By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A year ago, Gov. Andrew Cuomo granted clemency to our client Felipe Rodriguez, commuting his life sentence to the 27 years he had already served for a 1987 murder. Felipe, who is also represented by Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project, was released because he was an incredible inmate: he had renovated …
Civil Rights Advocacy
Lawsuit sheds light on retribution against victims of prison sex abuse
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma When officials at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility found out our client, Yekatrina Pusepa, was in an illicit relationship with a prison guard they did nothing to protect her. Instead, they held her out as bait. And when she would not cooperate with them, they threw her in solitary confinement based on trumped …
Where do federal sex offenders go to prison?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Former Congressman Anthony Weiner was just sentenced to 21 months in prison for sexting with a 15-year-old. At sentencing, his federal sex crime lawyer asked that he be sent to FCI Schuylkill in Pennsylvania. That seems to have been a mistake: Schuylkill is a medium-security prison, filled with violent offenders and replete with …
Second Circuit Revisits Application of Fourth Amendment to Stored Digital Information
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The conviction of Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the Silk Road marketplace on the Dark Web, has given the Second Circuit a chance to explore how to apply the Fourth Amendment to the search and seizure of stored digital information. The government seized and searched Mr. Ulbricht’s laptop. Ulbricht, backed by the National Association of …
Child Pornography and “Substantive Reasonableness”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a decision that could have a wide-ranging effect on people convicted of child pornography offenses, the Second Circuit last month struck down a 225-month sentence imposed on a man convicted of having illegal material on his laptops and a thumb drive as he tried to drive into Canada. Joseph Jacobs was 39 …
New Charging Policy Will Increase Mass Incarceration
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma United States Attorney General Jefferson Sessions put out a tragic new policy today that, if it is followed, will ruin countless lives through the unyielding weight of the federal law. Under the policy, which is outlined in this memorandum “for all federal prosecutors,” the government will “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense.” This …
New Associate Adam Elewa Brings Technology Expertise to ZMO LAW PLLC
We are delighted to announce that attorney Adam Elewa has joined the ZMO Law PLLC as an associate. Mr. Elewa is a graduate of Fordham Law School. His career has focused on defending against accusations of technology- and computer-related crimes including charges of computer hacking, child pornography and wire fraud. He has represented clients in the …
Fundraising for Felipe Rodriguez
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Our client Felipe Rodriguez is about to go home after almost 27 years in prison. Felipe needs clothes, food, a job, and a place to live. We are working (with the Innocence Project) on all that, but you can help. The Innocence Project has set up a GoFundMe page to collect cash donations, …
A Gift of Freedom for the New Year
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In the best spirit of the holiday season, Governor Cuomo announced today that he granted executive clemency to Felipe Rodriguez based on a petition filed by the ZMO Law PLLC and the Innocence Project. Felipe is a remarkable client. The end to his incarceration brings joy not only to his lawyers — Nina …
Play Pen, the NIT Warrant, and Malware
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma For about two weeks last year, the FBI took over a website called the Play Pen that hosted and made available huge amounts of child pornography. It delivered illegal porn to as many as 100,000 computers around the world, along with malware – the so-called “NIT,” or Network Investigative Technique – that …
A Child Sex Crime Sting that Did Not Work
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A judge in Syracuse earlier this summer ruled that a defendant charged with a federal sex crime should be acquitted because even though the defendant went to meet the phony “minor” (an undercover state trooper) at a mall, there was not enough evidence to show that he intended to try to have illegal sexual contact …
Sixth Circuit: Okay to Consider Jury’s Belief that Child Pornography Sentence Too Harsh
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Does the jury’s opinion matter at sentencing? Almost never. But last week, a Sixth Circuit panel said that a trial judge did not go too far by polling the jury about their opinion on sentencing in a child pornography case and considering their answer under 18 USC 3553(a). The below-Guidelines sentence was …
Can you get a life sentence for making child pornography?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Finding a possibility that the sentencing judge had a “clearly erroneous understanding of the facts,” the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week sent back a sixty-year child pornography sentence for another look by the district court. In United States v. Brown, the defendant had pled guilty to three counts of producing and two counts …
Rule of Construction: If a Statute is Ambiguous, the Sex Offender Loses
