“There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.“

— George Orwell

For those of you who are musically inclined, as I am, having been a musician most of my life — performing in New York, Amsterdam, Florence, Rome, Puerto Rico, Copenhagen — rejoice! Neil Young, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has written a new song. Shades of Ohio.

I’ll get out my axe and you can enjoy it. Remember it, folks.

“No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House”

Don’t need no fascist rules
Don’t want no fascist schools
Don’t want soldiers walking on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
There’s big crime in DC at the White House

Got to get the fascists out
Got to clean the White House out
Don’t want no soldiers on our streets
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more money to the fascists
The billionaire fascists
Time to blackout the system
(No) no more great again
No more great again
Time to blackout the system
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House

No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again
Got big crime in DC at the White House
Got big crime in DC at the White House
No more great again
No more great again.”

Songwriters: Neil Young

Big Crime lyrics © Hipgnosis Songs Group

“If you can’t beat them, leave town. The Downtown corruption makes Trump and his minions look like choirboys.”

– Anonymous

In their zeal to provide routes for bikers, which unfortunately started in SoHo and was approved by Community Board #2 for SoHo and the politicians that have poorly served lower Manhattan (with the exception of Brad Hoylman and Christopher Duarte) — Citibikes, which is apparently not the owner of the racks and bicycles installed where there used to be parking in Manhattan — It is actually a company owned by Lyft of San Francisco, a poorly functioning private car service in Manhattan supported by Transportation Alternatives, the Hudson Square BID and Trinity Real Estate — not to mention Citibank.

While there have been many complaints about losing parking spaces in SoHo and Hudson Square the real problem is that no provisions have been made for senior citizens or the disabled who often have to walk or be wheeled out into the middle of the street in order to be able to get into a taxi or car service. Where they are targetted by bikes and vehicles. No provision has been made for the safety of these people and pedestrians who are unable to use the crosswalks for many reasons such as monumental traffic. Congestion Pricing has been a very big thing but there has been no abatement of traffic in lower Manhattan and traffic agents are not able to give out tickets to abusers rushing to New Jersey or elsewhere and protecting pedestrians safely crossing the street — since the crosswalks are constantly blocked. I’ve been writing about this for 25 years and I can testify to the fact that Community Board meetings occurred 20 years ago in which the DOT claimed that it was working on a plan to protect us. Bullshit. I can tell you after several accidents and drivers getting out of their vehicles in order to threaten me and other pedestrians who complain to drivers that there’s not enough space between their blocking vehicles in the crosswalk to cross the street. Clearly, nothing has been done because DOT and NYPD and Traffic don’t give a shit about pedestrians, seniors or disabled and Congestion Pricing was just a money grab — witness the fact that next week the fares will be going up on the subway and buses.

If there was ever anything to drive Democrats and independents into the arms of MAGA people this certainly is one that should be reviewed carefully. Something should be done to protect seniors and disabled from being hit by vehicles. If there was ever a Tell of corruption in action on the part of lower Manhattan politicians, this is it, folks.

Pedestrians, Disabled, Wheelchairs, Seniors with canes? Are you kidding?

We don’t give a shit about SoHo or Hudson Square. The Politicians, Community Board #2, Hudson Square BID, Transportation Alternatives, SoHo BID, DOT– were all paid. If the wheelchairs and walkers and Hurrycanes can’t get through to get into taxis and cars, fuck them. We’ll just install more bike racks. Our neighborhoods are for bikers without vehicles who can’t afford a garage and pay membership fees and make political donations.

“Never give up, never, never, never give up.”

— Winston Churchill

Well, I have been known for my constant bitching about the fact that many of us downtown especially in SoHo have had no access to city agencies that actually do anything.

HPD, also known as Housing, Preservation, and Development is an agency charged with overseeing the safety of apartments in Manhattan and making sure that residents rights are not violated by landlords.

Here’s a list of their largely ineffective functioning in Manhattan:

We have a landlord who is part of a team of two dentists and their families that essentially purloined the building that we live in and has managed to evict, by one method or another, at least 90% of the tenants in the building. Amid collusion with HPD we have no 311 service to our building as we have been designated a loft building when in fact, we are rent- stabilized tenants. As an example of the violation of our rights, we have practically no heat in the winter and 311 will not take our complaint when they used to take our complaint. When it used to function, 311 would give us a Report number and tell us that within 72 hours someone would show up to verify the fact that we had no fucking heat.

Strangely the inspector when we used to have 311 ability to make complaints would first call the landlord, who would then of course turn the heat on so that when the inspector arrived there would be heat and then turn the heat off after the inspector left. After going to court to force 311 to again service our building, the City-owned judge ruled that we must file an article 78 to get justice. At a cost of $10,000!

While I try to understand people when they’re speaking to me, the HPD inspectors rarely spoke enough English for me to convey my complaint and once the complaint was filed (when we used to have 311 ability to make complaints) absolutely nothing was done to force the landlord to give us heat. HPD is a bad joke.

NYPD recently arrived at our apartment because someone had broken into our apartment while we were there — which, in my illustrious experience in prison as a journalist being prosecuted by a corrupt district attorney in Suffolk County — I learned that breaking into someone’s apartment is called Home Invasion. The individual who broke into the apartment was charged with trespassing. If he’d had a weapon, one of us might’ve been killed.

Another recent experience with NYPD has been that I was sideswiped by a car on Broadway and I rushed to try to get a photo of the car which was fleeing, but it did not show a clear license plate number When NYPD arrived I was cross-examined as to why I was there and I got no assistance whatsoever with finding out who the perpetrator was. I contacted DOT, the police department, FBI, and even surrounding building owners to find out if they had cameras that could elucidate. I receive no cooperation whatsoever, including from the DOT inspector general, which had cameras that were strategically located at the corner of Canal Street on Broadway. When I visited NYPD to update the investigation I was told at the front desk that the detectives only see people regarding murders — a hit-and-run in SoHo was an irrelevancy.

