Sunday, July 14, 2019

Governor Cuomo Announces Power Fully Restored After Manhattan Blackout


Tours Substation that Caused Outages with Con Ed Chairman John MacAvoy 
Directs PSC to Investigate Incident
Deploys 200 Troopers to Assist Traffic on West Side During Outages

  Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced power has been fully restored following a widespread power outage in Midtown Manhattan. Following a briefing on site, the Governor toured the substation that caused the outages with Con Edison Chairman John MacAvoy. The Governor deployed 200 Troopers on the West Side to help direct traffic during the outages and to be assigned to other locations as necessary. The Governor has also directed personnel from the Office of Emergency Management, fire protection and control and the Public Service Commission to be deployed to locations without power. 

"While power has been restored, there are still some traffic signals that are out, so we would not encourage New Yorkers to go out if you don't have to go out," Governor Cuomo said. "I want to commend all the emergency workers who did a fantastic job. The NYPD, the State Police, the State Power Officials, all the emergency workers. This could have been much worse. When you're talking about a city like New York with a significant piece of the city, basically suffering a blackout, that could be a very chaotic situation. We saw the exact opposite, actually. We saw New Yorkers at their best."  

"While this situation was luckily contained, the fact that it happened at all is unacceptable," Governor Cuomo continued.  "I have directed the PSC to do a full and thorough investigation into the cause of tonight's blackout and we will hold all parties accountable in ensuring this does not happen again."

As the result of an issue with a transmission line, a widespread blackout occurred in midtown Manhattan and part of the Upper West Side. At its peak, the number of customers without power reached approximately 72,000, and subway service was disrupted on the A, C, D, F and M lines. The Governor directed the State Police, the MTA and the Public Service Commission to deploy personnel and resources to respond to the incident and remain in constant communication with Con Ed. The Governor also directed the Department of Public Service to investigate the cause of the outages.

MAYOR DE BLASIO HOLDS MEDIA AVAILABILITY ON MANHATTAN BLACKOUT


  Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good afternoon, everybody. The incident last night, which had a very big impact on a part of Manhattan, went on for about five hours. You’re going to hear in the course of this press conference a lot of detail about what we do know, about what happened, and how it proceeded, how it was addressed. I want to say up front, you’re going to hear a lot specifically from Con Ed, and they will tell you everything that they can confirm at this point. There’s a lot more information to come because we need to go through a very exhaustive, careful investigation to understand exactly what happened. So, I want to level set from the beginning.  You’re going to get a lot of detail but there’s still a number of answers we’re going to need to make sure that something like this never happens again.

What we do know – and it’s not about the machinery – what we know, first of all, is the way that New Yorkers responded. New Yorkers are absolutely the strongest, the toughest, the most resilient of any people anywhere. And when adversity shows up, New Yorkers deal with it in an amazing way. So, as we saw – and we’ve seen it in other situations as well – people immediately looked out for each other, made sure that anyone who needed help was getting it. It was another moment to be proud of this city – the way people handled it. And thank God the incident last five hours only, but during those five hours New Yorkers distinguished themselves.

And also, crucial to say, and I’ll probably say it several times – our first responders did an absolutely exemplary job. Pressed into service in large numbers, very quickly, making sure that folks stuck in elevators were rescued, making sure that folks on those two subway trains were brought to safety, making sure that traffic was controlled. An amazing job by FDNY, NYPD, Emergency Management, DOT – so many agencies immediately deployed because they have been preparing for situations like this and they knew what to do and they brought a huge amount of personnel in to do it. But I want to thank all of our first responders. There’s a lot of people in this city very, very grateful to them right now for the exemplary effort yesterday.

Now, at this point, there’s something that’s important to say and it’s a very good thing. No injuries. No hospitalizations reported to this hour. We hope and pray it stays that way. Again, the exact duration, almost to the minute – five hours from the first incident becoming clear that it was something substantial until when all power was restored. There are no remaining disruptions to traffic or transit. Things are back to normal with both traffic and transit.

Very quickly, OEM, under its new leader who I’ll introduce in a moment stood up the command center. Key city officials, leaders of the first responder agencies gathered. The Elevator Task Force was activated. That is a pre-planned initiative to get people out of elevators. FDNY did that superbly with a large number of situations. The protocol to check on vulnerable people was activated. Because of the relatively short duration it wasn’t needed in any way in its fullest. But what we do now – and we learned this lesson during Sandy, during Hurricane Sandy – is we have lists of buildings where there’s people who need special help. That protocol was activated. Some people were reached and then the incident was over. 

