Investigators of the Year
John Buretta
Assistant United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York
John Buretta Assistant United States Attorney, Eastern District of New York Assistant U.S. Attorney John Buretta is recognized for his outstanding prosecution and trial achievements. During his six years in the Office, John has had a consistent track record of successfully prosecuting complex cases against serious offenders: high-ranking members of La Cosa Nostra, national security violators, and violent gang members. During the past year, John led trial teams that convicted the leaders of two different Cosa Nostra crime families for racketeering murders carrying life sentences: Vincent Basciano, the acting boss of the Bonanno organized crime family, and Alphonse Persico, the acting boss of the Colombo organized crime family. John's leadership as Deputy Chief and then as Chief of the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section in the Eastern District of New York, together with the tremendous efforts of the many fine Assistant U.S. Attorneys, support staff, and law enforcement partners with whom he works, has also resulted in the recent indictment or conviction of various other leaders of the Bonanno and Colombo crime families, as well as the hierarchy of the Gambino crime family, and several dozen additional Cosa Nostra members and associates. These cases include charging more than fifteen murders carried out by Cosa Nostra during the past thirty years. Most recently in this arena, John has led the prosecution of three Genovese associates charged in August of this year for their roles in the ambush-robbery and murder of Staten Island jeweler Louis Antonelli - charges that were brought within three months after Mr. Antonelli was shot and killed. Beyond his hallmark organized crime prosecutions, John has devoted significant time to national security investigations and to prosecution of violent gang members. Emblematic of John's several national security matters was his prosecution this past year of a U.S. Army translator for violation of the Espionage Act. The translator, who was embedded with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq, received a lengthy prison sentence for stealing highly sensitive, classified U.S. Army intelligence concerning Al Qaeda and other insurgent forces in Iraq. In the area of gang prosecutions, John has brought numerous high impact cases. In 2005, for example, John led the investigative team that indicted the leadership and several members of the extremely violent Folk Nation gang in Brooklyn on racketeering charges for ten murders and attempted murders, including the tragic drive-by murder of an innocent restaurant manager. Those indictments followed John's prosecution of over thirty-five other violent drug offenders in the Marcus Garvey Village housing complex in Brooklyn - a case that resulted in a precipitous drop in gang violence in that neighborhood from numerous homicides and scores of shootings the prior year to no homicides or shootings in the year after the arrests.
John S. Ross
Investigator, Eastern District of New York
Investigator John S. Ross is recognized for his outstanding achievements in the investigation and prosecution of terrorism and national security cases. Assigned to the New York Joint Terrorist Task Force, John has interviewed witnesses, located evidence, and interrogated defendants in terrorism cases that span the globe, from Bosnia to Croatia, India to Greece, and Iraq to Afghanistan. John's investigative efforts, which often took place in foreign countries under difficult working conditions, have resulted in critical defendant confessions, identification of key evidence, and development of important cooperating witnesses. John's dedication, perseverance, and investigative skill was exhibited during the successful prosecution of Khalid Awan, a key financier and supporter of the Khalistan Commando Force, a terrorist organization committed to Sikh independence and responsible for hundreds of bombings and thousands of deaths in India. Awan's conviction was due in large part to John's efforts in locating critical evidence in a remote region of India and obtaining a confession from Awan, as well as his powerful testimony at trial. Similarly, John's investigative skill was indispensable to the prosecution of Almaliki Nour, a U.S. Army translator who fraudulently obtained citizenship and a security clearance in order to steal highly sensitive, classified U.S. Army intelligence concerning Al Qaeda and other insurgent forces in Iraq. During a two-year investigation that led to Nour's guilty plea on the eve of trial and subsequent loss of citizenship, John uncovered Nour's false identity, identified hundreds of incriminating calls and text messages linking Nour to Iraqi insurgents, and obtained Nour's confession. John's outstanding efforts have also obtained intelligence information critical to the paramount mission of Department of Justice: protecting the national security of the United States.
