In The News

Several lawyers who are appointed to indigent federal defendants through the CJA Panel have told the Daily News that many of their checks had also gone missing or been stolen in recent years.

Still, one CJA panel lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, bristled at the idea that his fellow defense attorneys would press for prison time.

“I’m a little disappointed in my brethren,” he said. “I happen to think that prison doesn’t fix almost anything … There has to be better societal fixes than the prison system.”

The Appellate Division, Fourth Department, last month affirmed State Supreme Court Justice Paul Wojtaszek’s August 2023 decision to vacate the convictions of Brian Scott Lorenz and James Pugh. A jury convicted Lorenz and Pugh in 1994 of murdering Deborah Meindl, 33, in her home on Franklin Street in the City of Tonawanda in February 1993. The District Attorney’s Office plans to submit an application for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeals. In court, prosecutors said they are “definitely retrying” the case. Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma responded that they are either “bluffing or seriously misguided.” 

James Pugh, Mr. Lorenz’s co-defendant, was released on parole in 2019. But the trial judge and an appellate judge in Rochester refused to intervene to release Mr. Lorenz pending another possible trial. In late June, his lawyers asked the chief judge of the Court of Appeals, New York’s highest court, to intervene. A spokesman said the court would “decide the motion at a future session.”

Ilann Maazel, one of Mr. Lorenz’s lawyers, called his client’s continued imprisonment a “Kafkaesque nightmare” that is “intolerable, unconstitutional and wrong.” 

During trial, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma portrayed Mr. Wang as a gregarious academic with nothing to hide.

“In general, fair to say he was very open and talkative with you, right?” the defense attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma asked an undercover agent who approached Wang in 2021 under the guise of being affiliated with the Chinese security ministry. “He was,” said the agent, who testified under a pseudonym.

Wang and his defense did not deny that he communicated with the Chinese agents, but said his communication was largely benign, and did not contain sensitive information. “I think we showed pretty effectively at the trial that what he was doing … did no harm to the United States or to anyone here, said Wang’s attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma. “I stand by what he said, that he’s pro-democracy and against the Chinese government,” he said.

Outside the courthouse, principal attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said that he respected the verdict but did not believe Mr. Wang acted will ill intent. “He certainly didn’t mean to hurt anyone. He spent his life fighting the communist regime and, you know, life is complicated.”

“He’s devoted his life to promoting a free democratic china through peaceful means,” he said in his opening statement to the jury, “It was for democracy – it was not as an agent of the Chinese government.”

Attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma explains that the government continues to stall on discovery disclosure.

Attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma was asked to comment on sex offender registry levels and how they relate to the arrest of a Rochester man.

“A program that institutionalizes lawbreaking by authorizing DEA agents and informants to violate foreign laws,” he said, “does little to stop drugs from coming into the U.S. while undermining the integrity of the DEA and the reputation of America abroad.”

“During the lineup, I heard Det. Biesel tell the witness he was going to ask her three questions. As he spoke, he emphasized the number three as though to signal that she should pick number three, which was the placard I was holding,” Alston said.

Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, Carvajal’s lawyer, denied the allegation against Carvajal. “The government is wrong: General Carvahal had nothing to do with corporate decisions at Citgo and never met Luis Marin until years later.”

“The prosecutors seem to allege in their motion papers that General Carvajal and an unnamed drug trafficker ‘arranged the rise’ of Luis Marin to CEO of Citgo in 2004, but one page later they refer to the same person becoming CEO after a meeting with drug traffickers in 2005. Either way, the government is wrong. General Carvajal had nothing to do with corporate decisions at Citgo and never met Luis Marin until years later.” 

“The rise in violence is completely separate from bail reform and blaming bail for the safety problems we have makes us less safe, because it makes us less likely to confront the actual causes of this increase in violence,” Tess Cohen.

Nearly 30 years after a jury found him guilty of the vicious murder of a young mother in the upstate New York town of Tonawanda, James Pugh’s murder conviction has been reversed. His attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma told the Associated Press that Mr. Pugh, is “no longer a convicted murderer and he can get on with his life.” The case involved allegations that the real killer was notorious Dannemora escapee Richard Matt — along with the detective whose ”investigation” led to Mr. Pugh’s false conviction. 

Erie County Supreme Court Justice Paul Wojtaszek has set aside the murder convictions of Brian Scott Lorenzo and James Pugh in the grisly 1993 slaying of Deborah Meindl, a 31-year-old mother of two in Tonawanda, New York. Mr. Pugh’s attorney, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, told the New York Times that Wednesday was a wonderful day for his client: “Jimmy can finally get on with his life without the weight of a false conviction hanging over his head. His story should inspire others to keep fighting for justice and strike fear in the hearts of corrupt police and prosecutors who think they can get away with framing innocent people.”

A day after his extradition from Spain, former Venezuelan spy leader and longtime adviser to the country’s late president Hugo Chávez pleaded not guilty in a New York courtroom to decade-old drug trafficking charges. Hugo Carvajal agreed during an initial appearance in Manhattan federal court to remain behind bars while his lawyers prepare a bail proposal to present to the judge. Outside court, his attorney Zachary Margulis, had plenty to say about his client: watch the video here.

Speaking outside the Southern District of New York courthouse, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, the attorney for retired General Hugo Carvajal, told reporters that his client is “categorically innocent” of narco-terrorism charges. Carvajal, 63, was extradited from Spain on Wednesday after more than ten years’ effort by U.S. prosecutors to bring him to New York to face charges.

Speaking outside court, ZMO Law principal attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma portrayed the U.S. prosecution of Gen. Hugo Carvajal as unlike any other, saying he had not been informed of any evidence such as text messages, emails, wiretapped conversations, prison-call recordings, surveillance video or physical evidence linked to his client. “General Carvajal looks forward to fighting these outrageous charges in court before an unbiased American jury,” he said.