WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR MILESTONES. December 26, 2012: 

John Dolce longtime Commissioner of  Public Safety for the City of  White Plains through 2002, died Monday at the age of 83. 

A native of  New Britain,he was born June 27, 1929 the son of  Francis and Theresa Dolce. He  attended New York University on a football scholarship and finished college in three years, graduating from Adelphi University.

Dolce began his career with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, rising to  assistant special agent in charge of the New York field office.

In 1965, he accepted a position as the deputy public safety commissioner with the city of White Plains. He eventually became commissioner of public safety and served in the position until his retirement in 2002.

He married Lola Perazzo on Nov. 6, 1954.

Dolce is survived by his wife; two sons, John Dolce, of Virginia, and Timothy Dolce, of Yonkers; two daughters, Patricia Kelleher, of Brewster, N.Y., and Christine Wiseman, of Bethel, Conn.; a sister, Theresa Tancredi; and six grandchildren. He was predeceased by a daughter, Cathy Ann, in 1967.

Visitation is from 4 to 9 p.m. Thursday at McMahon, Lyon and Hartnett Funeral Home in White Plains. A funeral Mass will be celebrated at 10 a.m. Friday at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in White Plains. Burial will follow at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale.

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WPCNR FBI WIRE. From the Federal Bureau of Investigation. December 20, 2012:

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Peter Madoff, the former chief compliance officer and senior managing director of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC (BLMIS), was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for crimes stemming from a two-count superseding information to which he pled guilty that charged him with, among other things, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, tax fraud, mail fraud, ERISA fraud, and falsifying records of an investment adviser.

The overt acts in the conspiracy count also included, among other things, making false statements to investors about BLMIS’s compliance program and the nature and scope of its Investment Advisory business. Madoff pled guilty in June 2012. He was sentenced in Manhattan federal court by U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, “Peter Madoff was a gatekeeper, who was supposed to guard against fraud, but instead enabled it—facilitating his brother Bernie’s breathtaking scheme by falsifying compliance records and lying to both regulators and clients of BLMIS. The decade he will spend in prison and the disgorgement of his assets are a just result. Our efforts to hold to account anyone and everyone who played a role in this unprecedented Ponzi scheme continue.”

According to the superseding information to which Madoff pled guilty and other court filings:

Madoff was employed at BLMIS from 1965 through December 2008. Beginning in 1969, he became the chief compliance fficer (CCO) and senior managing director of BLMIS. In his role as CCO, Madoff created false and misleading BLMIS compliance documents, as well as false reports that were filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that materially misstated the nature and scope of BLMIS’s Investment Advisory (IA) business.

Specifically, in his capacity as CCO, Madoff created numerous false compliance documents in which he stated that he had performed compliance reviews of the trading in the BLMIS IA business on a regular basis, when in reality, the reviews were never performed. The false statements were designed to mislead regulators, auditors, and IA clients.

Further, in August 2006, BLMIS registered as an investment adviser with the SEC. As a registered investment adviser, on at least an annual basis, BLMIS was required to file forms with the SEC that are used as part of the oversight process of investment advisers.

Madoff was integrally involved with both the SEC registration process and in the creation of the forms, known as “Forms ADV,” which were materially false and misleading. The numerous false statements in the Forms ADV created the false appearance that BLMIS’s IA business had a small number of highly sophisticated clients and far fewer assets under management than was actually the case. Madoff also misrepresented that he, as CCO, ensured that reviews of the IA trading were being performed.

In addition, from 1998 through 2008, Madoff engaged in a tax fraud scheme involving the transfer of wealth within the Madoff family in ways that allowed him to avoid paying millions of dollars in required taxes to the IRS. Most, if not all of the “wealth,” came directly or indirectly from IA client funds held at BLMIS. The schemes in which he engaged also allowed Bernard L. Madoff to evade his tax obligations. The methods by which Madoff engaged in tax fraud included the following:

• Madoff received approximately $15,700,000 from Bernard L. Madoff and his wife,and executed sham promissory notes to make it appear that the transfers were loans, in order to avoid paying taxes;


• Madoff gave approximately $9,900,000 to family members, and in order to avoid paying taxes, executed sham promissory notes to make it appear that the transfers of these funds were loans;


• Madoff did not pay taxes on approximately $7,750,000 that he received from BLMIS;


• Madoff received approximately $16,800,000 from Bernard L. Madoff from two sham trades, and disguised the proceeds of the trades as long-term stock transactions in order to take advantage of the lower tax rate for long-term capital gains;


• Madoff charged approximately $175,000 in personal expenses to a corporate American Express card and did not report those expenses as income.

Madoff also arranged for his wife to have a “no-show” job at BLMIS from which she received between approximately $100,000 to $160,000 per year in salary, a 401(k), and health benefits to which she was not entitled.

In December 2008, when the collapse of BLMIS was virtually certain, Madoff agreed with others to send the $300 million that remained in the IA accounts to preferred employees, family members and friends. BLMIS collapsed before the funds were ever disbursed. On December 10, 2008, one day prior to BLMIS’s collapse, Madoff also withdrew $200,000 from BLMIS for his personal use.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. From the Superintendent of  Schools, White Plains City School District. December 18, 2012:

The Superintendent of Schools announced Monday on school district websites he would be meeting with the Mayor and the Commissioner of Public Safety on safety issues this week. The Mayor’s Office has not returned WPCNR’s queries on whether such meetings would be held to review security with all schools, including private schools in the city.

