File photo by Dean Moses
TIMESLEDGER | Q 2 NS.COM | JAN. 1-JAN. 7, 2021
BY JACOB KAYE
A Queens lawmaker last
week requested the early release
of a convicted mobster,
who was sentenced to six and
a half years in prison for extortion
in November 2018.
State Senator Joe Addabbo
penned the letter to U.S.
District Judge Dora Irizarry
in support of the early release
of Michael Padavona, a made
member of the Bonanno
crime family currently serving
his sentence at Fort Dix, a
federal prison in New Jersey,
according to the office of the
U.S. Attorney for the Eastern
District of New York. Addabbo
cited Padavona’s good
behavior behind bars, his
connection to his loved ones
and his poor health as reasons
for the compassionate
release.
“It is my understanding
that Mr. Padavona has realistic
grounds for such a release
based upon his health
condition, which I believe
includes high blood pressure,
a herniated disc with
medication and a previous
treatment for testicular cancer,”
the senator wrote. “One
factor on which I base my
request is the lack of social
distancing and other health
measures being taken at Mr.
Padavona’s quarters, making
him susceptible to the rise in
the positive COVID-19 cases
at the site.”
Prisons and jails in New
York have come under scrutiny
in the past year for what
many lawmakers and activists
believe to be a lackluster
response to COVID-19.
In November, Padavona
tested positive for the virus
and, instead of being treated,
was “alone in his cell with a
fever and an extremely irregular
blood pressure,” according
to his lawyers.
Addabbo also mentioned
in his letter that Padavona
has been unable to see his
family since the pandemic
began.
“Personally, the other factor
which urged me to make
this request was the fact that
Mr. Padavona has a wife and
five children, who I understand
he has not seen since
the pandemic crisis began,”
Addabbo wrote. “I am hopeful
that his status as a model
inmate and remaining term
of his sentence would allow
him to be safely reunited
with his family.”
The feds have strongly
argued against Padavona’s
release, citing several instances
of extortion to which
he had pleaded guilty in 2018.
According to the U.S. Attorney,
Padavona and his
co-defendants, Ronald Giallanzo,
Nicholas Festa and Michael
Hintze, acted as loansharks,
handing out money
to victims only to force the
collection of a much larger
sum of cash under the threat
of violence.
In addition to the extortion
charges, Padavona also collected
over $400,000 in Social
Security disability payments
for himself and his family despite
having not paid taxes on
the money he illegally made,
according to the feds.
In 2006, Padavona allegedly
ordered an associate to
burn a car belonging to the
parent of a girl that was having
a dispute with Padavona’s
daughter at school. As a
form of payment, Padavona
gave his associate a bottle of
the prescription painkiller
Vicodin.
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
The deadly police shooting
of Louisville’s Breonna Taylor
back in March has prompted
New York lawmakers, including
Queens state Senator
James Sanders Jr., to make a
renewed effort at reforming
how law enforcement executes
search warrants.
Sanders teamed up with
state Senator Brian Benjamin
of Manhattan/Brooklyn, and
Manhattan Assemblyman
Daniel O’Donnell to announce
new legislation that would curb
the use of “no-knock warrants”
and further regulate how police
officers conduct raids.
Among the legislation’s
supporters is Tamika Palmer,
Taylor’s mother, who said she’s
“not the only parent who has
lost a child due to this practice
of breaking down doors with
hopes of scoring drugs and
cash.”
“These reform efforts need
to continue so that no one else
loses a loved one as a result of
these dangerous, deadly and
unnecessary practices,” Palmer
said. “The lives of innocent
daughters, sons, brothers,
sisters, mothers, fathers and
police officers depend upon
the immediate elimination of
these raids. We’re counting on
legislators nationwide to act
now.”
While the bill wouldn’t
eliminate no-knock raids in
New York altogether, it would
restrict or prevent the kind of
tactics that Louisville, Kentucky,
police officers used in
conducting the raid that led
to Taylor’s death early on the
morning of March 13, 2020.
Plainclothes officers
knocked on the door, then
stormed into an apartment as
part of a narcotics investigation;
Taylor, a medical worker,
was with her boyfriend, Kenneth
Walker, at the time.
Walker claimed he did
not hear the officers identify
themselves as law enforcement,
which had prompted
him to think an intruder had
come in. He pulled out a pistol
and fired a shot that struck
one of the officers in the leg;
that prompted police officers
to open fire 32 times. Walker
was not hit, but Taylor was
struck six times and died.
The crime prompted national
outrage and protests
demanding an end to police
brutality and racial injustice.
Those calls were compounded
later in the spring following
the police death of George
Floyd in Minneapolis; Taylor’s
name was often recited at the
protests that broke out across
the country.
The protests also spurred
legislators across America to
rethink law enforcement and
introduce new reforms, from
reducing funding for police departments
to changing police
operations altogether.
Along with responding to
Taylor’s death, the legislation
that Sanders, Benjamin and
O’Donnell proposed also revives
a nearly 20-year effort
in New York to reform search
warrant operations following
the 2003 death of Harlem’s Alberta
Spurill, who suffered a
fatal heart attack during an
NYPD raid of her home.
Sanders further cited studies
that no-knock raids and
warrants are disproportionally
executed more often against
Black and Brown people.
“Today, we are putting
forth the most comprehensive,
groundbreaking legislation
in the nation when it comes
to these police raids, which
should only be used under extreme
circumstances and with
accountability.”
If passed, the bill would
limit police departments
across New York state in their
use of no-knock warrants and
raids to solely using such tactics
with conclusive evidence
that human life is in jeopardy.
In advance of acquiring
such a warrant, the legislation
also mandates that officers
obtain in advance the age,
gender and known disabilities
of all occupants. All officers
must be in uniform; wait 30
seconds for a response to a
knock on their door; and not
use any flash bang grenades in
executing each raid.
Additionally, police departments
would be required to
make audio and video footage
of each warrant execution
available for independent
oversight review.
“It’s hard to believe that
anyone can argue that the
public is well served by allowing
armed officers to smash
into a house out of the blue,”
Benjamin said. “How can this
possibly be the safest way to
arrest someone? We’ve seen
hundreds like Breonna Taylor
killed or harmed because people
decided that using these
tactics was no big deal. We
need to rein it in, and we need
to do it now.”
Research conducted by
Campaign Zero and police
scholar Dr. Peter Kraska
found that American police
departments executed 60,000
no-knock or quick-knock raids
every year, a twentyfold jump
from the 3,000 such operations
conducted during the early
1980s.
Schneps Media reached out
to the NYPD for comment and
is awaiting a response.
Reach reporter Robert Pozarycki
by e-mail at rpozarycki@
qns.com or by phone at
(718) 260-4549.
File photo
Addabbo requests release
of convicted mobster
Queens senator joins call for
search of warrant reform
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