I complain to the Community Board about the fact that the landlord of the building that I was living in was abusing and harassing tenants, using tenants as spies to find ways to evict rent stabilized tenants, and allowing and may have been involved in a sex trafficking operation with underage girls — and had stolen the building from the previous owners under very suspicious circumstances. Toby Bergman was the chairman of the community board at one point when I described some of these conditions and he found it to be very humorous. The community board has never done anything to assist the residents in SoHo and has become an insulated donation/patronage operation which does nothing for us Senior, Disabled pedestrians. In fact CB2 and Deborah Glick has allowed the Hudson Square BID and the SoHo BID to essentially operate a money producing racket for their employees and investor friends while controlling real estate interests Downtown.

Then, when I contacted Richard Fife in the DAs office to describe criminal behavior on the part of my landlord, I was totally ignored. They don’t even return emails when crime is reported.

I attempted to get DOT to provide ticket writing traffic agents — since the agents that currently monitor the traffic flow on Canal Street, Avenue of the Americas, Broome Street, Watts Street areas do not have the ability to write tickets. There is no way to get anything done to improve the safety for pedestrians. In fact I was a member of Community Board 2 and discussed these items 20 years ago and absolutely nothing has been done, except to add several traffic agents that are unable to write tickets.

The improvements of adding bikes for transportation, in lower Manhattan and elsewhere is laudable and I knew Sadik Khan who was a biker and who influenced the Bloomberg administration to improve the ability for people to ride bikes, however, bikes have overtaken pedestrians and we are no longer safe. Further, the installation of Citibike bike racks (owned by Lyft and Citibank) has, in many cases, interfered with the ability for seniors and the disabled to get into their vehicles safely for doctor appointments and transportation without the risk of being hit by a tourist or delivery service motorbike. The biking interests which include Transportation Alternatives are on the verge of becoming a fascistic organization that provides opportunities for those who are acolytes of biking where those of us who are disabled and seniors are left behind to our own devices and safety. This should be the domain of the community board which completely anbrogated its obligation to protect us.

For Disney fans, hopefully you will appreciate the new blocklong building at 137 Varick street also known as 7 Hudson Square. They are a new, valued addition to Hudson Square, buddies with the Hudson Square BID and Trinity Real Estate—who deserve each other. We should welcome them.

Note: The only downtown politician who actually does anything for SoHo is Christopher Marte — who is running for Speaker of the City Council.

“Forgive your enemies but always remember their names.”

— John F. Kennedy

You know, what is most disconcerting about the anxiety-riddled time that we live in, is the fact that when abusive, heavy-handed stupid people try to impose their will on the populace they believe they can force their point of view on us all as well. If anything, the reverse is true. If history has taught us anything, it is that ultimately, freedom will out — like truth and the debunking of lies rising to the surface. It was Goebbels who said “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” And, the Third Reich would last “A thousand Years.”

Apparently, that didn’t work out too well.

So, liars and abusers, strongmen and dictators rise to the surface and abuse those who are not aggressive or punitive like them. The so-called weak, the disabled, the poor, the not-entitled in our new entitled-only America, the ostensibly Christian superior zeitgeist — has no place, even if you accept the bible. Apparently the not entitled or rich should leave or become slaves to the their Superiors.

Perhaps. But, as Don Ameche once said, “Things Change.” Remember that as you hear the lies intended to sway your vote and swallow it whole.

On a lighter note, here’s a couple of short pieces from my stay in prison, supported by my landlord and pushed by the politicians in the Town of Southampton — for housing the poor and exposing corruption — a vindictive prosecution based upon lies arranged by D.A. Thomas Spota, his associates Thalia Stavrides, Southampton Town Supervisor Skip Heaney and Town Investigator David Betts in the Hamptons. The pedulum did swing in that vindictive prosecution — and the DA was prosecuted partly as a result of my writing and he went to prison.

______________________________________________________________________________

Meanwhile as I languished in prison due to this vindictive prosecution, I met a few people:

“Y’know dis place remin’s me a the funeral parlor in Wes’ Palm,” said Cuba.

“What?” I laughed.

“Dis guy Ray, dat I usta ged drugs from. He hadda funeral parlor.” 

“No shit?”

“Yeah, he did a lotta work fa the Haitians. Usta be called Little Haiti.”

“So, you hung out in a funeral parlor?”

“Yeah, but not so much in the business, but, at his home.” 

“At his home?”

“Yeah, he had a whole basement fulla caskets.” 

“With bodies in them?”

“Some a dem. Yeah, he had bodies layin’ aroun’ allova. But, he kept a lotta dem at the parla. But, he was very loose and he kept a lotta urns in his house too. He was high mosta’ th’time.”

“Urns?”

“Yeah, he mixed his business an’ home-life. But, a coupla times people would call ‘im an he’d tell’em ta come by his house.”

“For what?”

“Well, this one time I’m there an’ I’m scorin’ some shit an’ the people come by for their urn. Y’know, they had someone cremated and he jes’ forgot about it. So, he tol’em ta come by his house.”

“Yeah, and?”

“So, he haddan assistant there an’ he says let’s go inta the garage an’ he pulls dis urn off the shelf and breaks it open wid a hammer and tells the guy, ‘Here pud dis innaa urn an’ give it ta dem when ‘ey come tada door. Den he scoops up some’a th’ashes wid a little beach shovel and putsid inta the urn and covas it.”