Dr. Christopher Clouet issued the following letter Monday to elementary school parents and posted it on the School District Middle School and High School websites commenting in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings of  26 last Friday:

We are all saddened by the tragic events of Friday, December 14th at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. Be assured school safety continues to be our highest priority.

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Pursuant to federal immigration law, in order to obtain asylum in the U.S., aliens are required to show that they have suffered persecution in their country of origin on account of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group, or have a well-founded fear of persecution if they were to return to that country.

The process requires an application that is reviewed by an asylum officer with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, who makes an initial determination whether to grant asylum. If asylum is denied, the case is referred to an Immigration Judge, who receives testimony from the applicant and hears argument from the applicant’s attorney.

The schemes alleged in today’s Indictments involved the submission of hundreds of fraudulent asylum applications on behalf of Chinese aliens by law firms in the Chinatown area of Manhattan and Queens.

The defendants—lawyers and employees at 10 different law firms and their co-conspirators—including translators who work at an asylum office, profited by creating and submitting asylum applications containing false stories of persecution purportedly suffered by alien applicants. The defendants who worked at the law firms also provided the asylum applicants with educational materials related to their fabricated claims and coached the applicants to lie in their interviews with immigration authorities.

To perpetuate these schemes, the law firms made up stories of persecution that often followed one of three fact patterns: (a) forced abortions performed pursuant to China’s family planning policy; (b) persecution based on the client’s belief in Christianity; or (c) political or ideological persecution, typically for membership in China’s Democratic Party or against followers of Falun Gong.

Typically, non-lawyer employees at the law firms, acting at the direction of the attorneys, prepared the false asylum applications and coached the clients on how to lie in their interviews with immigration authorities. A translator provided by the law firms usually accompanied the client to the interview and falsely translated any answers provided by the applicant that did not conform to the fabricated story presented to the asylum officer.

In some cases where the client was not actually a Christian but was claiming persecution based on religious affiliation, an employee at one of the law firms referred the client to a church in Queens to receive training in the basic tenets of Christianity and to obtain certificates proving that he or she belonged to the church.

If an application was denied by the asylum officer, an attorney from the law firm assumed representation of the client before an Immigration Judge. In advance of the hearing, the attorney would typically meet with the client to prepare him or her for the hearing. At these preparation sessions, the attorney frequently instructed the client on what to say to ensure that nothing was said that contradicted the story that the law firm had fabricated. At the hearing, the client would falsely testify under oath in response to the attorney’s questioning about the fictitious story of persecution.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated,

“Our asylum laws exist to provide a safe haven in the United States to immigrants subject to persecution in their own countries for exercising freedoms fundamental to a democracy. As alleged, these defendants, including six attorneys and a church employee, exploited those laws by weaving elaborate fictions on behalf of hundreds of would-be asylum seekers, coaching them on how to lie on their applications, stepping in when they went off script, and lying to immigration judges at court hearings. Asylum fraud imposes a tremendous burden on the system and it also makes it more difficult for those who are legitimately seeking refuge in this country.”

FBI Assistant Director in Charge George Venizelos said, “The defendants allegedly conspired criminally to exploit the safe haven our nation provides for asylum-seekers. They aided and abetted immigrants in falsely claiming to be victims of persecution. Some of the defendants are officers of the court who have violated the canons of their profession as well as the law. Others, including a church employee, used religion like a fake passport or phony ID—a perversion of religious freedom. The FBI is committed to policing unscrupulous exploitation of the asylum process.”

NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, “Those who allegedly exploit the government’s asylum process for profit potentially put the country at risk by enabling the immigration of people with false identities and unknown histories. While the NYPD is not investigating individual applicants for asylum, detectives will work with their federal partners to arrest anyone who exploits the system at others’ expense and potentially blocks legitimate asylum seekers from access to better lives in the process.”

USCIS New York Asylum Office Director Patricia A. Menges stated, “I want to thank the FBI and the NYPD for helping us protect the asylum program against exploitation and fraud so that we may again concentrate on those in need of protection.”

* * *

All 26 defendants are charged with conspiring to commit immigration fraud. Five defendants are also charged with substantive counts of immigration fraud and two defendants are charged with identity fraud in connection with the sale of fake Chinese birth certificates. A chart containing the names, ages, and residence information of the defendants charged in each of the nine indictments is attached.

In United States v. Ken Giles, et al., both defendants face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. In United States v. Freddy Jacobs et al., both defendants face a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. In United States v. Liying Lin, a/k/a “the Deacon,” the defendant faces a maximum penalty of 35 years in prison. In United States v. John Wang, et al., two of the four defendants face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. The remaining 19 defendants face a maximum penalty of five years in prison.

Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the FBI, the NYPD, and USCIS.

This investigation was initiated upon a referral by the New York Asylum Office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Department of Homeland Security.

The prosecution is being handled by the Office’s Organized Crime Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Harris Fischman and Robert Boone are in charge of the prosecution.

The Charges contained in the indictments are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

United States v. Feng Ling Liu, et al.

United States v. Ken Giles, et al.

United States v. Freddy Jacobs, et al.

United States v. John Wang, et al.

United States v. Yong Zhang, a/k/a “Tom,”, et al.

United States v. Xu Lu, et al.

United States v. Liying Lin, a/k/a the “Deacon”

United States v. Xiao Feng Xu

United States v. Xia Ping Wen, a/k/a “Wendy”