Mayor Suarez Acquitted

Ridgefield, NJ.

Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez was found not guilty today of taking bribes from the informant who anchored last year’s sprawling FBI sting, marking the first time a public official has been acquitted of federal corruption charges in New Jersey in more than a decade.

The 43-year-old Democrat closed his eyes and wept as the jury forewoman in Newark read the verdict clearing him of bribery and extortion charges, rejecting allegations that he took $10,000 from an informant who masqueraded as a developer trying to buy off politicians.

“I always had faith people would see the truth,” said Suarez, standing in the rain during a brief news conference outside the courthouse.

He was charged along with scores of others in last year’s massive bribery and money-laundering sting, including five rabbis and more a dozen public officials. Of all the politicians charged, Suarez is the only one who remains in office.

His codefendant, Vincent Tabbachino, a tax preparer and former Guttenberg police officer, was convicted of bribery and extortion.

Suarez was accused of taking $10,000 in bribes from Solomon Dwek, a one-time rabbinical student who became the most prodigious informant ever to wear a wire in New Jersey.

The informant's work led to charges against 46 people in a money-laundering and bribery probe that ensnared five rabbis, three mayors and two state legislators.

Two politicians have been convicted, and 20 defendants in the case have pleaded guilty.

Dwek began cooperating with the FBI in 2006 after being charged with a $50 million bank fraud. He worked his way across the state, wearing a tiny hidden video camera on his belly as he tried to talk rabbis into laundering money and convince public officials to take bribes.

Suarez's lawyer argued that the mayor never knowingly took an illicit dime.

He turned down $10,000 cash. He never deposited a $10,000 check. And, ultimately, the 43-year-old

Democrat kept just $2,500, which he believed was a legitimate donation to his legal defense fund, his lawyer, John Michael Vazquez, said.

If convicted, Suarez would have faced up to 20 years in prison.

Edgar Stahl's Body Found

Are the rumors true this time? Breaking news through the Associated Press reports that the not so deceased Edgar Stahl has turned up on St. Maarten in the Virgin Islands.

The owner of Stahl’s Demolition disappeared nearly two years ago from Sea View, New Jersey. Stahl’s presumed murder helped feed the media blitz surrounding accused Satin Strangler Destiny Blande, who was tried for the crime. Blande, who is still generally assumed to be the Satin Strangler, was nonetheless acquitted of criminal charges. The prosecution in the case relied heavily on surveillance footage of Blande entering Stahl’s boat, where the demolition man was last seen, as well as DNA evidence linking her to the scene of the supposed crime. Their inability to produce a murder weapon, a witness, or even a body proved insurmountable, however.

Stahl’s family later sued Blande in a civil case for wrongful death, winning $38 million in damages.

Satin Strangler fans have had a field day with the Stahl story. The internet spawned numerous new websites dedicated to the demolition man and countless on-line posts using Stahl’s name as a signature. In fact, there have been so many Stahl “wanna-bes” posting comments on bulletin boards and blog sites that today’s reports from St. Maarten were initially dismissed as being fabricated.

Police in St. Maarten report that Stahl was arrested for unpaid moped parking tickets. The United States is now working with French authorities to extradite the former murder victim, who is in debt for more than two million dollars back in New Jersey. Stahl certainly has far more to worry about from creditors and the legal system than a few moped tickets.

The impact that this will have on the Destiny Blande civil case award is yet to be determined. Blande has not been seen since the murders of Horace Krouch and Barabbas Sabbarab, and nobody from the previously vocal Stahl family can be found for comment.

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Death on Eve of Premiere

Princeton, NJ.

Preliminary reports of Sinclair Blande’s sudden death have now been confirmed.

The father of suspected Satin Strangler Destiny Blande died at University Hospital after suffering a massive heart attack tonight. Daughter Cheryl stated that the owner of Neon Lights advertising began complaining of chest pain after returning from court in the afternoon. “He was furious at the court’s decision,” she said. “He was doubled over with pain but refused to go to the hospital.” She called for an ambulance after her father collapsed, but it was too late.