“Well, whose ashes were they?” I asked.

“I dunno. He din’ eitha. An’ he din’ give a shit. We was both high on dope an’ he jes wanned taget ridda th’ people. Y’know, he charged ’em $900 f’a a cremation. He hadda giv’em dere money’s worth. So, he gave ’em a urn wid ashes an’ some bones it it. He had no idea whose dey were. An’ I think dey was chicken bones from Popeye’s. Da people din’ know an’ ‘ey din’ care. Y’know the people who picked it up? Dey neva figg’id it was anythin’ bud dere’s.”

“Jesus Christ. And, you can’t do DNA on ashes can you?” 

He laughed. “Nah, nobody’d eva foun’ out.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

January  29th, 2016

“After a morning of frigid walking in the Yard, my sinuses were suffering. The entire dorm was a coughing, sneezing, spitting, cursing sea of beds. Not simply because they were sick, but  because the heating system was hot air with no windows open. Wood wouldn’t allow it.

Forced hot, dry air heat without humidity was a killer. It dried out the nasal passages and forced our bodies to produce histamines. Which caused nasal drips and lung infections. Jimmy was sick and Cuba made him tea with honey.

“Yeah, Cuba did a nice job. I feel better already. But, y’know bro, I gotta geddoutahere.”

“I know Jimmy. You have a family to live with?”

“Yeah. Me and my sister. My brother’ll get out soon.” 

“He in jail?”

“My brother?” 

“Yeah.”

“Oh, my brother’s been in prison for almost 20 years.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, when we were kids, I told you about my mother and father; we was separated and we each were placed with different people. My brother didn’t do so well.”

“What do you mean?”

“The guy was raping him.”

“Who, the one taking care of him?”

“Yeah, he raped my brother starting at the age of 9 years old. Did that for 4 years until my mother took him to the doctor and they checked him out. He didn’t say anything ‘cause the guy said he’d kill him.”

“So, what happened?”

“Well, my brother always said that if he ever found him, he’d kill him.”

“What happened?”

“They prosecuted the guy and he did a few years and then he got out. And, when he did, my brother tracked him down and found him.”

“And,..?”

“Put a bullet in his head. Then he buried him. They gave him 25 flat. He’ll be out in 22 and a half.” 

“Why did they give him so much time?”

“They wouldn’a done it if he din’ lie about it. The cops knew what’d happened to him. But, he hid the body. They finally found it two years later. Some woman was shopping an’ ‘is arm and leg was sticking up someplace near a parking lot. He didn’t bury the guy very well. So, when they found him they knew who it was and even though my sister got the best New York City attorney and paid him $50,000; the best they could get him was 25 flat.” 

“Jesus. After he’d been raped for years?”

“Yeah,  cause he lied to them and buried ‘im and it took ’em 2 years. He coulda gotten 35 years fa that. Dey also neva found his dick and balls. Musta gone ta town on ‘im.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Y’know, I’m just tired of these stupid people. I’m not gonna do this again. I’m done.”

“What do you mean?”

“This,” he said, “look around.” They were in the Rec room. 

“These people. I can’t do this again.”

Copyright: Confessions from the Gulag

“An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.”

— Simon Cameron

I distinctly remember looking across my desk in the prison Law Library where I worked for four years, at Charlie — known as ‘The Pussy Killer’ among the inmates. He’d graduated from the NYPD cadet school, married a Correction Officer, and then, after a contentious divorce he kept tabs on her. Apparently, like a mobster, he believed she was still his property and visited her until she had a date one night. After her new bed partner escaped out the window, onto the fire escape, Charlie placed his .357 magnum between his ex-wife’s legs and emptied the gun into her vagina. He then wrapped her in a rug, placed her in the front seat of his car and dropped her off into the East River — while she was still breathing. I knew him after he’d already done 29 years for first degree murder with depraved indifference. I found him to be difficult at times but I had no choice about dealing with Charlie. D.A. Thomas Spota, A.D.A. Thalia Stravides, and Supervisor Patrick “Skip” Heaney, saw to that.

Charlie’s friends in prison, like Animal, who dismembered his victims after raping them — or the Carnival Killer, who picked up young girls, raped them and then buried them in his backyard — were my new, daily cellmates, but not my chosen associates. I had been sent to prison for nearly five years because the Suffolk County District Attorney and his prosecutor, sought to make me their chosen target. Thomas Spota and Stavrides were operating a criminal enterprise, namely the Southampton Town’s Supervisor and Town Attorney’s office which I had been exposing for years. And, I had been brought to their attention by several members of the Southampton Town and Westhampton Beach political class for trying to solve the Affordable Housing crisis that has been rife with racism, corruption and outright theft for many years. Huge amounts of money was being squirreled away in the Town’s slush fund known as The Preservation Fund and I simply pointed it out.

I had purchased dozens of new houses from a builder in Southampton during the expansive, CDO-driven economy written about by Michael Lewis in The Big Short — and rented these properties to immigrants, Latinos, Blacks, poor Whites and other hard-working individuals — while writing about corruption in my magazine The SoHo Journal, and in my two blogs.

While I was solving the Affordable Housing crisis by providing new homes, writing about corruption in the Town of Southampton, and paying mortgages diligently I did not count on the degree of animosity and criminality in the Southampton Town Attorneys Office, its Supervisor’s office, or in the District Attorney’s Office under Thomas Spota and Stavrides.

Even I was surprised when Spota and his Assistant District Attorneys were later prosecuted and imprisoned themselves.