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Last month, the Supreme Court ruled against a defendant’s appeal of his child pornography sentence in the Eastern District of New York, upholding a ten-year mandatory minimum based on an obliquely-worded statutory enhancement found in 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2252(b)(2). The mandatory minimum applies only if the defendant has previously been convicted of a crime related …
A Word about the Jury, the Press, and the Death of Mauricio Jaquez
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Seven years ago next Tuesday, NYPD police officers shot and killed Mauricio Jaquez in his Bronx apartment. They claimed he was holding a knife. Last week, a civil jury came back finding that the last shot was reasonable, even though it was fired into the back of Mauricio’s head after he had …
Trial Begins Monday in Police Shooting Case
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On April 12, 2009, New York City police officers shot and killed Mauricio Jaquez, an emotionally disturbed man, in his apartment in the Bronx. On Monday, seven years later, one of the officers, Sgt. William Flores, will stand trial before a Southern District of New York jury for depriving Mr. Jaquez of …
Is it Time to Come Off the Sex Offender Registry?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma New York passed the Sex Offender Registration Act to be retroactive to people who still were on probation or parole as of January 21, 1996. In the months that followed, all probationers and parolees previously convicted of an enumerated offense, as well as people newly convicted, started registering. At that time, registration for low-risk offenders …
Sentencing Commission Video Now Available
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Video, transcripts and other information about principal attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma’s testimony at the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s public hearing on November 5 is now available. The testimony, on behalf of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, endorsed a proposed amendment to the Sentencing Guidelines to eliminate the “residual clause” portion of the …
Risk Reduced to Level One After Almost Twenty Years
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Said Abdullah was just about to finish probation in 1996 when the New York Legislature passed the Sex Offender Registration Act. He was forced to register as a sex offender and, after a federal lawsuit put the brakes on SORA for several years, was adjudicated a Level Three offender by Westchester County …
ZMO to Testify at U.S. Sentencing Commission Hearing on Crimes of Violence
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The United States Sentencing Commission writes the Sentencing Guidelines which are the starting point for all federal sentences. The Guidelines define the term “crime of violence” in part through a “residual clause” that embraces any conviction involving a “serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” If you have two or more of these as prior crimes, you …
Does New York City Have A Policy of Coercive Interrogation?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On June 18, 1992, five New York City detectives forced Sharrif Wilson, 15, to “confess” to a crime he did not commit, leading to his wrongful conviction in a gruesome triple homicide. The same detectives also got Antonio Yarbough to sign a false statement they wrote out for him. To get the boys to confess, …
“The Pointless Banishment of Sex Offenders”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma As a law firm advocating for people accused or convicted of sex offenses, we focus on how sex offender registration sweeps in too many people and labels them as far higher risks than they actually are. The biggest problem with landing on a sex offender registry is the stigma associated with being …
Watch What You Plea To
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a rare reversal of a guilty plea, the Third Department recently vacated a child abuse conviction because the wrong crime was charged in the felony complaint, the document that starts a case against a defendant. On January 31, 2012, defendant Paul O’Neill pled guilty to a superior court information charging him with two very …
This is News? Prison Sex Abuse Violates the Constitution
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma It should seem obvious, but some federal courts (a lot, actually) have missed the fact that intentional sexual touching of an inmate by a guard for the purpose of sexual gratification or humiliation violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The ZMO Law PLLC and Perlmutter & McGuinness, P.C., …
Does a Tragic Case Merit a Fifteen Year Mandatory Minimum Prison Sentence?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma In a decision that “should be written with tears,” Judge Jack Weinstein has scheduled a remarkable hearing for August 3 to explore how to handle a gut-wrenching case of a child-abuse survivor who apparently went on to use and produce child pornography himself. Last month, 26-year-old Darnell Washington pled guilty to charges …
The High Cost of Being a Sex Offender
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma A fascinating recent episode of Freakonomics Radio covers in depth the economics of sex offenses, sex offender registries, and the special restrictions placed on people convicted of sex offenses. One commentator calculates how much sex offenses cost their victims — in both out-of-pocket expenses and based on jury awards for psychological damages — …