NY Lawyer Faces Trial on Charges He Tampered
 With Witnesses for Drug Kingpin Client

By Mark Fass
New York Law Journal
New York Lawyer
July 28, 2009

The trial began yesterday in the prosecution of Robert Simels, a prominent Manhattan defense attorney charged with plotting with a client to threaten and bribe witnesses to prevent them from testifying.

"A license to practice law is not a license to break the law," Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel D. Brownell told the federal jury before an overflowing courtroom in Brooklyn. In defending his client, drug kingpin Shaheed Khan, Mr. Simels employed a "win at all costs" strategy, promoting a plan of bribes and intimidation to ensure Mr. Khan's acquittal, Mr. Brownell said.

"When Simels said, 'I'm going to do whatever it takes to get him out of there,'" Mr. Brownell said, "that was no idle boast."

In Mr. Simels' defense, attorney Gerald Shargel, repeated a mantra: "Words don't always convey intention and meaning."

An attorney's job, Mr. Shargel said, is to build up a defense for a client, to interview witnesses and learn everything there is to know about a case. So when a paid informant—encouraged by $50,000 and a U.S. visa—suggested to Mr. Simels that witnesses could be bribed or made to "suffer from amnesia," Mr. Simels played along simply to "keep the conversation going," Mr. Shargel said.

"Mr. Simels knows that the art of extracting information from people is carefully honed," Mr. Shargel told the jury. But no matter what was said to string along the government's source, he added, there was "never an intention, never a design or a plan" to tamper with witnesses.

Mr. Khan was indicted in the Eastern District of New York in April 2006 and charged with heading the Phantom Squad, a Guyana-based para-military drug cartel that smuggled and distributed cocaine to Brooklyn.

Mr. Khan hired Mr. Simels, a defense attorney known for representing high-profile drug dealers and members of organized crime families—including Henry Hill, the mobster played by Ray Liotta in "GoodfFellas"—to represent him.

According to an affidavit filed by a special agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, soon thereafter Mr. Simels met with a member of the Phantom Squad, a government informant who recorded their conversations, and advised him that Mr. Khan would need to "eliminate" or "neutralize" potential witnesses.

In one excerpt from the recordings, the informant allegedly told Mr. Simels that one potential witness wanted $10,000 in order to sign a contract agreeing to testify in favor of Mr. Khan.

"Tell her that obviously she can't get any money until she meets with me, but I'll make the agreement with her," Mr. Simels allegedly replied. "She's got to meet with me. If she does it and she signs the document, she gets half then and she gets half when she, ah, finishes testifying."

In March, Mr. Khan pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking and witness tampering in exchange for a 15-year sentence.

Mr. Simels, 62, faces up to 10 years in prison.

His associate, Arienne Irving, was also charged with tampering with and threatening witnesses and is being tried alongside Mr. Simels. She is represented by Javier Solano, a former Brooklyn assistant district attorney.

Mr. Khan's and Mr. Simels' cases have received enormous attention in Guyana, a country of 770,000 people on the northern coast of South America, where Mr. Khan is part menace, part folk hero.

A Reunion of Sorts

Mr. Simels' prosecution also is being closely followed by New York's legal community. The courtroom was packed yesterday, with the overflow watching from the courthouse's third-floor cafeteria via closed-circuit television.

The case represents a reunion of sorts for Mr. Shargel, and Eastern District Judge John Gleeson, before whom it is being tried. As a federal prosecutor in the early 1990s, Judge Gleeson engineered the disqualification of Mr. Shargel and Bruce Cutler from the trial of John Gotti on the grounds that they had become "house counsel" to the Gambino crime family.

Federal prosecutors launched an investigation into Mr. Shargel's alleged tax fraud and obstruction of justice, but the probe eventually ended without charges.

Judge Gleeson was assigned Mr. Simels' case when his name was drawn from the wheel.

Mr. Shargel has tried one case previously before Judge Gleeson. In 1996, a jury convicted his client, Michael Burnett, of masterminding the murder of a Staten Island woman, Valerie Vassell.

Mr. Shargel has told reporters that he is pleased the Simels case landed before Judge Gleeson.

"I have enormous respect for him," Mr. Shargel told the Village Voice. "As a taxpayer, you get what you pay for him. He's a fair and intelligent judge."

The opening arguments yesterday provided a marked contrast in styles. After Mr. Brownell read his notes from behind the lectern, Mr. Shargel paced the courtroom, emotionally beseeching the jury in a style that has often been likened to that of a preacher.

The most powerful moment came from Mr. Shargel, when he attempted to put the line quoted from Mr. Brownell—that Mr. Simels would "do whatever it takes"—into context. What Mr. Simels had in fact said, Mr. Shargel told the jury, is that he would do whatever it takes to keep the government's lies from imprisoning an innocent man.

Mr. Shargel also promised the jury that Mr. Simels would testify.

Judge Gleeson's first major decision in the proceedings went in favor of Mr. Simels. Earlier this month, the judge granted the defense's motion to suppress two undercover jailhouse recordings of conversations between Mr. Simels, Mr. Khan and Ms. Irving.

Witnesses are expected to begin testifying this morning.