However, I had been prosecuted for Grand Larceny — stealing from banks that had offered No income, No Asset, No credit check, No money down loans. Nevertheless, the loans were paid on time until the Town of Southampton sent around the Code Enforcement Police, under the direction of David Betts and Supervisor “Skip” Heaney to tell the tenants NOT to pay rent. This plan was to force all of my property and property owned by my partners and me (for writing about their corruption), — which was rented to the people they hated, into foreclosure. The Great Recession, the Southampton Attorney’s Office, the corrupt assistance from Westhampton Beach Village, did the rest.

I was given a choice. Agree to take a plea to Grand Larceny for $50 mlllion dollars for stealng money frm those poor banks which had molested America’s economy and go to prison — or we’ll make sure you are evicted from your New York apartkment and your wife will go to prison and your children will be wards of the State.

Meanwhile, Spota used one of my attorneys to purloin $4.1 million dollars from Steve Levy, the County Executive and convinced him to resign. Why? Because one of my attorneys was paying Levy off for title work. He and Spota entered into a non-prosecution agreement and my attorney Ethan Ellner was allowed to walk away from everything.

I was sent to prison.

But Ellner was stealing froim the immigrants. He stole money from them and arranged loans they couldn’t afford.

Ellner received no jail time for lying about the purchases I’d made to help the poor find housing. I rented new homes to them. But, I was the criminal. Not the banks, not the politicians, not the Code Enforcement, not the Town Attorneys not the Supervisor of Southampton, not DA Spota or Stavrides.

————————————————————————————————–

But, in a recent Newsday article, an investor has been accused of stealing and defrauding immigrants, Latinos, poor people — in the Hamptons:

“Hamptons real estate scam allegations mounted for years before state action…

“The accusations against him, first reported by Newsday in May, are one of the latest examples of alleged real estate scams disproportionately affecting Latino immigrants. Since 2016, at least 17 buyers have sued Michael O’Sullivan, alleging fraud or breach of contract in deals in which they paid over $5 million, according to a Newsday investigation. At least half the plaintiffs are Latino, including eight who say English is not their first language, according to court documents and attorney statements.Some buyers waited years for deeds that were never filed, while others said they were unaware their properties were in foreclosure.

…He was told by the district attorney’s office that it saw the cases as a civil matter.

Tania Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, declined to comment.”

In other words, folks, if you’re not conducting a Vindictive Prosecution to punish Freedom of Speech in the face of defending against corruption, it’s a Civil Matter. You can search apartments, publications, raid houses without a warrant, and imprison landlords — if you feel like it in the Hamptons!

Apparently, it was all really about how much money Spota and Stavrides could steal when they thought they could make millions from me, as they did with Steve Levy during the three years they delayed my case to torture me and my family, poison the jury pool, destroy my reputation, steal all of my assets, and connect with the criminals who owned the building I and my family lived in. It destroyed my health and damaged the health of my family.

But I had no money to fight them. I was too busy providing affordable housing and paying mortgages.

My actions were apparently not just a civil matter because I wasn’t paying off the District Attorney.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Donald Clark MacPherson True Crime novels: Prisoner of the Hamptons, A Civil Death in the Hamptons & Murder in SoHo

“Who is to decide which is the grimmer sight: withered hearts, or empty skulls?”
― Honoré de Balzac

 

Do you really give a shit about your neighbor?

Schadenfreude is not really a new concept? How about racism? Liberalism? Democracy?

As a friend of mine said recently, Conservatives have always hated the idea of equality or Fair play. It’s always been, take what you can get, fuck the Blacks and screw the immigrants — even when that meant italians and the Irish arriving by the boatload. This is not a kind or tolerant society.

Take the Hamptons, for instance — that lily-white bastion of New York escapees who located a Shangri-La near the beach where they could set up shop and rip off their own heritage. Most of the residents in the Town of Southampton, for example, came from families in Queens, Brooklyn the Bronx and Staten Island –with a few escapees from Manhattan who saw how Grand Theft works in practice, for example. Of course, now that generational progress has occurred, their children, card-carrying members of the Suffolk County Civil Service long-con stand on principle, not just Bridgehampton potato farmer families.

So, it was never a question of having to wait for the current environment of a police state mentality to surface. It was always there. Now, however, the gloves have come off all across America. Apparently we hate and distrust everyone and have been trying to hide our dislike of Blacks, Gays, Latinos, Democrats, Women, Transgenders and all Immigrants — except for Russians and others with lots of cash. Except, we wear masks now so that the real reason for past pretense of humanity need not be pretended any longer. We don’t, apparently really like anyone. It’s all always been about optics. Not just Conservatives, but Democrats, Liberals, Magas, and Whites. All bullshit, all the time.

Take the Supervisor of the Town of Southampton, Maria Moore, for instance, who recently sued The Shinnecock Indian Nation for Freedom of Speech — over signage.

I could have warned the Indians about that, who are mostly Black, since Africans took over the tribe when the redskins died out. After all it was the Town of Southampton that pursued me for writing about corruption and racism. Why should they get a pass? If it were up to the Republican Party, the party of Trump, Code Enforcement, the Southampton Secret Police, would just arrest them. Optics, baby! It’s still somewhat the name of the game — standing in for morality in this Best of all possible worlds!. Patrick Heaney of course, the former Supervisor of Southampton, and his Code Enforcement Police were in operation long before ICE became a popular form of Secret Police. They pushed the criminal D.A Thomas Spota and his prosecutor Stavrides to pursue what is known as Civil Death against me for writing about the corrupt Supervisor and criminal Town Attorneys operating out of that office — sitting atop more than $2 Billion dollars in purloined transfer tax money, known euphemistically as The Preservation Fund. It’s money taken from New Yorkers buying houses in the Fabulous Hamptons where you can get arrested for writing avout criminal politicians. Moore left Westhampton Beach after running out of development deals to enrich some of her local friends on the Zoning Board, Building Department, Village Trustees, Village Attorney and real estate investors. In Westhampton Beach Village, the new Most Corrupt Village in the Hamptons. A place where you pay to get any deal.

