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 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”

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WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT. Statement from Heartsong, Inc., White Plains. December 17, 2012:

Marion Anderson, Executive Director of  Heartsong, an organization that has been working with austic children for twenty years, currently serving 175 youngsters at their location in White Plains, and 150 students in school programs throughout Westchester County and Brooklyn, contacted WPCNR today to crticise media reports linking the Newtown attack to the possibility the shooter had an autistic diagnosis.

Ms. Anderson and Allegra Themmen, Clinical Supervisor at Heartsong told WPCNR that reports on CNN and in the Washington Post have linked the Newtown shooter to an autistic diagnosis by hearsay reports. In a statement to WPCNR Ms. Anderson and Ms. Themmen write:

 It is unfortunate that the news media has stated that Adam Lanza was Autistic and that the diagnosis somehow was a factor in making him a mass murderer.

We are very passionate about our work and the children and families that we serve. We are appalled that these children are being misrepresented in such a negative light. We find that this population of children, adolescents and adults in no way have the capacity to plan and execute such a heinous act.

,

Allegra Themmen, LPC, MT-BC

Clinical Supervisor

Marion Anderson, Ms.Ed.

Executive Director

www.heartsong.org

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WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. By John F. Bailey. December 14, 2012:

Westchester County will not make its budgeted sales tax projection for 2012, missing projection at this time by $4 Million.

The new 2013 budget just passed anticipates that overall county sales tax receipts will increase about 3.5% to $476 Million, generating a county share of $376 Million of those receipts the county shares with the towns.

The county will generate $460 Million in sales tax receipts in 2012, (if the County pace of 2% growth in sales taxes through the first eleven months continues through December).

The $460 Million falls $4 Million short of the county 2012 budget projection of $464,763,517 in sales tax revenues. The $460 Million figure is not too shabby. The figure approaches the county record sales tax handle of $462.9 Million in 2007.

Going into December, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance reports Westchester County has received $411,066,686.92 in receipts.

If shoppers in December continue their present 2% pace, the County will generate $955,865 more sales tax dollars than it did in December 2011 ($47,793,228), for a total of $48,749,093. To hit the $464 Million budgeted sales tax receipts target, taxable sales in December would have to go 10%.

If that 2% trend does sustain itself this December, it will come within $975,000 of the all-time record December county sales tax collection of $49.7 Million in 2007. 

If that $49 Million figure comes in, the county will generate $459,815,779 in sales tax revenue, leaving a $4 Million gap in the county budget this year in its share of the County sales tax.

According to Ned McCormick, County Director of Communications, the official press release on the new county budget issued in November,budgeted $364 Million for its share of the sales tax receipts for this year (2012). The present 2% trend indicates the county will be about $4 Million short of that.

McCormick told WPCNR the new 2013 Westchester County budget calls for a 3% increase in county share of sales tax receipts from $364 Million (the county government share of the county sales receipts it shares with the towns)to $376 Million.

The new county 2013 budget anticipation of sales tax revenues of $376 Million would require the countywide sales tax receipts to rise to approximately $476 Million, a gain of 3.5% over 2012, where sales tax receipts have averaged 2% a month.

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From the Westchester County Board of Legislators. December 13, 2012 (EDITED):

County Board of Legistors Leader, Ken Jenkins acknowledged Thursday in a news release that if the budget process were to be procedurally “cleaned up,” the outcome would still be the same, with the Republican-led, Astorino-fed budget being approved. Nonetheless, Jenkins called on BOL Minority Leader Jim Maisano (R-New Rochelle) to meet with him as soon as possible to work on legally approving the budget. He stopped short of suggesting any legal action to stop the budget.

Two Democratic leaders of the Westchester County Board of Legislators maintained that the 2013 County Budget presumably passed by legislators aligned with County Executive Rob Astorino is procedurally flawed, and additionally warn there are tremendous negative implications for county residents and business owners if it stands.

“We have looked at the budget document closely and reviewed the manner in which it was supposedly passed by our colleagues on the Board, and our conclusion is that the result is flawed because of potentially disqualifying procedures during its enactment,” said BOL Chairman Ken Jenkins (D-Yonkers). “Important questions will need to be answered before County leaders can unequivocally say that they have reached a satisfactory and final conclusion in the budget process.” 

“Still, this budget is not right for Westchester, and it sets forth a number of dangerous precedents for the county’s residents and business owners,” added Jenkins. The Democratic caucus intended to send the County Executive’s budget back to the BOL’s Budget & Appropriations Committee to make modifications based on discussions between the BOL leadership and the Astorino Administration, as the two sides were only $15 million apart on a $1.7 billion budget.

Chief among these “dangerous precedents” is the decision to finance operating costs with bonding and the funding cuts in the neighborhood health centers, child care subsidies, youth services and senior nutrition programs.

“Residents will be put at risk by these cuts—this is what the experienced professionals in the safety net sectors told the Board of Legislators time and again during the public hearings on the budget,” said BOL Majority Leader Pete Harckham (D-Katonah). “Trying to save a few dollars when lives are at stake is bad policy.”

Also, the elimination of funding in the Republican-led, Astorino-fed budget for safety net jobs and programs means drastically reduced services that “will end up costing County taxpayers much, much more in the long run—anyone knows that,” said Harckham. “This Tea Party-type approach to cutting safety net services will make it even harder for our low-income workers to remain on the job and our seniors to grey in place.”

The budget additions and deletions proposed by the BOL Democratic caucus would have resulted in the same zero percent increase in the County tax levy as the Republican-led budget—and an even more fiscally responsible plan for 2013 by not borrowing for tax certioraris and pension costs.

“Every financial analyst around knows that borrowing for annual operating costs is how municipalities race to fiscal ruin,” said Jenkins. “What really protects the County’s triple A bond rating is fiscal prudence, like smart spending and cost cutting to keep taxes down while maintaining a healthy tax base.”

The argument against the BOL’s suggested use of $11 million from the fund balance—that it imperils the County’s AAA bond rating—is a smokescreen for reckless budget cuts, said Jenkins, who noted that the Astorino Administration already used millions from the fund balance this year to pay a pension bill and has notified the BOL that it will need an additional $8.8 million from the fund balance by the end of December to “even out” the 2012 books. Further debate would have to the identification of additional revenue sources.

“All in all, the Republican legislators’ budget, which actually emanated from the County Executive’s office, is no real improvement on what the County Executive first proposed,” said Harckham. “It’s still cruel, still fiscally irresponsible and chock full of political pork. Any budget that approves retaining over fifty political patronage jobs and funding slots for forty more political pals at the expense of over a hundred hard-working experienced professionals should not be tolerated by the people of Westchester. The County Executive and his partners on the Board of Legislators need to explain why political pork is more necessary than the well-being of our residents. So far, that argument is missing.”