Thomas B. Gabriele
Detective, Suffolk Police Department
In May 2005, Detective Gabriele was investigating a complaint of identity theft from a Suffolk County resident. She reported someone had used her personal information to purchase a 515,000 motorcycle in Brooklyn by applying for a loan, on-line, through E-Loan. Subsequently, it was discovered several other loans and services were obtained on-line through Capitol One Financing, Internet Bank and GEICO Insurance. Capitol One investigators had linked this incident with so many others that they dubbed the enterprise, the "New York Fraud Ring". On June 8, 2005, Detective Gabriele was notified that Lamor Whitehead had been arrested for possessing a motorcycle registered to an identity theft victim. Detective Gabriele located and interviewed anyone who knew or dealt with Whitehead who apparently was attempting to break into the rap music business. Detective Gabriele began assembling the paper trail involving over $750,000 in loan applications conducted over the internet with several financial institutions. A list of victims was developed through Capitol One and E-Loan that included over fifty four victims from the New York area and several southeastern states. The loans were for high-end vehicles such as Porsches and Land Rovers, and were also for home equity lines of credit. Some of the loan applications resulted in checks for tens of thousands of dollars mailed to drops at addresses in various parts of Brooklyn. As the data was collected it was indexed and charted for link analysis. Analysis of the collected data started to reveal connections placing Whitehead at the center of an elaborate criminal enterprise involved in a series of identity crimes. The charts also revealed a consistency in the creation of yahoo e-mail addresses set up by the suspect for the on-line applications. The I.P. logs also revealed many of the applications originated from Brooklyn addresses. Detective Gabriele, after many hours of analysis, discovered the initial I.P. address was reset on the applicants' computer as a "cookie' by the financial institutions. Approximately a week after the initial applications were made on-line, the log-in I.P. address had changed, but the detected cookie remained the same. Detective Gabriele theorized that the computer itself was actually moved to another location to access the internet. His continued research and discussions with Computer Crimes detectives led him to believe that 'War driving" was a more likely scenario. War-driving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle using such items as a laptop or a Personal Digital Assistant. On August 5, 2005, search warrants were obtained and executed by members of the Identity Theft Unit with the assistance at the Suffolk Police Department's Computer Crimes Unit, at two Brooklyn locations, which were found to have unsecured wireless routers installed, supporting the War-driving. Phone records were obtained and examined thoroughly by Detective Gabriele who discovered numerous phone calls between Whitehead and Baron Honda in Patchogue, NY. It was revealed that a financing group called the-a-team' had been brought in to finance cars for those who could not qualify for dealer financing during a car sale. The members of the group were given access to the area where customer information was kept. They were also authorized to access the dealership's Dealer Track account and login. Detective Gabriele received the names of the members of the "a-team' and compared their phone records to Whitehead's phone records. The comparison revealed one member had numerous phone contacts with Whitehead. In December 2005, this subject was interviewed and confessed that she gave personal information of the victims to Whitehead and also gave him the password to Baron Honda's Dealer Track account. Whitehead then had the ability to access the credit bureau's databases as well as other customer information. On January 25, 2006, Lamor Whitehead was arrested. A search warrant of his home in New Jersey resulted in the recovery of a laptop computer as well as a stolen handgun, bullet proof vest and ski mask. A large quantity of documentary evidence and several cell phones were also seized that would eventually be used in trial. The laptop was forensically examined by the Suffolk County Police Department's Computer Crimes Unit which recovered more data that evidenced Whitehead's access to Baron Honda's Dealer Track account. The Land Rover Whitehead was operating when he was arrested was the focus of another search warrant It contained documents bearing the personal information for a number of persons on the victim list supplied by Capitol One, as well as other evidence of mortgage frauds in New Jersey. The arrest of Lamor Whitehead involved complaints reported by fourteen Suffolk County residents as well as thirty-eight residents of New York City, and several residents of southeastern states. This investigation spanned a three year period, involved numerous jurisdictions, and was the first trial for Identity Theft on Long Island. On April 2, 2008, after a seven week trial, Lamor Whitehead was found guilty of fourteen counts of Identity Theft, one count of Attempted Grand Larceny, and one count of Scheme to Defraud. He was sentenced on June 30, 2008, for a period of incarceration of ten to thirty years.
Richard A. Resnick
AUSA, US Attorney's Office
Frank H. Sherman
AUSA, US Attorney's Office
Christopher V. Taffe
AUSA, US Attorney's Office
Sean Eldridge
Paralegal, US Attorney's Office
Richard D. Kaufman
AUSA, US Attorney's Office
Albert W. Zenner
Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Kevin R. Black
Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Daniel A. Ciavarri
Analyst, Federal Bureau of Investigation
Michelle Mann
Inspector, U.S. Postal Service
Jarod Koopman
Special Agent, Internal Revenue Service
David E. Krysztof
Revenue Agent, Internal Revenue Service
Christopher Bittnea
Sergent, New York Police Department
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard Resnick, Richard Kaufman, Frank Sherman, Christopher Taffe, and paralegal Sean Eldridge, of the United States Attorney's Office for the Western District of New York, working in conjunction with Special Agents Albert W. Zenner and Kevin R. Black and Analyst Daniel A. Ciavarri of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Inspector Michelle Mann of the United States Postal Service, Special Agent Jarod Koopman and Revenue Agent David E. Krysztof the Internal Revenue Service, and Christopher Bittner of the Greece, New York Police Department. They succeeded in dismantling and prosecuting a multi-million dollar fraud and kickback scheme that involved false and fraudulent appraisals and assessments of property owned by Eastman Kodak Company in both the Rochester, New York area as well as the State of Colorado. Following a ten-week trial, the jury, on May 20, 2008, found the three defendants who went to trial guilty of all charges against them. Convicted of engaging in a conspiracy to defraud, and of mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering charges were real property appraiser John E. Nicolo and former Kodak executive David N. Finnman. Their conspiracy generated $14 million in illgotten gains. As the result of a tax investigation, both Nicolo and his wife, Constance J. Roeder, were also convicted of filing false tax returns. Nicolo, Finman, Roeder, along with four other defendants, including a high-level public official who already pled guilty before trial, are all awaiting sentencing. Through the tireless efforts of these investigators and lawyers, the United States Attorney's Office was able to establish that a total of seven public and corporate defendants were guilty of numerous federal charges. The inter-agency cooperation demonstrated throughout this large-scale public corruption investigation was truly remarkable