“He was in ventricular arrhythmia upon arrival,” a hospital spokesperson said. “He never regained consciousness.”

Blande’s infamous daughter Destiny, almost universally thought to be the Satin Strangler, was unavailable for comment.

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Court Denies Blande Again

Trenton, NJ.

Sinclair Blande may be out of cards to play.

The advertising executive has been in battles with his daughter’s criminal defense attorney, Horace Krouch, during the last year. First Blande sued Krouch for libel over the book, If She Did It, a presumably fictitious depiction of the Satin Strangler. Blande claimed that the lead character too closely resembled his daughter, Destiny Blande, who was acquitted of criminal charges but lost a civil case involving the Satin Strangler murders.

When Blande’s libel suit failed, he began fighting Krouch over the rights to the name “Satin Strangler.” He claimed the rights to all of Krouch’s Satin Strangler related ventures, vowing to halt all further book sales and prevent the opening of the Broadway play this weekend. A federal court ruled against Blande today, however, deciding that the Satin Strangler is now part of the public domain and “cannot be owned by either individual or anyone else.”

“This was an easy one,” Krouch commented while exiting the courtroom today. “Hopefully Mr. Blain is finished playing games. Come visit us on Broadway for the premiere on Friday night. Let the show begin.” We are not sure whether the reference to Blain, Krouch’s supposedly fictitious character, was a Freudian slip or an added dig at the defeated plaintiff.

For the first time in months of battling Krouch, Sinclair Blande was not available for comment. A family friend who wished to remain anonymous reported that the advertising executive has been under great stress from these legal battles and is suffering from severe fatigue.

That’s the dirt from the state capital.

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Beldini Found Guilty

Newark, NJ.

Leona Beldini, a Jersey City deputy mayor arrested in last summer’s epic FBI sting, was convicted today on two of six corruption counts for taking bribes from a government informant who traversed the state with cash-filled envelopes and a gift for talking his way into meetings with powerful officials.

The 74-year-old Democrat stood impassively with her hands folded as a jury of eight men and four women in federal court in Newark announced she was guilty of accepting $20,000 in illegal campaign contributions from the informant, who posed as a developer offering bribes in exchange for building approvals.

Beldini was acquitted of four counts, including the three most serious: conspiracy to commit extortion and two counts of attempted extortion. She faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the two bribery counts, but could be sentenced to much less time under federal guidelines. Sentencing is scheduled for June 1.

The one-time burlesque dancer was charged last July in the money-laundering and corruption sting that netted five rabbis, three mayors, two assemblymen and one man accused of conspiring to sell a human kidney. Beldini was the first to face a jury.

"Every case like this that we bring is designed to send a message. And the message is that public service is about something other than enriching yourself and enriching your friends and your colleagues," U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

Beldini’s lawyer, Brian J. Neary, denounced the verdict, saying it was "inconsistent" for jurors to acquit her of extortion, yet convict her of bribery. Both the extortion and bribery counts accused her of accepting the same $20,000 in campaign donations on behalf of Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah T. Healy, who has not been charged. And they both accused her of agreeing to help the informant secure zoning changes for a 750-unit luxury condominium complex he claimed to be building.

Battle over Satin Strangler Rights

Princeton, NJ.

Sinclair Blande appears to be switching gears.

In recent months, Blande fought to prove that attorney Horace Krouch was guilty of libel in his New York Times best selling book, If She Did It. After losing the liable case, Blande has decided to sue Krouch on behalf of his daughter for the rights to the name “Satin Strangler” instead.

Blande is setting out to prove that his daughter Destiny has gained the rights to the Satin Strangler title. Although Destiny Blande was acquitted in the criminal case, she later lost a costly decision to Satin Strangler victim Edgar Stahl’s family in a civil suit. Early speculation was that Sinclair Blande was trying to establish a revenue stream to fund his daughter’s 38 million dollar civil damages to the Stahls. Instead, he has vowed to shut down all Satin Strangler branded enterprises, starting with Krouch’s book and upcoming Broadway play.

