Last edited on Friday, September 24, 2021, at 11:44 AM.
Welcome to The Blanch Law Firm’s weekly digest of New New York Criminal Cases. Our goal is to keep the public informed as to recent events in federal courts around the country.
As always, unless otherwise disclosed, none of the defendants mentioned in these summaries are clients of our firm.
If you or someone you love has been charged with a state or federal criminal charge, or you are under investigation by the federal government, our top-rated attorneys are here to help.
Call us now for a free and completely confidential attorney phone consultation at (212) 736-3900.
Friday, September 24, 2021
Drug and Gun Possession Against Buffalo Man
The first case we will look at in this week’s New York criminal case Roundup is a case against a Buffalo man who was arrested and charged via criminal complaint with possessing a controlled substance with intent to distribute, as well as for possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. On Sept. 20, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, James P. Kennedy, Jr., announced that Luis Miguel Cruz Del Moral, 37, of Buffalo, had been charged. If he is convicted in a court of law, Del Moral faces at least five years and up to life in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000.
According to the complaint, on Sept. 17, 2021, Buffalo Police, the ATF, and the FBI executed a New York State search warrant at Cruz Del Moral’s Ontario Street residence, where investigators recovered five firearms, ammunition, a ballistic vest, two vials of suspected cocaine, drug packaging materials, and three scales with suspected cocaine residue. Investigators also found a loaded pistol in the bathroom.
Former Analyst Faces Insider Trading Charge
Another case that was initiated this week happened on Sept. 23, when the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, along with Michael J. Driscoll, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, announced the unsealing of a complaint charging Sergei Polevikov, a former securities analyst, with securities fraud, wire fraud, and investment company fraud in connection with his fraudulent scheme to misappropriate confidential information about pending trades by his employer, an investment adviser, on behalf of its investment company clients.
Polevikov was arrested Sept. 22 and was presented Sept. 23 before Magistrate Judge James L. Cott. According to the Complaint, from at least in or about 2014 through in or about October 2019, Sergei Polevikov was employed as a quantitative analyst at an asset management firm with headquarters in New York City (the “Employer Firm”). In his role at the Employer Firm, Polevikov had regular access to information regarding contemplated securities trades on behalf of the Employer Firm’s clients, which included investment companies.
During the period charged in the Complaint, Polevikov engaged in a front-running scheme to misappropriate confidential, material, nonpublic information about the securities trade orders of the Employer Firm on behalf of its clients in order to engage in short-term personal securities trading in a brokerage account opened in his wife’s name.
Polevikov’s scheme was designed to profit by executing trades that take advantage of relatively small price movements in a company’s stock that follow from large securities orders executed by the Employer Firm on behalf of its clients. In total, Polevikov’s scheme yielded more than $8.5 million in illicit profits.
Child Sexual Exploitation
On Sept. 20, the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, Antoinette T. Bacon, along with Matthew Scarpino, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Buffalo Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), announced that Jeremie Hoyt, 41, of Davenport, New York, appeared in federal court on charges that he sexually exploited a child.
The criminal complaint alleges that, in November 2020, Hoyt produced a sexually explicit photograph and video of a 14-year-old child. Later, Hoyt distributed the image and video over the Internet to other users on a messaging application. At his hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Miroslav Lovric ordered Hoyt to be detained pending trial.
If he is convicted of these charges in a court of law, Hoyt faces at least 15 years and as much as 30 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and a term of supervised release of between 5 years and life.
Charged with Perjury for Suing Under False Pretenses
On Sept. 22, 2021, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, announced that Rovier Carrington was charged in a criminal complaint with perjury. Carrington was arrested Sept. 21 and presented to the Central District of California. According to the criminal complaint, it has been alleged that Rovier Carrington faked evidence to support a $50 million lawsuit he filed in the Southern District of New York making extremely serious allegations, and then he allegedly lied about faking that evidence under penalty of perjury.
Other allegations contained in the Complaint include one that, between at least June and July of 2018, Carrington committed perjury in connection with a civil lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York. In the Civil Case, Carrington sued Hollywood executives alleging that the executives had sexually assaulted him, and that they had defrauded him in connection with a decision to refuse to produce his reality television program. Carrington sought damages of $50 million in the Civil Case.
Conspiracy to Commit Arson Against NYPD
On Sept. 22, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Audrey Strauss, announced that Corey Smith and Elaine Carberry pled guilty to conspiring to burn a marked NYPD Homeless Outreach Unit van in the NYC neighborhood of Greenwich Village in July 2020. Smith and Carberry pled guilty Sept. 22 before U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman, to whom the case is assigned.
According to the Indictment and statements made in public court proceedings, on July 15, 2020, Smith and Carberry set a marked NYPD Homeless Outreach Unit van on fire using ignitable liquid. More specifically, surveillance footage shows, as Smith walked by the NYPD Van, Carberry handed Smith a bottle filled with ignitable liquid and Smith attempted to set fire to the NYPD Van.
After seeing that the NYPD Van was not fully engulfed in flames, Carberry again handed Smith the bottle of ignitable liquid and Smith circled back to the NYPD Van with more accelerant, and set it ablaze once more, thereby assuring the complete destruction of the NYPD Van.
