Saddle Rock mayor pleads Fifth during Masri trial

Dan Glaun

Village of Saddle Rock Mayor Dan Levy repeatedly pled the 5th Amendment at the trial of his alleged attacker Sasha Masri Wednesday morning, as Masri’s attorney cross-examined him about village payments to a contractor.

“I will answer that question to the proper authorities when the time comes,” Levy said during one of defense attorney Robert McDonald’s many efforts to have him admit to recognizing correspondence and financial documents from the village’s auditing firm Satty, Levine and Ciacco.

McDonald asked Levy dozens of questions about the purported financial documents, including whether he personally cashed village contractor Next Capital’s checks, whether he received correspondence from Satty, Levine & Ciacco questioning the village’s financial practices and if he personally knew Next Capital’s president Yaniv Erez.

“I am the victim here. You keep trying to push that stuff to make me the defendant. I am not,” Levy said, after asserting his 5th Amendment right not to answer the questions.

The questioning of Levy took place during a trial on charges against Masri for allegedly assaulting Levy in Village Hall following an Oct. 3 board meeting.

Levy’s attorney Elizabeth Kase issued a statement saying that Masri committed a “vicious assault” on Levy and decrying the defense’s focus on the village finances.

“These attempts to deflect attention from Mr. Masri’s criminal conduct only adds further insult to Mayor Levy’s serious injuries,” wrote Kase. “My client has a distinguished record of public service, and any questions regarding Village audits will be addressed at an appropriate time and venue. This trial is not the time nor place, and defense counsel is not a prosecutor or an agent of law enforcement.”

The financial documents – which McDonald said included reports from Satty, Levine and Ciacco that Levy had personally cashed checks written out to contractor Next Capital Corp – were the cause of hours of hold-up during Tuesday and Wednesday’s trial proceedings, as the defense sought to obtain the documents from the village.

On Tuesday morning, the village had turned over only a 2012 audit to the court – not the additional memos, letters and copies of checks that McDonald had sought.

In a recess outside the courtroom, McDonald, Assistant District Attorney Christine Geier and village attorney James Murphy held a hushed conversation, as McDonald questioned why the village had not turned over the extra material.

“I suspect strongly there are further communications,” McDonald said in court Tuesday.

Nassau County Court Judge Philip Grella approved a subpoena Tuesday for the village to turn over additional correspondence from the auditing firm, after McDonald and Geier sparred over the relevance of the village finances to the assault case at hand.

“The documents here really have nothing to do with the case before the court,” Geier told Grella on Tuesday.

“That is an assumption that is incorrect,” Grella responded.

The reason for the documents’ relevance, Grella said, was the credibility of Levy’s testimony. The fight between Masri and Levy followed a verbal argument about the village’s finances, and Grella ruled that the auditing company’s correspondence could potentially shed light on whether Levy had a reason to hide the truth about the confrontation that left him with a head wound and an arm broken in multiple places.

“The defense has asserted in good faith and belief that there is a motive to lie,” Grella said.

Though Grella approved McDonald’s questioning based on the documents, which were turned over by the village attorney Wednesday morning, he did not allow them to be submitted as evidence, following objections from Geier that the correspondence should be treated as hearsay.

Next Capital’s president Yaniv Erez told the Great Neck News in an interview that he was a “close friend” of Levy’s and that Levy’s daughter was an employee of Next Capital who the mayor had specifically requested to do paid work for the village.

“We needed someone over there to help reduce the amount of paper work,” Erez said. “They asked me if she can work over there and do that.”

Next Capital, Erez said, did maintenance jobs for the village, including work on the village pool. The company had done minor village jobs on a regular basis, but had not worked for the village for months, according to Erez.

Erez added that though he did not always receive village checks before they were given to employees, he did not believe Levy had personally cashed checks to his Queens-based company.

Next Capital was founded in 2006, Erez said, and had a few hundred employees.

Grella indicated he expected the trial to continue into next week.

In last week’s testimony, the prosecution and defense sketched out differing versions of the fight between Masri and Levy, which began with a profanity-laced argument after an October, 2012 board meeting.

Geier described Masri punching Levy in the face while holding a set of keys, and then throwing Levy into a bench during the ensuing fight before fleeing the scene.

Masri and McDonald painted Levy as the aggressor, saying that while Masri slapped Levy, the mayor and Trustee David Schwartz then attacked him and that Levy suffered his injuries after falling down when Masri attempted to escape the beating.

Geier, who later cited expert testimony from the plastic surgeon who treated Levy’s head wound as evidence that he did not sustain the injury from falling, described Masri as a political gadfly and an “occasionally disruptive” presence at village board meetings.

Masri approached Levy and Schwartz after the meeting to discuss village financial matters, and when the conversation became heated Levy began berating Masri and encouraging Schwartz to ignore him, according to Geier.

“Mr. Masri became angry at Dr. Levy and told him to go [expletive] himself,” said Geier. “To which Dr. Levy responded ‘go [expletive] yourself and the woman who gave birth to you.”

The defense described a similar verbal dispute, but McDonald said Levy also called Masri’s mother a whore.

“At this, the defendent became enraged. He threw a punch at Dr. Levy’s head while holding his keys in his hand. The punch connected and the keys sliced open Dr. Levy’s forehead, an incision that would later require 14 stitches,” Geier said.

Masri then charged at Levy as the mayor walked around the podium, according to Geier, after which Levy succeeded in putting Masri in a headlock. When Masri escaped Levy’s grasp he shoved the mayor into the bench, breaking Levy’s shoulder in three places, according to Geier.

Levy, an ophthalmologist, was not able to practice for weeks, Greir said.

Masri then left Village Hall after recovering his keys, which he had dropped in the altercation, Geier said.

“At the conclusion of the trial,” Greir said, “the relevant and credible evidence will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty.”

According to McDonald, the fight unfolded differently.

“This case is not really about assault. This case is about pride and hubris,” said McDonald in his opening statement.

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