“Mister Krouch’s actions are damaging to our family,” Blande told reporters. “If the courts do not feel that he has been lying about my daughter, then our only option is to win the rights to his subject matter. He is a parasite. I won’t stop until we shut him up and shut him down.”

Destiny Blande, as always, was not available for comment.

Horace Krouch, who has apparently bounced back to his typical gregarious form since winning the liable case, provided a mouthful to reporters: “Well, is she the Satin Strangler or not? Even her father cannot determine an incontrovertible response to that question. Yesterday she was. Today she is not. While in pursuit of my money through his frivolous libel suit, he assured us of her innocence. Now he will have us believe that she is the Satin Strangler and also possesses of the rights to the name. Magnificent! My humble advice to Mr. Blande would be to focus on his parenting skills, rather than on my money.”

Krouch seems to know the dirt this time, and now so do you.

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Libel Case Decision

Trenton, NJ.

The Blande family received more bad news from the courts yesterday. Sinclair Blande, father of accused Satin Strangler Destiny Blande, lost his libel lawsuit case against his daughter’s criminal defense attorney, Horace Krouch.

Blande was contesting the use of a character closely resembling Destiny in a fictionalized tale of the Satin Strangler. Krouch had his work cut out for him defending the book with the tongue-in-cheek title If She Did It. The protagonist and femme fatale, Daphne Blain, aka the Satin Strangler, is indistinguishable from Destiny Blande to any reader who hasn’t been hiding under a rock for the last year.

Krouch released three chapters of his book through his website, KrouchMurderDefense, and is now planning a nationwide marketing blitz during the release of the full print version in December.

It is obvious in even a cursory review of the first few pages of the book that the resemblance to Destiny is intentional, but proof of libel is another issue. The task at hand for her father was to prove that the book depicted statements of fact or mixed statements of fact and opinion, and that those statements were false. Common defenses in libel cases include proving that the statements reflected actual facts about the plaintiff, or that the statements made were intended to reflect a plausible opinion of the defendant.

Krouch legally represented himself in the case, stating that there were no other attorneys that he trusted more than himself. He was expected to make an argument that the lead character, Daphne Blain, was in no way meant to represent Destiny Blande. That was indeed where the defense started. When the plaintiff’s attorney began reading passages from the book, however, the projected outcome became dismal for Krouch. In an unusual twist, he converted mid-case to a secondary strategy, challenging the plaintiff’s attorneys to prove that Destiny Blande was not the Satin Strangler.

The burden of proof was inverted as the plaintiff’s attorneys struggled to document that the book’s statements about Blain, which they originally contended were about Blande, were actually false. In the statements of the jury and judge, this is where Blande’s attorneys were deficient. Unable to disprove that Destiny was the Satin Strangler, they lost the case. Krouch’s back-up strategy worked, primarily because few people other than the 12 jurors he persuaded in the criminal case actually think that Blande is innocent of the Satin Strangler crimes.

While this common law trial went Krouch’s way, it raises some concerns. If Krouch is felt to have released truthful information about Blande into print, then he is protected from allegations of libel. More importantly, however, he might actually be in breach of lawyer-client confidentiality, placing him at risk for disbarment.

“I have done nothing wrong,” Krouch told reporters after the case. “If you doubt that, then read the book and decide,” he added with a wink.

We have certainly not heard the end of the controversial book, If She Did It, which is scheduled to be released in hard copy next month. Krouch’s book has already sold 1.2 million copies through Amazon, only 400,000 shy of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pre-sales.

We have probably not heard the end of the legal battles surrounding the book. “I am not finished yet,” was Sinclair Blande’s only comment following the court’s decision.

We will see what the dirt is on a possible appeal on this one and watch this story for you.

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