So, we, as in every situation, are going to fully analyze every detail, working with Con Edison. All pertinent City agencies are going to work closely with Con Edison to figure out exactly what happened, exactly how we can make sure it does not happen again. We’re also going to review all of the response to look for any lessons we can learn about how we can do that even better in the future.

Now, the investigation is going to look at the root cause but I want to say upfront the one thing that we are as certain as we can be at this moment about is this was not a cyber-attack and this was not act of physical terrorism. When I got the news, the first calls I placed were to Commissioner O’Neill and to Commissioner Criswell, and they quickly confirmed not just on behalf of the NYPD but on behalf of our federal security partners that there was no evidence whatsoever of any nefarious activity in this situation. 

I was just at the Con Ed Diagnostic and Restoration Center. They have done a very good job moving quickly to secure the situation. I want to thank everyone at Con Ed for their quick efforts here. They are going to be part of systematically trying to understand exactly what happened so, again, we can avoid it in the future and we will assist in every way. 

I am mindful that this happened at a point where there was relatively low energy usage in the city. And that’s one of the other things you’ll hear from President Cawley but that’s one of the things that does not look like the cause. It was not a massive energy need, electricity need driving this. It was actually a pretty low level amount of energy being used yesterday compared to some other times. We’re very mindful that later this coming week it’s going to get up into the 90s. We’re going to work closely with Con Ed to make sure all the redundancy is in place to ensure that as it gets hotter Con Ed’s going to be able to handle that. 

Commissioner Deanne Criswell, Emergency Management: Thank you, Mayor. Good afternoon, everybody. Again, my name is Deanne Criswell, and just a little bit of an update of the things that we did yesterday. So, as you heard it started at 6:47 pm and by just before midnight we did have all power restored. We did show that there was at a peak just close to 73,000 customers that were without power within six networks. And MTA subway lines did face multiple service disruptions but they all have been restored. All of the traffic signals have been restored and one hospital, Mount Sinai West, was also in the area that was impacted but they did quickly switch to generator power and they are now back on grid power.

What we did was we activated our Emergency Operations Center and we brought in 20 representatives from City agencies to work in the Emergency Operations Center through the night and into the morning until we had confirmation from Con Ed that the system had been stable. We also brought out our Incident Command Center where we were able to coordinate here on scene to make sure we were sharing information in a timely manner. 

As it is right now, all systems have been restored. We have gone back to normal operations. All of our personnel are still monitoring and we’re working closely with Con Ed as they continue to look into the cause of this and making sure that if anything does happen through the next week that we are prepared to respond as well. 

Police Commissioner James P. O’Neill: Good afternoon, everybody. So, at 18:47, that’s when we were first notified. We did a mobilization so we brought additional police officers into the affected areas. Initially it was the 2-0 and parts of Midtown South. That composed – in the end, ended up deploying over 400 police officers, 16 of them being from our Emergency Services Unit. They were part of the Elevator Task Force. We brought in, also, an additional 100 traffic agents. 9-11 initially, there was a little bit of a problem, there was a little bit of a backup, a more than 30 second delay, but that was cleared up by 2000 hours. As the Mayor spoke about, there were two trains that needed assistance getting into the stations. One being 8-6 and Broadway, and one being 5-9 and Columbus – and that was affected about 2,800 passengers. 

We had a major event obviously in Madison Square Garden, and working with Madison Square Garden personnel we were able to safely evacuate everybody else from that event. The only issue is that we did have to pull resources from around the city. We did bring in Strategic Response Group, Critical Response Command, but we also brought in a car from each precinct from around the city. So that’s a little bit of an issue on a busy Saturday night for us but power was restored and everybody was sent back to their commands after midnight. Thank you very much.

No, we deployed pretty quickly. Every borough, every precinct has a plan – a blackout plan. We have a number of different plans, and it's going to take a little bit of time, especially if we’re bringing people all over the City. So, I appreciate New York and I appreciate New Yorkers. And when it’s happened in past, people stepped up to the plate, helped to keep traffic moving. So, I just want to thank all New Yorkers for last night. We got through safely and I want to thank to men and women in the NYPD for doing another terrific job.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro: Thank you. As you can see around us, we live in a vertical city and especially where this was affected most is a particularly vertical part of the city. So we had more than 400 stuck elevators when this occurred and our – the efforts of the Fire Department members, NYPD, ESU, we were able to get people out of each and every one of those elevators and some of them were quite difficult involving breaching and blind shafts. But everyone was removed safely. Calls spiked, as Commissioner O’Neill said, as soon as this happened. We noticed that call spike. We brought in fire apparatus, EMS units from our other boroughs. We held EMS units over that were going off tours and at the height of this we had 93 additional ambulances here in Manhattan to handle the call volume so that by the time this event ended, there was only one call in the city holding which is less than on a typical Saturday night. So, I think our members reacted quite quickly, they reacted quite well, and they took care of the people in this area of the city and thankfully it was all over by midnight.