Screw the little people! Who needs affordable housing anyway?

But it’s not just the Hamptons that has foisted this little-hidden immorality. SoHo suffers from another perverse sort of predilection. Elected politicians serve their personal fiefdoms downtown, like Assemblymember Deborah Glick and Brian Kavanagh and Community Board #2 which has all but ignored SoHo — except for pandering to the bike fascists, Transportation Alternatives, the SoHo BID and the Hudson Square BID people — and ignore Seniors and the Disabled and perpetually line their pockets at the expense of residents. CB2 is so disinterested in the lives of non-members that I described a sex-trafficking operation run by my landlord to the Board Chairman and was laughed at.

Numerous accidents have occurred here downtown as well, hurting or killing residents. Criminal behavior by influential real estate interests are ignored by politicians and CB2. But nothing is done. Even Alvin Bragg’s press sidekick Fife and his A.D.A’s don’t give a shit about SoHo.

It is the morality of cash. In the Hamptons, the politicians are so obvious its not even necessary to point the finger. In fact, when Heaney was Supervisor they found cash in an envelope on the front seat of his car and they did nothing. In Westhampton Beach the Village Attorney Anthony Pasca has lied in legal proceedings to win cases for Village real estate interests and his law firm. In SoHo, its done by approved deals, secret, rushed votes, or intimidation as was the case when Bob Rinaolo threatened Community Board members to vote for his Nursing Home deal. Downtown we get Citibike racks instead of space for Seniors and the Disabled to safely cross the street or hail a taxi using a cane courtesy of the Community Board’s speedy unannounced votes and the Hudson Square BID, assisted by Trinity Real Estate. And, donations to campaigns are commonplace. Jobs are offered. Cash is handed out on occasion. Or, with more subtle politicians, such as Roy Cohn, Trump’s former mentor, it’s The Favor Bank.

The current morality in America is basically, Fuck You! We have money and power and you don’t. And we don’t care about you. We don’t care about optics anymore just like our president. We run the world and we we don’t care about anyone.

Including each other!

“Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.“

— Edward Abbey

Those of you who have neither been to Washington DC or worked in the South Bronx in the 1970’s, a State Psychiatric hospital or the Justice system in New York can be excused for realizing how bizarre the zeitgeist is right now. I’ve worked in all of them and what’s going on now is just stupid shit. Penny-ante fantasies created by schmucks who watched too many movies starring Bugs Bunny, co-starring Clarabell the clown. We were the Vietnam generation and none of my friends came back — with or without bone spurs.

Let’s face it, being kind to those in need has not exactly worked out. That’s the problem with liberalism. There’s a guy downstairs in my building, for example, sleeping on the steps where a Ukrainian Liquor store used to be and he sits there with a blanket over his head. He could be undercover ICE, for all I know. But, he’s not paying rent and I am — but being evicted because I’m a Christian and know that my landlord is running a criminal enterprise. He gave up sex-trafficking because his shill died and since he and his family stole the building, litigation against tenants is now his favorite pastime. The Real Estate Board and Trinity Real Estate have a poster of these criminals on their walls, for adulation.

But, that’s not my point. The point is, most of Washington has always been a shithole except for where the monuments and the money is. But does that qualify for sending blacked-out vans full of guys (Politico.com) who just did a casting call for Khandahar, picking up people, not answering questions, and taking them away to be interrogated by Stephen Miller or Witkoff, his downtown developer friend? Come on guys, bring Jared or Ivanka back — how about some style? Everybody downtown wears black — how about pink? Stephen Miller, Hegseth, Witkoff in pink? Now that scares me!

If you’re going to terrify everyone, even the Beastie Bois, just lay it out, man! Everybody, go home, watch Fox News, and shut the fuck up! None of this slow, creeping horseshit. You run everything, there’s only one political party — as it should be — and fuck the Democrats. They’re all useless anyway! They’re still telling each other that “All Politics is Local” bullshit while “All theft is local” is better — as special interests like the BIDS are stealing the sidewalks under their feet and the Community Board is sitting around calling each other “Honorable” and fucking the residents who don’t donate to useless politicians!

If you’re going to arrest them all, use the vacant tents for the immigrants that were sent up by Abbott and DeSantis still out in Floyd Bennet Field where they took out Sonny in the Godfather. And, guys, remember, Pacino wore great suits. Castellano got hit because Gotti knew how to dress right. Tell the Boss to start seeing the tailor on Baxter.

So, before you take over Manhattan, like Washington, clean up your act. The Bois downtown are used to this. If you send unmarked vans, blacked out windows, commandos dressed in black with Uzi’s, Sig Sauers, Tech 9’s and Glock 17’s — with masks and black burkas on — make sure you don’t say anything. They might think you’re dressed for a party in SoHo and sound like they’re a bunch of rubes from Toledo looking to impress. In fact, if you want them to get respect, tell them to shoot first, knife the immigrants, and bow to the Chinese on Canal Street if they want any decent food. The canolis aren’t as good as they used to be — you have to go to La Mela’s on Mulberry. And send guys from Brooklyn, they’ll get respect.

Stay Tuned.

“Politicians and diapers have one thing in common: they should both be changed regularly… and for the same reason.“

Naturally, in fighting the fascists, there certainly are no instances of corruption among God’s chosen protectors of Democracy, right?. All are White Knights, not the KKK version, of course. But, consider this. While the Republicans blunder and thunder through destroying our waning civil rights, all around us we are steeped in Democratically inspired and controlled corruption.

