We are delighted to announce that distinguished Irish-born attorney Shane Finn has joined ZMO Law PLLC as an associate. Shane’s practice here will focus on civil rights, criminal defense and vindicating the rights of victims of sex crimes in New York State and federal courts. Shane “read law” at Oxford University in the United Kingdom …
White Collar Crime
Trump has been indicted. Now what?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma I was in the elevator of my new building on Lexington Avenue when the news came down that a Manhattan grand jury returned a “true bill” against the 45th president of the United States. The exact charges remain unknown but they appear to stem from Donald Trump’s use of his business right …
Donald Trump and the Manhattan Grand Jury
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Every criminal lawyer knows that feeling when you get the call from the prosecutor telling you: your client is getting indicted, does he want to testify? Your stomach sinks. It’s different from hearing that your client is worried he did something wrong, or knows he is under investigation. It means the case …
Welcome 2021
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma As the calendar turned and the weather cooled, the plan was to say goodbye to the awful year 2020 with the happy announcements that former Manhattan ADA Tess Cohen had joined our team as of counsel to the firm, we had changed our business name to ZMO Law PLLC (after 15 years …
ZMOLAW adds attorney Ben Notterman
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma We are delighted to announce that Benjamin Notterman has joined the ZMO Law PLLC as an associate attorney. Mr. Notterman comes to us from the New York University Center on the Administration of Criminal Law, where he was a research fellow investigating executive clemency under the direction of Prof. Rachel Barkow. As …
“Release as many vulnerable people as possible”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma New York City is home to it’s own archipelago of three federal jails, three borough jails, eight functioning jails on Rikers Island, two locked prison wards, and lockup facilities in each of seven state and federal criminal courthouses in the five boroughs. The best estimate is that there are upwards of 10,000 …
Criminal Defense in the Time of Coronavirus
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma I often say that our clients come to us on the worst day of their lives, the day they are arrested, or learned that a loved one was arrested and may be separated from them for a very long time. As the world faces a health crisis whose proportions remain unknown, the …
“I will be absolutely, completely free”
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma “Motion Granted.” With those words, the Hon. Joseph Zayas of Queens Supreme Court vacated the murder conviction and dismissed the indictment against Felipe Rodriguez. It was a triumphant end to a fight that has consumed our office since 2015 and the Innocence Project since 2007. In all those years, Mr. Rodriguez was …
The Whistleblower Complaint and the Transcript: A Criminal Trial Lawyer’s Perspective
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The past week was one of extraordinary revelations relating to foreign policy and corruption at the top of the government of the United States. The public got to see two documents, just months after they were created: first, the “TELCON” or transcript of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian …
The judge gave the FBI a warrant to break into computers in Virginia. They used it in New York. Good faith?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Twelve federal appeals courts have said that the FBI acted in good faith when they used a Virginia warrant to search thousands of computers around the world in the controversial Playpen child pornography case. Our office last week asked for a special hearing in the Second Circuit to challenge that conclusion, with …
Busted in NY? Three Ways it Will Be Easier to Win Your Case
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma This year’s New York State budget passed earlier this month with the most sweeping criminal justice reforms in at least a generation. The changes go into effect in 2020 and will change almost everything about defending people in New York State cases, where the vast majority of arrests in New York are …
Conviction Overturned for Client Accused of Importing over 100 Kilos of Heroin
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Judge Raymond Dearie of the Eastern District of New York ruled yesterday that ZMOLAW client Adamou Djibo is entitled to a new trial because the government wrongfully withheld thousands of pages of relevant information from a cooperating witness’s cell phone. The reversal follows a remand from the Second Circuit: the appeals court …
Can Border Agents Search Your Cell Phone?
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Imagine you are met on the tarmac getting off a plane at JFK Terminal Two by armed customs officers. They tell you to come with them. They drive you to a secure area in Terminal Four, where foreigners are “processed” — i.e detained until they are admitted into the U.S. or sent …
SDNY Says Prison Brass Can be Sued for Sex Abuse of Inmate
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma Top New York State officials claimed that they cannot be sued for the sex abuse, cover-up, and retaliation against Yekatrina Pusepa, a female inmate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, at the hands of a prison guard. Last week, a federal judge said they were wrong. In October 2017, our office, partnering with …
Countdown: Child Sex Abuse Survivors Have Less Than a Year to Sue for Damages
By Victoria Medley Senate Bill S2440, the New York Child Victims Act, was signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday. The new law, which has been a goal of victims’ rights advocates for years, extends the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims to file civil lawsuits, reviving old claims that, …
Big Changes to Deadlines in Child Sex Abuse Cases
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma On Monday, the New York Legislature passed a series of reforms that will significantly impact civil lawsuits and criminal prosecutions for sexual abuse of children. Senate Bill S2440, or the Child Victims Act, extends the statutes of limitations to allow victims who are abused before age 18 more time to file lawsuits — …
Mandatory Minimum Sentences and Federal Child Pornography Charges
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma The U.S. Sentencing Commission kicked off the new year with a comprehensive report analyzing data from federal sex offense cases. The report, which runs 81 pages plus a 62-page appendix of charts and graphs, contains some eye-opening conclusions. The most significant for child pornography cases is this: even though there is “little …
The Federal Criminal Justice Reform that Wasn’t
By Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma As of December 27, there were 180,429 prisoners in federal custody. Think about that for a minute — about a fifth of the population of San Francisco is behind bars for interstate crimes. No one seriously thinks this many people should be housed, clothed, fed, and secured with federal tax dollars. (More …