President Tim Cawley, Con Edison: Good afternoon, all. So, I’ll start off by saying we sincerely regret the power disruption and the impact it had on the lives and businesses of the people of this great city. I’ll talk a little bit about the event, how the restoration went, and then importantly, the actions we’ll take to understand why it happened really in effort to reduce the likelihood moving forward. 

So, as was mentioned – 6:47 pm last night our operators, the system saw at our West Side Transmission Station a number of breakers open up effectively de-energizing the neighborhoods surrounding that West Side station. And in reaction to that, we go about first understanding what the status of the condition is and then developing a restoration path to get the customers back in lights. So, that involves both inspections of substations and other equipment, a quick visual inspection to what the nature of the equipment is, and more importantly we do a lot of data analysis. There’s relays and voltage and current readings and we put that together, we can understand what equipment is healthy and is ready to go back and what equipment is more questionable to go back.

And the robustness of the system particularly at this time of year in the weekend in Manhattan is that we don’t need to restore all of the equipment to restore all of the customers. So, we – after going through that analysis, we established a path back and by a little after 11:30 pm last night we were able to restore all six of those networks and 72,000 customers. 

We left off some equipment that requires additional testing before we see its fit for service and fit for duty and some of that equipment may need repairs. Notwithstanding the fact that some of that equipment in a few cases might need repair, the cascading or sort of the widespread nature of the failure is really what we’re going to dig into on the root cause analysis. So, we’ll understand how individual equipment components operated but more importantly we’ll understand the dynamic of the grid and why a failure – if it turns out to be – on one component led to a much wider impact on the system 

So last night the focus until just before midnight was assess the damage, determine a restoration path back, and execute on that path. And like I said in a little less than five hours we accomplished that. We immediately turned to lessons learned analysis, understanding with reams of data what the system configuration was at the time of the incident and sort of back casting and learning what was the key driver and how could we prevent it moving forward. 

That will take some time to do. I can tell you we know some things, as was mentioned. We have no indication at all that this was involved in cyber in any way or a physical attack. In terms of loading or demand on the system, it was a warm evening last night but in terms of the peak demands that Manhattan exhibits on those hottest weekdays, the demand was very low. So, loading of equipment was not an issue at all. In fact, as I said we were able to restore all the customers while leaving some equipment out of service. So, we’ll really focus on that lesson learned analysis. 

I want to especially thank the emergency responders, many of whom are represented here and our employees who worked diligently to restore the power. And equally, I’d like to thank New Yorkers – calm, poised, through a very difficult situation. We understand what that is and really appreciate the maturity with which New York approached it with calm and poise. The collaborative effort with the State and the City was really what it should be and allowed us to provide the restoration that we did. Thank you. 

Mayor de Blasio: No, it's a combination of things. First, again, understanding is this something that's going to be resolved immediately or not. It was knowing that it was going to take quite a while to get back, so I was going to have to provide guidance wherever I was, which is what any leader has to do, and I was doing that with conversations directly with the Police Commissioner, with my Chief of Staff, with Commissioner Criswell. I want people understand that this job, and any public CEO today, you have to take charge wherever you are, and I did that. But in terms of the decision, as soon as it became clear we did not have an immediately resolvable crisis, I started moving. 

President Tim Cawley, Con Edison: Yeah, so there would be theories. I can tell you that the failed circuit is a 13,000-volt feeder. They fail – we have a lot of them and they, they fail on occasion, and we have a lot of maintenance and replacement programs in place to mitigate that, to sort of identify where the most risky areas – the riskiest areas are. But really, to think a 13 KV feeder translate to the transmission system is sort of a nonstarter. Our team will look at everything, because it happened in and around the time. But it might – the reverse potentially could be true, but that being the cause of the backup to the transmission system is really a nonstarter. 

