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N.Y. Defense Attorney Found Guilty of Bribery, Attempted Witness Tampering
New York Law Journal
August 21, 2009
Attorney Robert Simels was convicted Thursday of 12 felony counts -- including bribery of a witness, attempted witness tampering and conspiracy to commit witness tampering -- stemming from his efforts to prevent potential witnesses from testifying against his client, Guyanese drug-smuggler Shaheed "Roger" Khan.
Simels was acquitted of only the least-serious charge against him, making a false statement to a corrections officer in order to visit an inmate.
Simels' former associate, Arienne Irving, was convicted of five of 11 counts, including attempted witness tampering and conspiracy to commit witness tampering.
"The defendants' crimes were an affront to the criminal justice system," Eastern District U.S. Attorney Benton J. Campbell said in a written statement Thursday. "This case demonstrates that those who seek to use their license to practice law as license to commit crimes will be brought to justice."
When Simels was indicted last September, he ranked among the city's better-known defense attorneys, with a roster of clients that had included mobster Henry Hill (of "GoodFellas" fame), drug-trafficker Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff and former New York Jet Mark Gastineau,
Irving, a 2003 law school graduate, had worked as Simels' associate since December 2006.
Both defendants now face maximum sentences of life in prison and almost certain disbarment. Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a sentence of about 12 1/2 to 15 1/2 years for Simels, according to prosecutors. They have yet to calculate the recommended sentence for Irving under the guidelines.
In a 10-day trial before Eastern District Judge John Gleeson that began on July 27, the lawyers were charged with colluding with a cooperating witness to bribe and tamper with other witnesses.
Surreptitious tapes recorded by the cooperating witness, in which Simels talked about the need to "neutralize" and "eliminate" witnesses, served as the centerpiece of the prosecution's case.
At one point in the recordings, Simels told the cooperator that he should do whatever he needed to do to silence the key witness, short of killing the witness' mother.
"Don't kill the mother," Simels warned the witness, a member of Khan's gang, the Phantom Squad. "[Khan] doesn't want you anywhere near her ... . The government would go crazy. [They'd] put him into the, the SHU special housing unit, limit his phone calls, limit my access to him. So ... "
After more than six days of deliberations, the Brooklyn jury came back Thursday morning with note number 47, reporting that it had a verdict.
The jury addressed the charges against Simels first. Simels leaned forward onto the defense table, staring directly ahead at the jurors.
As the foreman reeled off guilty verdict after guilty verdict for Simels, his co-defendant, Irving, dropped her face into her hands, knowing that the verdicts boded poorly for her. When the foreman turned to Irving's verdict sheet, and began by pronouncing her guilty of the first and most serious count, conspiracy to commit witness tampering, Irving's hands and head slumped to the table.
