- Last Updated: 4:32 PM, June 11, 2013
- Posted: 3:45 PM, June 11, 2013
Now he’s calling the judge a liar.
Convicted former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. is demanding a review of surveillance tapes and other records from a Brooklyn courthouse to determine a judge’s whereabouts while a jury was deliberating his fate.
Espada said that on May 14, 2012 a federal judge barged in on a jury and urged them to reach a verdict, and he wants a new trial.
But Judge Frederic Block insists that he wasn’t even in the building, even though two jurors said they spoke to the judge during deliberations.
It is rare for a judge to meet with jurors without a court reporter or lawyers for both parties present.
"There's an issue of credibility,” Espada said after filing a motion,
yesterday, requesting the judge's key card history, courthouse
surveillance video and phone records.. “There's an issue of fact of
whether he was in the building. I say he was, let's resolve that.
"My family has been devastated. My finances have been devastated. I've lost my reputation. I didn't grow up in the south Bronx, homeless, a teen father, to go out this way. It matters to me what my 11 grandchildren read 20 years from now."
Espada, who was convicted of tax evasion and of looting his non-profit health company in the Bronx, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
He faces 10 years in prison, and must repay $450,000 that prosecutors say he fleeced from the Soundview Healthcare Network to pay for his lavish lifestyle.
Espada’s motion asks for Block’s swipe card log.
“The jurors statements are very specific that the incident that they are talking about occurred prior to any verdict,” Espada said in the motion..
Convicted former state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. is demanding a review of surveillance tapes and other records from a Brooklyn courthouse to determine a judge’s whereabouts while a jury was deliberating his fate.
Espada said that on May 14, 2012 a federal judge barged in on a jury and urged them to reach a verdict, and he wants a new trial.
But Judge Frederic Block insists that he wasn’t even in the building, even though two jurors said they spoke to the judge during deliberations.
It is rare for a judge to meet with jurors without a court reporter or lawyers for both parties present.
AP
Pedro Espada Jr., right, and his son Pedro Gautier Espada, left, leave a courthouse in New York.
"My family has been devastated. My finances have been devastated. I've lost my reputation. I didn't grow up in the south Bronx, homeless, a teen father, to go out this way. It matters to me what my 11 grandchildren read 20 years from now."
Espada, who was convicted of tax evasion and of looting his non-profit health company in the Bronx, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday.
He faces 10 years in prison, and must repay $450,000 that prosecutors say he fleeced from the Soundview Healthcare Network to pay for his lavish lifestyle.
Espada’s motion asks for Block’s swipe card log.
“The jurors statements are very specific that the incident that they are talking about occurred prior to any verdict,” Espada said in the motion..
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