Yeah, and that's the distribution circuit failure that I talked about. So, when that fails, sometimes there's an arc and a flash. To have that cause the [inaudible] power system is really a nonstarter. It's possible that – possible, that the loss of the grid might've caused something to happen as that was happening, but it wouldn't back up that way. 

I don't have the details on the impact, but the MTA system, like other systems, if they lose power and a part of their auxiliary systems rely on power, they're going to be impacted. And I think that's what happened. We've done some investment in the MTA and I think it's yielded good results. We've upgraded infrastructure, feeding those services. We've set up a location where we could quickly connect emergency generators in short order under a contingency. So, I don't have the details, but if you have a widespread power outage and systems rely on power, you're going to have impact. 

So, in 2003, there was the big northeast blackout, and that started elsewhere and impacted us, not really our grid, and we had to restore there. The last event that was like this, I think was 2006 for less than two hours customers in – the event started in Queens, and it was basically a relaying operation where breakers opened too aggressively and isolated customers for about 90 minutes. So, from 2006 to today – you know, 13 years – we haven't had this happen. It's one of the things we try to design for both with capacity and resiliency in our designs. And so, we think the grid is sound. We are certainly going to learn everything we can about this event, and if there are lessons learned that we can apply moving forward, we will.

 So, it ranges from transformers, to auxiliary equipment on transformers. And this is really – on the initial pass, in those first few hours, the operators and technicians are pulling in data and assessments from the field on the physical look of the equipment and saying this stuff is all good to go back based on the data and the visual. This may be good to go back, but we don't need it, so let's pursue this path. And, as a result, we got the lights back on by midnight. 

So, what we know now is that a large transmission substation, that is basically a ring bus – a ring that feeds out to these neighborhoods that were impacted – that transmission substation, large portions of it became de-energized. And when that substation became de-energized, it had no ability to serve those neighborhood networks. So we had to restore that ring at the major substation. What we are going to go after in our root-cause analysis is why did that ring bus, that major transmission distributor open up and fail last night at 8:37 – 6:37. Midtown on the West Side. It's at 49th Street. 

Senior Vice President of Central Operations Milo Blair, Con Edison: I'm Milo Blair, I’m the Senior VP of Central Ops, responsible for electric transmission. It extended from 30th Street on the south to 72nd Street from Fifth Avenue – some parts of the Fifth Avenue and back to the [inaudible]. So, all the folks that the area was affected. But, as you said, it was 70,000-meter customers. So, anyone in that area at that particular time – 30th to 72nd, Fifth Avenue to the river. 


Wave Hill events July 25‒August 1


Thu, July 25
Join a Wave Hill Garden Guide for a public tour of seasonal garden highlights. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 1PM

Fri, July 26
Join a Wave Hill Garden Guide for a public tour of seasonal garden highlights. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 1PM

Sat, July 27
Join the Family Art Project in honoring Mandela Day for what would be his 101st birthday! Nelson Mandela’s own words tell us that “It is in your hands to make the world a better place.” Together, we’ll design the gardens of our dreams, imagining what they could be used for. Using origami, paper-cutting, and other paper-art techniques, we’ll create vibrant gardens that reflect the spaces we imagine for our future. Free, and admission to the grounds is free until noon.
Wave Hill House, 10AM–1PM

Sat, July 27
Tour the exhibition Figuring the Floral with an exhibiting artist and a Wave Hill horticultural interpreter, then venture out into the gardens to see how some of the flowers are used symbolically by the artists to express representations of identity. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Glyndor Gallery, 2PM

Sun, July 28
On Sundays through July, enjoy the gardens as the setting for your yoga practice as your find your breath and become connected to the landscape. Classes are led by certified Yoga Haven instructors. All levels welcome. Please bring a mat and be on time. This class is rain or shine; the rain location is Glyndor Gallery. $25; Wave Hill Members save 10%. Registration suggested, online.
On the Grounds, 9:30‒10:30AM

Sun, July 28
Join the Family Art Project in honoring Mandela Day for what would be his 101st birthday! Nelson Mandela’s own words tell us that “It is in your hands to make the world a better place.” Together, we’ll design the gardens of our dreams, imagining what they could be used for. Using origami, paper-cutting, and other paper-art techniques, we’ll create vibrant gardens that reflect the spaces we imagine for our future. Free with admission to the grounds.
Wave Hill House, 10AM–1PM

