BY DAN FRIEDMAN
Also included in the discovery
are IRS 1040 forms by Bennett Orfaly, a partner in the restaurant. Feds have
said Orfaly is close Anthony (Fat Tony) Morelli, a capo in the Gambino crime
family captain, which Grimm, as an FBI agent, was once briefly assigned to investigate.
Rep. Michael Grimm calls the
case against him a “political witch-hunt.” If that’s true, it looks like a
well-documented one.
Evidence against Grimm includes
texts and emails between Grimm and cooperating witnesses, three years of
Grimm’s financial disclosure reports in Congress and tax returns by a former
Grimm business partner linked to the Gambino crime family.
In a hearing Monday in federal
court in Brooklyn, Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony Capozzolo said the
government is turning over more than 7,000 documents and 8,000 emails
supporting the charges against Grimm.
The Staten Island Republican
faces 20 counts including wire fraud, tax evasion, perjury and hiring of
undocumented workers at a Manhattan health food restaurant, Healthalicious,
which he partly owned from 2006 to 2010.
The Daily News has reported
that Ofer Biton, an Israeli who had a stake in the restaurant and helped Grimm
raise money for his 2010 congressional campaign, and a former Healthalicious
manager, Manuel Perez, have cooperated with feds against Grimm after coping
pleas.
A former Grimm accountant,
Wayne Muratoe, testified before a grand jury days before Grimm’s indictment.
But a May 19 letter from the
prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York listing evidence that is being
turned over adds detail on how Grimm’s former pals helped the government indict
him for cheating on taxes.
The preliminary list of
evidence includes emails between Grimm and a “Healthalicious manager,”
“documents provided by a cooperat[ing] witness,” and “records provided by a
Healthalicious employee.” Also listed are “text messages between Grimm and a
cooperating witness.”
The list of evidence indicates
a seemingly straightforward federal case. Prosecutors plan to prove Grimm
maintained a false set of books and lied in financial filings. They will
contrast the phony forms with material provided by cooperating witnesses, and
with Grimm’s own statements in texts and emails.
Prosecutors are turning over an
extensive list of financial documents. Those include years of tax, health and
labor filings by Healthalicious and its parent company, Granny Sayz, records of
Grimm’s personal finances, the restaurant’s accounts, bank account and credit
card records and financial disclosure forms Grimm filed in Congress from 2009
to 2012.
The documents show that
prosecutors obtained warrants for, searched and analyzed “two cellular
telephones” during their investigation.
Also included in the discovery
are IRS 1040 forms by Bennett Orfaly, a partner in the restaurant. Feds have
said Orfaly is close Anthony (Fat Tony) Morelli, a capo in the Gambino crime
family captain, which Grimm, as an FBI agent, was once briefly assigned to
investigate.
Grimm, who faces an uphill
reelection fight against against Democratic challenger Domenic Recchia, also
won a judge’s permission to skip future court appearances.
The Congressman looks likely to
face voters before confronting a jury.
District Court Judge Pamela
Chen set the next hearing in the case for July 21. She said she’ll declare a
“complex case” due the amount of evidence and number of charges. That
designation will slow proceedings.
Grimm and his lawyers indicated
no plans on Monday to try to speed up the trial to obtain a verdict before
Election Day on Nov. 4.