Feds: Lawyer Plotted to Bribe Trial Witness in Murder Case
Newsday is reporting that federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have charged a Queens-based defense lawyer with bribing a witness in an effort to alter the outcome of a notorious 2015 Suffolk County gang-related double-murder trial that involved the execution of a construction flagman who had “disrespected” the killer.
Reporter John Riley explains: “Lawyer John Scarpa, 65, of Hauppauge, represented defendant Reginald Ross, a Crips leader from Yaphank ultimately convicted in Suffolk Supreme Court of the 2010 murders of flagman Raymond Hirt and John Williams, whose killing was designed to lure a friend who owed Ross drug money back to New York.”
Prosecutors allege Scarpa plotted to bribe a witness who had pleaded guilty to participating in the Williams murder, to perjure himself at the Ross trial.