Sun, July 28
Join us at this artist talk with Kate Bae and Curator of Visual Arts Eileen Jeng Lynch about her installation in the Sunroom. Bae’s immersive installation consists of flowers created from layers of acrylic paint. They drape from the ceiling into a wishing well that encourages visitors to reflect, toss coins or float paper origami boats. The landscape evokes the ecosystem of Mount Halla on South Korea’s Jeju Island, a holy symbol of the unification of South Korea and North Korea. Free with admission to the grounds.
Glyndor Gallery, 2PM

Sun, July 28
Join a Wave Hill Garden Guide for a public tour of seasonal garden highlights. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 2PM

Sun, July 28
Join us at this artist talk with Riad Miah and Curator of Visual Arts Eileen Jeng Lynch about his installation in the Sun Porch. Miah creates a multi-part installation of double-sided, oil and acrylic, rectangular paintings on Dura-Lar. He traces light throughout the calendar year to portray a sense of time, with each piece representing a single month. Incorporating the colors and atmosphere of the landscape, the work explores the artist’s continued interest in light as a medium. Free with admission to the grounds.
Glyndor Gallery, 3PM

Tue, July 30
Tour Glyndor Gallery with Wave Hill’s Curatorial Fellow or Gallery Greeter to get an insider’s view of current exhibitions. The exhibition Figuring the Floral features artists who employ flowers to explore representations of identity—constructing narratives on race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and aging. The exhibition includes paintings, collages, drawings, sculptures and an outdoor installation. In the Sunroom, Kate Bae’s immersive installation consists of flowers created from layers of acrylic paint. They drape from the ceiling into a wishing well. The landscape evokes the ecosystem of Mount Halla on South Korea’s Jeju Island, a holy symbol of the unification of South Korea and North Korea. In the Sun Porch, Riad Miah creates a multi-part installation of double-sided, oil and acrylic, rectangular paintings on Dura-Lar. He traces light throughout the calendar year to portray a sense of time, with each piece representing a single month. Free with admission to the grounds.
Glyndor Gallery, 2PM

Wed, July 31
Join a Wave Hill Garden Guide for a public tour of seasonal garden highlights. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 1PM

Wed, July 31
Drawing influence from Mariachi, Mexican Cinema, American Bluegrass, Magical Realism and the Mexican Corrido (story-ballad) tradition, Rana Santacruz tells stories of magical worlds through his multifaceted and unique sound. Born and raised in Mexico City, Rana first found success there in the late ‘90s with his alt-rock band La Catrina. But when the group failed to score a radio hit, Rana turned his back on a major label-record deal to release his own music on his own terms, and moved to Brooklyn in 2002. With access to world-renowned musicians and a large talent pool, Rana released his solo debut, Chicavasco,  in 2010. Chicavasco put the critics on notice, and won him a coveted Tiny Desk Concert on NPR Music. Free with admission to the grounds. Special evening admission starts at 4PM. $12 general adult admission; $8 student and seniors 65+; $6 children ages six+. Purchase admission online by 4pm day of event and save $2. Free to Wave Hill Members and children under age six. No guest passes or reciprocal admission accepted.
On the Grounds, 7PM

Thu, August 1
Join a Wave Hill Garden Guide for a public tour of seasonal garden highlights. Free with admission to the grounds.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 1PM

Thu, August 1
Ambient, experimental, New-Age sound pioneer Laraaji takes us on a listening journey to deeply relaxing and inspiring live sound realms, featuring the innovative sound of electric zither, soaring vocals and nature sounds. In the early 1970s, Laraaji’s music, life and career shifted after he started studying Eastern mysticism and took a zither he purchased in a pawn shop and converted it into an electric instrument. From there, his experimentations grew and by the late 1970s, Laraaji started busking with his new sound on the sidewalks of New York. Brian Eno discovered Laraaji in Washington Square Park and released “Ambient 3: Day of Radiance,” the third installment of Brian Eno’s Ambient Series. Today, Laraaji is a pioneer in composing works for meditation, deep listening and experimentalism. Free with admission to the grounds. Special evening admission to the grounds starts at 4PM. $12 general adult admission; $8 student and seniors 65+; $6 children ages six+. Purchase admission online by 4PM day of event and save $2. Free to Wave Hill Members and children under age six. No guest passes or reciprocal admission accepted.
Glyndor Terrace, 7PM

Thu, August 1
Sunset casts its warm but fleeting glow and fragrant, night-blooming plants lure passers-by. Join Horticultural Interpreters Charles Day and Alison Filosa for a garden walk and experience Wave Hill’s gardens in a whole new way as day transitions into night.Twilight in the Garden event. This event is free with admission to the grounds. Special evening admission starts at 4PM. $12 general adult admission; $8 student and seniors 65+; $6 children ages six+. Purchase admission online by 4PM day of event and save $2. Free to Wave Hill Members and children under age six. No guest passes or reciprocal admission accepted.
Meet at Perkins Visitor Center, 7:30‒8:30PM

A 28-acre public garden and cultural center overlooking the Hudson River  and Palisades, Wave Hill’s mission is to celebrate the artistry and legacy of its gardens and landscape, to preserve its magnificent views, and to explore human connections to the natural world through programs in horticulture, education and the arts.

