What I Did For Judge
The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department has concluded that a criminal conviction resulted in automatic disbarment
In this case, the respondent admitted that she produced false evidence during the course of an investigation by an FBI Task force. The FBI investigation involved a loan the respondent received on or about April 2, 2015, from Plaza Home Mortgage, Inc. (hereinafter Plaza), for her purchase of a condominium in Monroe, New York. After being elected Town of Monroe Justice, commencing January 1, 2014, the respondent was required, under New York law, to reside in Monroe to be eligible to hold that position. At that time, the respondent and her husband were residents of New City, New York. During her plea allocution, the respondent admitted that she falsely represented to Plaza that the loan was for a purchase of a condominium that would be her primary residence, and that she would rent out her New City home. In furtherance of the loan application, the respondent submitted to Plaza a fake rental lease agreement for her New City home, together with copies of two checks falsely claiming they were for rent and a security deposit. The respondent admitted that in making these representations and providing these documents to Plaza, she knew that the condominium would not be her primary residence, and that the lease agreement was not “real.”
On or about July 28, 2016, and again on August 1, 2016, the respondent was interviewed by members of an FBI Task Force (hereinafter the FBI agents) about the Plaza loan. During her plea allocution, the respondent admitted that she impeded or obstructed the FBI investigation, inter alia, by giving FBI agents a fake rental lease agreement and false rent receipts, in an effort to make them wrongly believe that she was going to move to the condominium and rent her New City home. She further admitted that some of the rental receipts were created after she was first interviewed by the FBI agents.
Lohud. reported on the conviction.
Winchester was elected as a town justice in Monroe on Nov. 5, 2013, a position that required her to live in Monroe. That same month she began the process of trying to buy a home in Monroe, and she eventually secured a loan to purchase a condo in town in April 2015, officials said.
Officials said they discovered, though, that Winchester never moved to her Monroe condo, and that she was still living in her New City home, which she told mortgage lenders she was going to rent out. She told the mortgage lender on her loan application that she would have income from that rent, officials said.
Winchester never rented her New City home out, though, and provided a fake lease agreement and fraudulent rent checks to mortgage lenders and the FBI to make it seem as if the home had been rented out, officials said.
(Mike Frisch)