Judge Orders Velella’s Return to Rikers

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The New York Sun

Nearly three months after a virtually unknown city panel freed him from jail and set off a domino-like political fallout, a former state senator, Guy Velella, was ordered yesterday to return to Rikers Island to serve out the balance of his sentence.


The ruling, a unanimous decision by a five-judge panel at the State Supreme Court Appellate Division, requires Velella and the four other inmates who were simultaneously released before finishing their terms to surrender two days after Christmas.


The ruling upholds a November 29 lower-court decision, which found the releases illegal because the applications were reviewed before the mandatory window had passed. It also reverses the edict of the Local Conditional Release Commission, which has, for nearly three months, been a nagging embarrassment to the Bloomberg administration.


In the month after Velella’s September 28 release, all four members of the commission resigned under pressure from Mayor Bloomberg. A newly appointed commission then overturned the original commission’s decision and ordered the longtime Bronx Republican and his co-defendants, Hector Del Toro and Manuel Gonzalez, back to jail.


Velella’s lawyer, who is also representing three of the other four defendants in the case, vowed to appeal yesterday’s decision, as he has the previous rulings.


“We are deeply disappointed by the Court’s decision,” the attorney, Charles Stillman, said in a statement faxed to reporters. “It will not be a pleasant holiday for our clients. We will seek relief from the Court of Appeals in Albany.”


The city Law Department, which deemed the release invalid in early November for procedural violations, including the commission’s failure to have all members present for the vote, treated yesterday’s ruling as a victory.


“The City is pleased that the Appellate Division, like the lower court, upheld the LCRC’s efforts to perform its duties strictly in accordance with the law,” a senior lawyer at the department, Jeffrey Friedlander, said in a statement. “The City appreciates the Court’s thorough, expeditious, and unanimous decision.”


The new chairman of the once-obscure commission, Daniel Richman, who has publicly said he wants to restore its credibility, said he was gratified that the court sided with his panel.


“Look, all we did was follow the law, and I think the courts have recognized that,” Mr. Richman said.


Mr. Richman, a Fordham University Law School professor tapped by Mr. Bloomberg for a job that few would envy, said the commission has been meeting regularly on other cases and in the past few weeks has reviewed between 50 and 60 applications for early release. All of those applications were rejected.


Velella, 60, was indicted in 2002 on bribery charges and accused by prosecutors of taking $137,000 from contractors. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy in May, in a deal that spared his aged father, Vincent Velella, who was also implicated in the scheme, the ordeal of a trial.


In filing his application for early release, Velella, who held his state Senate seat for 28 years, had high-powered elected officials and community leaders write letters vouching for his character. Some of those friends later said they did not realize their statements would be used to lobby the panel for his early release. But given that the commission granted release on only five of 7,000 applications it reviewed in the last year, and that three of those five were related to Velella’s case, it was nearly impossible to avoid the appearance of cronyism.


Velella and the other parolees have already been granted two temporary stays after being ordered to surrender. But the three months they spend outside jail is expected to be applied to their sentences, meaning Velella could not ultimately serve more than nine months of his original yearlong term.


Velella Timeline


* DECEMBER 27 – Velella scheduled to resume serving his sentence at Rikers Island.


* DECEMBER 20 – A state Appeals Court panel rules Velella had been granted release improperly since he had not waited the required 60 days after his first rejection before re-applying.


* DECEMBER 16 – Panel of five state judges hears arguments in case.


* NOVEMBER 29 – Justice Lottie E. Wilkins of State Supreme Court orders Velella back to jail, supporting the Local Conditional Release Commission’s decision 10 days earlier. Three hours later, Justice Betty Weinberg Ellerin of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court reverses that decision, granting Velella a stay until December 16.


* NOVEMBER 22 – A State Supreme Court judge gives Velella a temporary reprieve two hours before he is supposed to be sent to jail, saying she needed a week to consider whether a mayoral panel acted legally in ordering him back to jail.


* NOVEMBER 19 – Reconstituted Local Conditional Release Commission orders Velella and four others to return to jail.


* NOVEMBER 16 – Velella refuses to reapply to the new commission for release.


* NOVEMBER 8 – The New York City Law Department says the commission acted illegally when it released Velella.


* OCTOBER 29 – Mayor appoints four new members to commission.


* OCTOBER 18 – The city council releases a report saying the commission violated state law by voting to allow Velella’s release.


* OCTOBER 12 – The chairman of the Local Conditional Release Commission, Raul Russi, resigns. Daniel Richman, a professor at Fordham Law School, replaces him. Within days, all five members of the commission resign under pressure from the mayor.


* SEPTEMBER 30 – Mayor asks Department of Investigation to examine commission’s decision.


* SEPTEMBER 28 – The Local Conditional Release Commission releases Velella and four others from jail after Velella served little more than three months.


The New York Sun

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