Friends of Ours

Manhattan DA Studies Lying Lawyers

How do you know when a lawyer is lying?

His lips move.

Lawyers are known as liars, and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has commissioned a study to get to the bottom of it as reported by Jacob Gershman for The Wall Street Journal:  "more than a thousand judges and lawyers have been asked to fill out a confidential online survey seeking their help 'in assessing the prevalence, significance, and effect of perjury and false statements in the New York County civil justice system.'"

To ask the question is to know the answer.

Further reading that may be of interest:

Congress Must Investigate The Trial Lawyers

Ex-Mobster Gets 5 Years For Murder Lie

Anthony Colandra will get five years pursuant to a plea deal with federal prosecutors for lying "about his role as a trigger-man in a double-hit during the Colombo crime family's bloody factional war two decades ago" as reported by Mitchel Maddux for the New York Post:  "Brooklyn federal prosecutors say that Colandra was part of a hit team -- and one of two gunmen -- who carried out the bloody killing of renegade Colombo crime-family member John Minerva, who was shot dead along with a friend, Michael Imbergamo."

Apparently Colandra renounced the mob shortly after the murders, became a DEA informant and now enjoys church life.

FBI Targets Miami Cops

Several cops in Miami, FL may face federal charges for their suspected roles in providing protection services to a gambling ring that operated out of a Liberty City barber shop as reported by The Miami Herald:  "officers frequented the barber shop so often that one gambler told county police he thought the place was being run by the Miami Police Department, court records show."

Meanwhile, in an unrelated ongoing corruption trial, Sgt. Raul Iglesias who once led a team in the Miami Police Department's Crime Suppression Unit, is accused of planting drugs on suspects, stealing from dealers and lying to investigators as reported by The Miami Herald.

View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.

Bronx Jury Acquits One Brother, Convicts Another

Brothers Frank and Peter DiTommaso were accused of lying before a grand jury about free work on a home renovation for one-time NYC police commissioner Bernie Kerik, and a Bronx jury has acquitted Frank but convicted Peter as reported by Dan Beekman for the Daily News.  Kerik is serving time in a federal facility on corruption charges, and was called by Bronx prosecutors as a "reluctant witness" at the DiTommaso trial where the former top cop testified that the DiTommaso brothers did not pick up the $250,000 tab which was in seeeming contradiction of his 2009 allocution as reported by Douglas Montero and Dan Mangan for the New York Post:  "in his two separate guilty pleas, Kerik said the brothers' New Jersey-based Interstate Industrial Corp. and its subsidiaries paid for work done on his Riverdale apartment in 2000."

Bernie Kerik Clears DiTommaso Brothers

Bernie Kerik, the one-time NYC police commissioner who pled guilty to accepting free work on a home renovation, now says that his former friends Frank and Peter DiTommaso did not pick up the $250,000 tab as reported by Douglas Montero and Dan Mangan for the New York Post:

In his two separate guilty pleas, Kerik said the brothers' New Jersey-based Interstate Industrial Corp. and its subsidiaries paid for work done on his Riverdale apartment in 2000.  * * * The DiTommasos are on trial on perjury charges in The Bronx for telling a grand jury that Interstate didn't pay for the work.  "Absolutely not," Kerik said, when asked by a DiTommaso lawyer whether the brothers ever even discussed the renovations with him.

The stunning reversal may set Kerik up for a perjury charge in connection with his 2009 allocution before a federal judge, and save the DiTimmaso brothers from a guilty finding by the jury at their ongoing trial.

Kerik is "the key witness against" the DiTommaso brothers, and he "had been forced by prosecutors to testify" as reported by James Ford for WPIX