How can you say that — you say?

Well, in SoHo you need only look around to understand. You see, the Democrats are just sneakier about screwing you. Hiding behind organizations claiming to help us. Like the most recent fraud called the Hudson Square BID that doesn’t even answer the phone.

Our elected officials are no longer responsible or accountable. Assemblywoman Deborah Glick has been in office a long time. She keeps getting elected because she has a Village base, not because she does anything. Senator Kavanaugh got into office through a power play in Brooklyn — contrary to the will of voters. Schumer has his hands full in D.C. and Nadler is on his way to the golf course.

None of them want to face the power brokers who run Downtown.

It’s the Hudson Square BID, the SoHo BID, Trinity Real Estate, and Transportation Alternatives that run Downtown. They do what they want and answer to no one. And, the politicians don’t even answer the phone, an email, or a letter. They are unaccountable and don’t give a shit about anything but collecting money to get re-elected.

The Community Board, for example, never even brought up the fact that Downtown is being overtaken by Citibikes, bike racks, butchered streets and impediments to Seniors and the Disabled — pandering to BIDs that are power-players from elsewhere — without giving a damn about residents. The Community Board no longer represents the community, only its own campaign-donation self-service machine. The BIDS have bought the cooperation and fealty of the politicians and the Boards.

Fuck the residents!

We are overrun by bikes that hit us doing 40 MPH, we lose parking spaces to bike racks and junk installed by the BIDS, are ignored by NYPD and Traffic Agents, and interrogated rather than assisted by police after experiencing Hit & Run drivers — while the BIDS collect their extortion money allowed by do-nothing politicians.

The Hudson Square BID has a nice website but the vest park around the Holland Tumnel, the bike racks, the so-calle beautification — has replaced the gritty commercial anonymity with corporate gentrification that is self-serving and tone-deaf. Not to mention ignorance of what seniors and long-time resients want.

“The BID was unanimously approved as the 64th BID in New York City by the City Council on January 28, 2009. The BID is funded primarily through the payment of an annual assessment on commercial property with an annual budget of $3.2 million.”

President Samara Karasyk did not grow up among the “Tunnel Bunnies” and I can assure you that she is ignorant of the fact that 25 years after not being able to safely cross Canal or Broome Street, which I wrote about in 1999, the BID is disinterested — even though it is still true. Flowers are nice but the BID is a self-justifying, gratuitous fake.

Is it time to invite the fascist Clowns in and overturn this little club to clean up the corruption? Would taking over Manhattan, like Washington, be an answer?

Stay tuned.

“Politicians and diapers are often full of the same thing.”

— Anonymous

A criminal enterprise in government involves the use of political power or influence for illegal private gain, often through corruption and organized crime. This can manifest itself as embezzlement, extortion, exploitation of seniors or the disabled, and stealing from the disadvantaged or those without power or influence. Other forms of corruption may facilitate criminal activities like drug trafficking, money laundering or bribery in multitudinous forms. It can even involve the state itself acting against the public interest, potentially with impunity or the sanction of local courts. 

However, this concept is not limited to government alone. The Real Estate industry in New York City, for example is rife with corruption and distortion of the courts, lawyers and the laws that govern rental property. I experienced this myself when my landlord, a family of thieves, took over the ownership.

After bilking the former owners they proceeded to litigate every regulated tenant out of their homes using legal ploys which the court and expensive lawyers assisted. The City agencies, HPD, Buildings Department, all helped further the travesty. I spent everything I had to keep a roof over my family’s head — as the fraudulent litigation by Polish immigrant Mark Ramer sadistically continued for 7 years — pursuing me even while I was behind bars — after helping the convicted criminal DA Thomas Spota prosecute. This was all done in order to take advantage of luxury decontrol. Ramer spent half a miilion dollars to evict me and my family using money from the abused tenants.

This is what a modern day criminal enterprise looks like.

In the Hamptons, the current winner of the “Most Corrupt Hampton Village” award is Westhampton Beach. It should not surprise anyone at the explosion of real estate developments there. The infusion of cash by developers is astounding. Condos are proliferating. Of course, Affordable Housing in this Village and in the Town of Southampton is a rarity. No “Little people allowed here” except to clean toilets. In fact, my attempt at creating new affordable housing forced the Town and DA to imprison me for providing it.

Now that the former Mayor of Westhampton, Maria Moore, has arranged everything as she has moved on and is now the Southampton Town Supervisor and the Westhampton Mayor Ralph Urban is a real estate agent with the Zoning Board beholden and developers like Rubio among the Trustees — million dollar deals will proliferate. The inside deals will now roll on and bullshit will be spread around while the transactions proliferate — aided by Anthony Pasca as Village Attorney in the tradition of Goebbels, interpreting laws for the rich and powerful using lies and deceit. The new Hamptons.

The tradition of corrupt Southampton Town Supervisors and their cabal — like “Skip” Heaney, who worked with Town Attorney Joe Lombardo, convicted former DA Thomas Spota, now out of prison, and Thalia Stavrides, his prosecutor — remains intact.

Meanwhile the multi-Billion dollar Preservation Fund continues to bilk New Yorkers as a legal slush fund for local politicians to dip into when they need cash to pay off a cooperative friend — or friendly collaborator.

“Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.” Honore deBalzac

“Laws are like spiderwebs: they catch the weak and poor, but the rich can rip right through them.” Anarcharsis 6th century BC

” Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.”

