he’d say he was there when she was killed, some days he
wasn’t." (DW-26)
At David Weinstein’s June sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney,
Grant Jaquith made this statement:
"The cynical view of the legal practice, while certainly
widespread, has reached a cynicism of a different and far lower level in Cayuga County
than elsewhere," Jaquith said. "I think Mr. Weinstein bears a lot of blame for
that." (DW-27)
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