HOURS  Open all year, Tuesday through Sunday and many major holidays: 9AM–5:30PM, March 15–October 31. Closes 4:30PM, starting November 1.

ADMISSION – $10 adults, $6 students and seniors 65+, $4 children 6–18. Free Saturday and Tuesday mornings until noon. Free to Wave Hill Members and children under 6.

PROGRAM FEES – Programs are free with admission to the grounds unless otherwise noted.

Visitors to Wave Hill can take advantage of Metro-North’s one-day getaway offer. Purchase a discount round-trip rail far and discount admission to the gardens. More at http://mta.info/mnr/html/getaways/outbound_wavehill.htm
  
DIRECTIONS – Getting here is easy! Located only 30 minutes from midtown Manhattan, Wave Hill’s free shuttle van transports you to and from our front gate and Metro-North’s Riverdale station, as well as the W. 242nd Street stop on the #1 subway line. Limited onsite parking is available for $8 per vehicle. Free offsite parking is available nearby with continuous, complimentary shuttle service to and from the offsite lot and our front gate. Complete directions and shuttle bus schedule at www.wavehill.org/visit/.

Information at 718.549.3200. On the web at www.wavehill.org.

Two Men Sentenced To Life In Prison For 1997 Double Murder In The Bronx


  Geoffrey S. Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that ROBERT ACOSTA and JOSE DIAZ were sentenced in Manhattan federal court today.  Both men were sentenced to life in prison for their roles in the December 22, 1997, murders for hire of Alex Ventura, 25, and Aneudis Almonte, 20, in the Bronx, New York.  The defendants were convicted following a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, who imposed today’s sentences.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said:  “As the jury found, Acosta and Diaz committed two brutal murders in the Bronx more than 20 years ago.  As a result of the skill and determination of our law enforcement partners, the defendants will now spend the rest of their lives behind bars for their horrible crimes.”
According to the evidence presented during the trial:
In the 1990’s, ROBERT ACOSTA was the leader of a large-scale drug trafficking organization that distributed hundreds of kilograms of cocaine out of several buildings in northern Manhattan.  In the summer of 1997, the murder victims stole drug money from ACOSTA.  To retaliate, ACOSTA hired JOSE DIAZ to kill both men. 
On December 22, 1997, DIAZ and a co-conspirator (“CC-1”) lured the victims to an apartment building in the Bronx, ambushed them in a stairwell, and murdered them both.  CC-1 stabbed Almonte six times, including once in the chest.  DIAZ shot Ventura in the head from point-blank range.  In exchange for these murders, ACOSTA paid DIAZ approximately $12,000.
Mr. Berman praised the outstanding investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York Police Department, and the Special Agents of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Three Bronx Men Charged With 2014 Murder


  Geoffrey S. Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and James P. O’Neill, Commissioner of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), announced a superseding indictment charging THERYN JONES, a/k/a “Ty,” a/k/a “Old Man Ty,” a/k/a “Tyballa,” 42, GYANCARLOS ESPINAL, a/k/a “Fatboy,” a/k/a “Slime,” 25, and ARIUS HOPKINS, a/k/a “Scrappy,” a/k/a “Scrap,” 25, with the January 2, 2014, murder of Shaquille Malcolm, 20.  JONES was arraigned on the superseding indictment yesterday.  ESPINAL and HOPKINS were previously arraigned on the charges.  The case is assigned to United States District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. 

