People v. Margolies

125 Misc. 2d 1033, 480 N.Y.S.2d 842, 1984 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 3527
CourtNew York Supreme Court
DecidedOctober 3, 1984
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 125 Misc. 2d 1033 (People v. Margolies) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New York Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
People v. Margolies, 125 Misc. 2d 1033, 480 N.Y.S.2d 842, 1984 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 3527 (N.Y. Super. Ct. 1984).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

Eve Preminger, J.

Do the rights afforded an individual by Massiah v United States (377 US 201) and People v Hobson (39 NY2d 479) ever expire? The defendant argues that an incarcerated person never loses his right to counsel once it has attached and that admissions made to informants while in prison which link him to a string of contract murders are inadmissible at trial.

FINDINGS OF FACT

On November 2, 1982 the defendant, admitting to schemes and swindles perpetrated against John P. Maguire and Co. and the United States Government, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and tax evasion charges in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New [1035]*1035York. These charges stemmed from an investigation into the bankruptcy of Candor Diamond Corporation, the sole shareholders of which were defendant and his wife. Among the accusations was that Candor had defrauded creditors of over $5,000,000.

Sentenced to a 28-year prison term, defendant began serving his sentence at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) on December 10, 1982, where he remained through February, 1984. After conferring with an attorney named Gary Woodfield, who had represented him on the criminal charges in Federal court and with Benson Weintraub, who had represented defendant’s wife in the same matter, defendant decided not to file a notice of appeal and not to attack his conviction collaterally. He did, however, file an application to reduce his sentence pursuant to rule 35 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure which was denied on May 26, 1983.

Between December 10,1982 and June 2,1983 defendant also discussed with the two attorneys the possibility of obtaining habeas corpus relief, his rule 35 application, and the murder trial of one Donald Nash which was (in April and May of 1983) then taking place in New York State Supreme Court.

Mr. Nash was charged with conspiring to murder two employees of Candor named Jenny Soo Chin and Margaret Barbera, and with the murders on April 12, 1982 of Barbera and three CBS employees who had been nearby when Barbera was shot. These crimes were highly publicized as the “CBS killings”, and defendant was labeled in the press as the “mastermind” behind them. The trial of Nash resulted in his conviction on May 24, 1983.

While defendant had not been formally charged with complicity in these crimes, he was aware that law enforcement officials suspected that the execution of Barbera, who was scheduled to testify against him in the Federal Grand Jury, and the abduction and presumed murder of Barbera’s close friend Chin, had been upon his command.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
125 Misc. 2d 1033, 480 N.Y.S.2d 842, 1984 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 3527, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/people-v-margolies-nysupct-1984.