–Honore de Balzac

Jimmy Burke, former Suffolk County Police Commissioner, A.D.A. prosecutor Thalia Stavrides, Deputy District Attorney Emily Constant, and about 15 Suffolk County police as well as NYPD escorts invaded our home in February of 2009. They closed off the Holland Tunnel entry street and alerted my landlord, criminals who were operating a sex-trafficking operation (which I had reported to the Chair of Community Board #2) under the nose of the NYPD so they could witness the spectacle along with reporters from major newspapers. Including John Sutter from The Villager which has since been sold to the Schnepps empire. Sutter, of course, had just done a deal with the Russian mob to sell air rights for the new SoHo Hotel and was ecstatic that my publication, The SoHo Journal, was being destroyed. The DA spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to turn me and my legitimate, but risky property investments — which were sabotaged by the Town of Southampton during the implosion of the greed and criminality of the banks during the Great Recession — into crimes, by perverting the laws that interpret what constitutes Grand Larceny. For a nefarious reason. The Town of Southampton helped along my Civil Death by telling my mostly poor tenants not to pay rent utilizing the Code Enforcement Police to handle the operation. If Affordable Housing was going to be provided, the Town of Southampton was going to provide it — or not. As long as the beneficiaries were white civil servant’s families.

Complaints were piling up on Southampton Town Supervisor Patrick Heaney’s desk from voters and retirees mainly from the Village of Hampton Bays where migrants were being forced to live in the woods due to neglect and the inhumanity of local politicians. The people renting my property through a local broker were getting new housing in this, the largest voting block in the Town. Somehow my plan, as a social worker and human being, to solve the Affordable Housing crisis was anathema to the Southampton politicians as well as the liberal elite hypocrites. It made them look bad. So they brought the problem being exacerbated by someone exposing the Town’s greed and racism — to the DA, Thomas Spota. He, too, was being exposed by my articles about corruption. I wrote about the Sentosa Nursing Home scandal, the Marty Tankleff prosecution championed by The Innocence Project and the pay-to-play judge stacking operation run by Spota and Frank McKay of the Independece Party. Feathers were being ruffled.

As this was occurring It was beginning to dawn on those in law enforcement in the Town of Southampton and in DA Spota’s office that something was going on with the proliferation of sex worker killings. Someone, or someones, were up to no good and the well-known misogyny was getting out of control. Perhaps, it was a cop. Maybe even someone Spota knew. He’d surrounded himself throughout his career with law enforcement and even his home existed among an enclave of police and sycophants. That the rampant misogyny was among one or maybe several actors — maybe even among law enforcement — seemed possible, especially since no progress was being made regarding the missing sex workers. Maybe this possibility was spilling over into serial murders. Was Gilgo becoming a known dumping ground for prostitutes?

Thus far there are two documentaries describing the absence of Spota’s investigating of these murders: Gone Girls and The Gilgo Beach Killer: House of Secrets — in addition to others about the girls themselves.

At that time, as an investigative journalist, social worker, and real estate investor in SoHo and the Hamptons, I’d written several articles, published a magazine, and had two blogs describing corruption and criminality in the Town of Southampton and in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office. I wrote several articles about Thomas Spota, the DA, his assistants, the Supervisor of the Town of Southampton, Patrick Heaney, its Code Enforcement apparatus, the Town Attorneys and Town Investigator David Betts, who, after being dropped by East Hampton due to a scandal, was offered the Southampton Republican Party Chairmanship. The current DA is also a member where my application to review the entire, fraudulent prosecution, was ignored until I simply withdrew it out of disgust over the continuing corruption.

Among my attorneys were Tom McVann, George Guldi and Ethan Ellner. Guldi was a legislator who knew where a lot of political bodies were already buried, including those from the Town of Southampton and the DAs office and who had made a run for DA himself. Naturally he’s now in Federal prison. Ellner, who already was a criminal unbeknownst to me at the time became a Rat for D.A. Spota and brought down Steve Levy, his friend and Suffolk County Executive, in order to buy a free pass out of prison. Although Ellner was already a criminal that never bothered Spota, like the Burke appointment which was shoved down Steve Bellone’s throat. Spota was always cozy with wiseguys and criminals in Suffolk County politics. Guldi is now in prison and Ellner disappeared once his mentors Thomas Spota and Detective Joseph Micelli extorted fake affidavits for the boss against me and went into hiding after extorting false confessions. McVann had been an A.D.A. under Harry O’Brien so he got nothing — zero — for being the Mastermind — which is what everyone should have gotten for not stealing but accepting money from from the criminal banks that destroyed the economy in 2009, like JPMorgan Chase.

But then, the Red Herring would not have distracted everyone. That was the point.

Among those whom I interviewed beginning in early in 2000 were local activists and politicians. I met with D.A. Robert Mortgenthau, Cy Vance and Eric Schneiderman and In the Hamptons I contacted political aspirants and interviewed law enforcement luminaries including Sheriff Vince DeMarco. Supervisor Heaney and Investigator Betts would not respond to my requests. The same was true of political operative Frank McKay, an associate of DA Thomas Spota, who together operated a pay-to-play judge picking scheme to solidify their power.

Stories began to seep out about a series of deaths involving sex workers while Spota was police counsel and began with the discovery of remains in the North Sea area of Southampton, a location where hunters unearthed the body of Sandra Costilla, 28, and where Town investigator Betts lives and has his private investigator business Columbo & Holmes. In 1996 partial remains of Karen Vergata, 34, a sex worker, were found on Fire Island but were not identified until 2022. Then, in 1997, partial remains of the unidentified woman they police called “Peaches” were discovered in West Hampstead and later identified as Tanya Jackson. Following this, in 2000, the skeletal remains of Valerie Mack, 24, were discovered in a wooded area in Manorville in the Hamptons. Jessica Taylor, 20, an escort, was also discovered there in 2003. Then, on July 9th in 2007 Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, a sex worker from Connecticut was discovered. On July 10, 2009, a few months after Spota began his Red Herring ploy against me, Melissa Barthelemy, a 24 year old sex worker, went missing on Long Island — and on December 11, 2010 her remains were discovered along Ocean Parkway.

