Falsifying business records in the first degree is a class-E felony in the State of New York, carrying a possible prison sentence of four years. It’s not often a marquee charge. A few years ago, for instance, a teacher in the Bronx gave her principal a fake vaccination card, in a bid to get a day off to recover from the side effects. Charge: falsifying in the second degree. (She pleaded guilty, and it was knocked down to a violation after she completed community service.) The public, however, has got pretty jazzed about the crime recently. At the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse, at 100 Centre Street, people have been standing in line down the block, sometimes a day in advance, for a chance to see a case in person. Some observers have said that the fate of the country hinges on falsifying business records. What’s all the fuss?
The courthouse had two active falsifying cases the other day, before Judges Gregory Carro and Juan Merchan. Carro presided over courtroom 1300, part 32, on the thirteenth floor, off a corridor that looked as if the Penn Station basem*nt had decided it was too bright. A window was open in the back, through which resounded loud hammering from construction next door.
The court was called to order, and defendants began coming forward for pretrial hearings. One looked dazed. One was missing a leg. Someone’s cell phone rang in the gallery. “You gotta silence that phone!” an officer shouted. Every few minutes, a defense attorney, looking confused, walked the aisle yelling a client’s name.
At last, the falsifying case. The defendant was called forward. No one appeared. His attorney, Brian Hutchinson, found Assistant District Attorney Karl Mulloney-Radke in the gallery and whispered to him, “He’s in the bathroom. He’s nervous.” (Hutchinson said later that his client was a model citizen in court: “He’s stayed awake the whole time.”)
The defendant had been a New York City Health & Hospitals officer. According to prosecutors, a different officer had been escorting an inebriated man from Bellevue Hospital after discharge and had stomped on the man, then slammed him to the ground and left him there, apparently unconscious. The defendant was accused of holding the man down during the beating. Charge: official misconduct. Prosecutors said that he later filed paperwork about the incident which failed to mention the use of force. There’s your falsifying rap.
The defendant appeared after a few minutes: skinny, middle-aged, bald, with glasses and a blue mask. He wore jeans and carried a blue plastic shopping bag.
Carro said, “All right. What’s theoffer?”
“On this case, the people’s offer is for the defendant to plead to two misdemeanors,” Mulloney-Radke said. The D.A. was seeking two years’ probation, with a ban on employment as a peace officer in New York.
The defendant whispered to Hutchinson, who wore a black pinstripe suit and a purple tie. “He is interested in the offer, Judge,” Hutchinson said.
“The Assistant District Attorney is going to ask you some questions about the incident,” Carro said.
Mulloney-Radke addressed the defendant: “Do you admit that in New York County, on January 8, 2022, that with intent to defraud, you omitted to make a true entry in the business records of Bellevue Hospital, and, specifically, referring to a Health& Hospitals police-response card, you failed to report a use of force by another officer, in violation of your duty to do so? Do you admit that, sir?”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
“That’s satisfactory to the people. Thank you, Your Honor.”
The man walked with Hutchinson to the elevator bank and left with his shopping bag. Hutchinson stayed behind. What did he make of the falsifying charge? “My opinion is that the paperwork was a lot less egregious than the actions of the other co-defendant,” he said.
The case, which was handled by the D.A.’s police-accountability unit, had taken a long time to complete. “I’ve had one other case with them,” Hutchinson said. “That was related to an escape attempt. My guy”—who’d been arrested, held at Rikers, then hospitalized—“managed to get out of a fifth-floor window.” The man had allegedly shimmied down a makeshift rope he’d fashioned from tied-together sheets, before falling. “Got up and walked away,” Hutchinson added. “Managed to get a taxi.”
Hutchinson said he didn’t know that his case was just one of two falsifying-business-records matters at the courthouse, perhaps because the other one was adjourned for the day. It seemed interesting, though, involving a lot of counts of falsifying—thirty-four in all. Word was, the case was in the middle of testimony from a famous p*rn star, who’d told the court that she’d used a magazine to spank the defendant, who subsequently told her that she reminded him of his daughter. The defendant, a seventy-seven-year-old man originally from Jamaica Estates, in Queens, has thus far not pursued a plea deal.♦