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said:  “As alleged in the superseding indictment, the defendants are responsible for the murder of 20-year-old Shaquille Malcolm.  Now, thanks to the outstanding work of our partners at the NYPD, the defendants have been charged with this terrible crime.”
NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said:  “The ability of investigators to bring about justice for Shaquille Malcolm and closure to his family is paramount.  The identification and arrest of the suspects in this case was a team effort that is the result of the cooperation that exists between the NYPD and our law-enforcement partners.  I thank and commend the NYPD investigators and the prosecutors for the Southern District of New York for their work in this investigation.”
According to the Superseding Indictment[1]
In 2013 and 2014, JONES, ESPINAL, and HOPKINS were involved in the distribution of crack cocaine and heroin in the Allerton section of the Bronx.  Because Malcolm and others were encroaching on JONES’s drug territory, and because Malcolm had previously assaulted ESPINAL, JONES and ESPINAL paid HOPKINS and another person (“CC-1”) to murder Malcolm.  On January 2, 2014, HOPKINS and CC-1 shot Shaquille Malcolm multiple times in the stairwell of an apartment building located at 2818 Bronx Park East in the Bronx, New York.  Malcolm died at the scene.
The Superseding Indictment charges the defendants in three counts: using a firearm to commit murder in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime and aiding and abetting the same (Count One); murder while engaged in a conspiracy to distribute 280 grams and more of crack cocaine and aiding and abetting the same (Count Two); and conspiring to commit murder for hire (Count Three).  All three defendants face a maximum sentence of life in prison or death.  The statutory maximum penalties are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant would be determined by the judge.
Mr. Berman praised the outstanding investigative work of the NYPD.
 The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
[1] As the introductory phrase signifies, the entirety of the text of the Indictment and the descriptions of the Indictment constitute only allegations, and every fact described should be treated as an allegation.

Former Operator Of Bitcoin Investment Platform Sentenced For Securities Fraud And Obstruction Of Justice


  Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that JON E. MONTROLL, a/k/a “Ukyo,” was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman to 14 months in prison.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said:  “Jon Montroll lied to his investors and, after his lies caught the attention of the SEC, lied to them, too.  The sentence he received serves as a reminder that this Office will not overlook those who violate their obligation to be honest with investors and the regulators working to protect them.”
According to the Information, the allegations in the Complaint, and statements made during the proceedings in Manhattan federal court:
JON E. MONTROLL operated two online bitcoin services:  WeExchange Australia, Pty. Ltd. (“WeExchange”) and BitFunder.com (“BitFunder”).  WeExchange functioned as a bitcoin depository and currency exchange service.  BitFunder facilitated the purchase and trading of virtual shares of business entities that listed their virtual shares on the BitFunder platform.
Between the launch of Bitfunder, in or about December 2012, and at least in or about July 2013, MONTROLL converted a portion of WeExchange users’ bitcoins to his personal use without the users’ knowledge or consent.  For example, MONTROLL exchanged numerous bitcoins taken from WeExchange into United States dollars, then spent those funds on personal expenses, such as travel and groceries.
Beginning on or about July 18, 2013, MONTROLL promoted a security referred to as “Ukyo.Loan.”  As described by MONTROLL in a public post about Ukyo.Loan, MONTROLL encouraged investors to “think of [Ukyo.Loan] as a sort of round-about investment” in BitFunder and WeExchange and, at the same time, described Ukyo.Loan as “a personal loan” and “for private investment purposes.”  MONTROLL further promised to pay purchasers of Ukyo.Loan daily interest on their investment and promised shares could be “redeemed at face value anytime upon request.”
During the summer of 2013, one or more individuals (the “Hackers”) exploited a weakness in the BitFunder programming code to cause BitFunder to credit the Hackers with profits they did not, in fact, earn (the “Exploit”).  As a result, the Hackers were able to wrongfully withdraw from WeExchange approximately 6,000 bitcoins, with the majority of those coins being wrongfully withdrawn between July 28, 2013, and July 31, 2013.  As a result of the Exploit, BitFunder and WeExchange lacked the bitcoins necessary to cover what MONTROLL owed to users.
Notwithstanding the scope of the Exploit, MONTROLL failed to disclose the Exploit to users of BitFunder and WeExchange, or investors in Ukyo.Loan.  Instead, MONTROLL continued to promote and sell Ukyo.Loan to customers and, on at least one occasion, falsely represented to customers that BitFunder was commercially successful.  As a result of his omissions and misrepresentations, MONTROLL raised approximately 978 bitcoins through Ukyo.Loan after his discovery of the Exploit.
The SEC’s New York Regional Office began an investigation into BitFunder and the Exploit.  During the course of the investigation, MONTROLL provided the SEC with a falsified screenshot purportedly documenting, among other things, the total number of bitcoins available to BitFunder users in the WeExchange Wallet as of October 13, 2013.  Additionally, during sworn investigative testimony on both November 14, 2013, and October 6, 2015, MONTROLL provided materially false and misleading answers to certain questions about, among other things, the timing of MONTROLL’s discovery of the Exploit.
In addition to a prison sentence, Judge Berman ordered MONTROLL, 38, of Saginaw, Texas, to serve three years of supervised release and to pay forfeiture in the amount of $167,480.
Mr. Berman praised the outstanding work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  He also thanked the Securities and Exchange Commission, which previously filed civil charges against MONTROLL in a separate action.