On December 13, 2010 the remains of Costello, Brainard-Barnes and Waterman were discovered along Ocean Parkway as well. On May 1, 2010 Shannon Gilbert went missing in Oak Beach — Burke and Spota’s neighborhood — after making a 911 call that someone was after her and she ran off into the night. On June 6, 2010 Megan Waterman, a 22 year old sex worker, disappeared from her motel in Hauppauge — where the DA and Detectives have an office — after traveling from Maine. Amber Lynn Costello, 27, was last seen leaving her home in West Babylon for a sex work meeting on September 2, 2010.

It wasn’t until December 14, 2010 that SCPD Commissioner Richard Dormer announced that a serial killer was at work.

Brilliant work! So timely.

On January 2022 a new task force was announced by trhe D.A.s office to find the killer. D.A. Spota had dragged his feet for the entire time he was in office — including the time in the 1990’s when he was the lawyer for the Suffolk Country Police Department and later elected District Attorney and had James Burke placed as Police Commissioner.

Meanwhile, Guldi had made his opinion known that he suspected Spota had done nothing about the reported deaths and the apparent fact that a serial killer — using a favorite location for a few sexual predators — was at work. Among the possible predators the name of Jimmy Burke surfaced numerous times before, during, and after he was appointed the Police Commissioner, and was later picked up for having kiddy porn in his car and prosecuted for torturing suspect Christopher Loeb who had broken into Burke’s car and stolen the assorted debris. After 3 years in Federal prison and released Burke was again arrested for a sex crime in a Long Island park. You see a pattern here?

Given the fact that I and my family was prosecuted for attempting to solve the affordable housing problem in Southampton — where the politicians currently sit on more than $2 billion dollars basically extorted from NY City property buyers — via transfer taxes — (called the Preservation Fund) and exposing corruption, its no surprise that Spota needed to deflect attention away from Gilgo Beach and Burke and perhaps killers whom he knew personally.

The brazen criminal search of my apartment was only trumped by his invasion of my SoHo Journal publishing office a mile away, to which no one came to my aid that was both disappointing and illustrative of the fact that money buys justice. The Marion County Record in Kansas, for example, recently experienced a similar violation of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press and the Sheriff of that attack was prosecuted. Spota was prosecuted too and imprisoned but got nothing for my family’s gross violation and inconvenience supported by his prosector Stavrides, police and Town of Southampton politicians and Town Attorneys.

And as my wife described it, during the three hour search as she followed one Detective around and into our bedroom, past our sick children — he asked her “Are you afraid I’ll find something — she said, ‘No, I’m afraid you’ll steal something.”

Spota needed a distraction: A Red Herring.

So Spota decided to go after people who knew something, prosecute them, search for interviews and writings, deflect interest away from himself, his cronies, his assistants, his pals and deflect everyone from his incompetence and criminality after Brainard-Barnes was found but before Barthelemy was unearthed — because he knew what was coming down the road. He did nothing about the killings but made a 3 year splash prosecuting me and my family and spent a fortune keeping it in the so-called media. The Southampton Press not only printed anything Spota’s Goebbels-doppelganger Robert Clifford wrote, and provided every address of property I owned published along with a statement from Town Attorneys Joseph Lombardo who stated absurdly that “we’re not trying to put him (MacPherson) out iof business.”

Which, of course, was exactly what they were doing.

So Spota sent Detective Miceli and his goons to search my apartment and my publishing office, took my computers, records, interviews, and created a smokescreen in February of 2009. Then, Spota used his corrupt assistants and judges to extort a plea — before being sent to prison himself. I’d interviewed witnesses, judges, tenants, voters, informants, activists, criminals, and politicians — in and out of office. Spota needed my sources but never returned my political diaries or writing.

He had created a media event out of my legal real estate business which had been destroyed by the criminality of the banks and subsequent cover-up until the National Mortgage Settlement occurred — a $50 billion dollar deal which no one can now tell you about — or find the money. And Chase alone stole tens of thousands of dollars alone from me at the DAs direction. While I was doing time in prison for accepting CDO-generated money for collaterized mortgage, all of which were foreclosed upon thanks to the Town of Southampton seeking to get rid of poor tenants, Jamie Dimon was collecting $13 million dollar bonuses. The DA never found any of that $82 million dollars I supposedly stole because I had used it — to pay mortgages. Spota’s criminality went far beyond the mini-prosecution and the totally fictitious $50 million and then $82 million dollars. The Grand Larceny that never happened cost me nearly five years in prison.

This is how they get journalists.

But, now at least, one of the serial killers has been apprehended. And, the distraction is over. For now.

But not for my Civil Death. Even the Conviction Integrity Unit, operated by prosecutor Thalia Stavrides and current DA Gene Tierney continues the smell of fraud that started with Spota til this day with a cover-up. The DAs office refused to review a conviction that is pure criminality by that office. Spota now works in a law office after doing two years of a 5 year sentence, collects a $9000 a month pension, Social Security, and has $17 million in tbe bank according to Newsday.

If you’d like to know more about Burke and Spota read Jimmy the King.

Justice in the Town of Southampton and the DAs office is a continuing fraud.

Copyright: A Civil Death in the Hamptons. Soon to be published