Comptroller Stringer Audit Uncovers Lagging Enforcement by DCWP of the City’s Earned Sick Time Act


NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) failed to ensure employers paid required restitution to 38 percent of the workers in the audit sample
DCWP did not enforce the late fees agreed to by employers in consent orders
when employers delayed or reneged on their agreements to pay workers

Comptroller Stringer recommends DCWP improve enforcement and increase transparency by tracking and publicly reporting the number of employees who actually receive sick leave restitution payments, and amounts received,
as a result of its investigations

  New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer released a concerning new audit that uncovered the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), the agency responsible for enforcing New York City’s Paid Sick Leave Law, failed to ensure employers paid required restitution to 38 percent of workers in the audit sample, under the city’s Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA). Although DCWP successfully investigated numerous ESTA complaints and negotiated restitution orders with employers, the agency failed to ensure that 872 of the 2,313 employees in the audit sample actually received their sick time payments from their employers. ESTA, also known as the Paid Sick Leave Law, went into effect in April 2014.

The Comptroller’s audit found that DCWP’s tracking and pursuit of the restitution payments employers agreed to pay to their workers were insufficient to ensure the workers were properly protected. The ESTA was intended to give relief to workers across the city by granting the right to use sick leave for the care and treatment of themselves or a family member.
“Treating our city’s workers with the dignity and respect that they deserve is not an optional principle to be embraced on an ad hoc basis – it’s the required standard in the City of New York. That means the City must ensure employers fulfill their legal obligation to pay their employees fair wages, including paying for sick time off,” said New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer. “While the Earned Sick Time Act was a major step forward, our City government needs to step up to the plate to properly enforce the law and ensure fairness for workers. Enforcement of the Earned Sick Time Act isn’t a multiple choice question – it’s the law – and it’s imperative to ensuring the healthy work culture that makes New York City a more desirable place to raise a family. The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection must do a better job of holding employers accountable and protecting our city’s workers.”
Comptroller Stringer’s audit of DCWP’s enforcement of ESTA found:
  • Out of a sample of 31 ESTA cases, DCWP negotiated consent orders with 15 employers and obtained an administrative order against 1 additional employer that together required the 16 employers to pay restitution to 2,313 employees for ESTA violations, but the agency had no evidence that 38 percent of those employees—872 individuals—had ever received the restitution payments, totaling $202,972, to which they were entitled.
  • The audit found no evidence that DCWP took any action to pursue the overdue payments.
  • The agency did not impose late fees when employers failed to document the restitution payments even though those late fees were agreed to in DCWP’s consent orders.
  • DCWP did not report the amounts of money employees actually received in the Mayor’s Management Report (MMR).
  • DCWP failed to take timely actions on 28 of the sampled cases, some of which included significant time gaps in the investigative process.
Comptroller Stringer’s audit included a series of recommendations to ensure DCWP is fulfilling its mission of protecting the rights of all of the city’s workers, particularly by ensuring accurate record-keeping of payouts to employees. The recommendations included:
  • DCWP should improve its tracking capacity by developing lists of restitution amounts ordered, paid, and past-due to employees for sick leave.
  • DCWP should take additional steps to ensure employers are complying with ESTA if there is evidence that a fine has not been paid or an employee has not received a required payment, for example, by sending letters to employers and filing petitions with the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH).
  • DCWP should consider all available legal remedies if an employer does not comply with ESTA, such as referring the issue to the City Law Department for legal action.
  • DCWP should develop methods that more effectively provide evidence that employers are complying with ESTA and employees have received the payments to which they are entitled.
  • DCWP should enforce its negotiated late fees when employers fail to timely pay an employee the amount due.
  • DCWP should collect and maintain sufficient supporting data and documentation and consider publicly reporting the number of employees for whom it secures sick leave payments—and the amounts they receive—in the MMR.
To read Comptroller Stringer’s audit of NYC DCWP’s enforcement of the ESTA, click here.