FromNews Dispatches
federal court judge in
NewYork allowed a
case against U.S.
Attorney Preet Bharara
to go to the discovery
stage and denied the motion of
the “Sheriff ofWall Street” to dis-
miss the civil rights claims of a
former hedge fund manager tar-
geted but never charged. The
plaintiff in the case called the
judge’s ruling a “first step’ in
holding the government
accountable for “troubling con-
duct.”
Legal experts say this is a rare
and unusual case that may
require the high profile, nation-
ally recognized U.S. Attorney for
Manhattan, some of his assis-
tant attorneys, and the FBI, to
submit hundreds of documents
to do with the discovery process,
in a case that may end up in a
jury trial. “The Ganek case pres-
ents a relatively rare instance of
a plaintiff’s claims prevailing
over the defense of qualified
immunity,” jdsupra.com, a legal
news website, maintained.
David Ganek, a former
hedge-fund manager at Level
Global Investors LLC, which is
now defunct, alleged his civil
rights were violated during an
investigation; that in effect, as a
law-enforcement officer,
Bharara did not protect him
from the violation; and despite
knowing about it, did not clear
up a misrepresentation about
him, causing his company to
fail.
Credited with securing more
than 80 convictions after his
pledge to crackdown on insider
trading when he came into
office in August 2009, Bharara,
who supervises an office of
more than 220 assistant U.S.
attorneys, handling cases of
domestic and international ter-
rorism, narcotics and arms traf-
ficking, white collar crime, pub-
lic corruption, gang violence,
organized crime, and civil rights
violations, is being sued for vio-
lating the civil rights of a citizen,
an irony not lost on critics of
what they see as Bharara’s high-
handed prosecutorial tactics.
On this March 10, federal
JudgeWilliam H. Pauley permit-
ted the civil rights case against
Bharara et al to go forward. “The
unusual decision on Thursday
means the government must
provide evidence about its work
to Ganek and perhaps defend
itself before a jury,” Bloomberg
news reported.
According to media reports,
including jdsupra.com, a
November 2010 FBI raid of
Ganek’s offices involved search
of personal files and mobile
phones, in the presence of jour-
nalists, causing investors anxi-
ety, despite no resulting charges
against Ganek. The lawyer for
Ganek informed Bharara the
firmmay have to close unless
the U.S. Attorney publicly clari-
fied that Ganek was not the tar-
get of investigation. Bharara did
not make any clarification, the
news report says, and the firm
closed in February 2011.
Some of the 100 or so white
collar cases brought by Bharara
have been dismissed. Two years
ago, a related case, U.S. v.
Newman, was vacated by the
Second Circuit on grounds that
prosecutors were unable to
prove that the two accused
hedge fund managers knew that
the corporate insider who gave
them the information did it for
“personal benefit.” Several other
convictions were also reversed
after this.
Ganek’s case which he filed in
February 2015, rested on the
affidavit used to get the search
warrant for the FBI raid of Level
Global offices. The affidavit
Ganek claims, was partly fabri-
cated as it related to him; that
the research analyst who provid-
ed the affidavit, actually told the
FBI that he never informed
Ganek about the sources of the
“inside information,” and that
this was known from his testi-
mony at the Newman trial.
Which means, according to
Ganek, that some parts of affi-
davit for the search warrant,
were manufactured in a bid to
get the warrant. This, he says,
violated his Fourth and Fifth
Amendment rights.
Judge Pauley ruled that
Ganek had “adequately pled”
that the affidavit in question
“contained materially false
statements and omissions” and
therefore met the probable
cause requirement regarding
violation of his Fourth
Amendment rights.
On his Fifth Amendment
rights claim of “not to be
deprived of liberty as a result of
the fabrication of evidence by a
government officer” Judge
Pauley also ruled that Ganek
had pled sufficiently.
Furthermore, the judge also
upheld Ganek’s “failure to inter-
vene” claim that Bharara and
others did not carry out their
duty “to protect the constitu-
tional rights of citizens from
infringement by other law
enforcement officers.” Bharara,
the judge said, failed to clarify
that Ganek was not the target of
the investigation despite learn-
ing that the research analyst’s
affidavit was incorrect.
Community
– that’s all you need to know
A
Judge Allows Case Against ‘Sheriff Of Wall Street’ To Go Forward
Bya StaffWriter
T
he California
Department of
Education’s Instructional
Quality Commission late last
month rejected suggestions of
some experts for replacing
‘ancient India’ with ‘South
Asia’ in school textbooks fol-
lowing protests and public
awareness campaigns that
included letters from profes-
sors of religion and history.
Over 100 “Hindu
Americans” converged on
Sacramento March 25 to voice
their concerns about the
California Department of
Education Instructional
Quality Commission’s plans to
accept problematic edits made
by a small group of South
Asian studies faculty.
These proposed edits,
according to reports, would
have largely removed refer-
ences to India and Hinduism,
and replaced them with the
terms “South Asia” and
“ancient Indian religion,”
respectively.
During the public comment
period, the Hindu American
Foundation and community
members as well as non-
Hindus, testified before the
commission about both the
inaccuracies in the proposed
edits and the last-minute
process by which they were
initially uniformly accepted.
Some of the proposed edits
included removing mention of
Hinduism’s acceptance of reli-
gious diversity, re-linking
Hinduism with caste, and
removing mention of the con-
tributions of Hindu sages of
different backgrounds such as
Valmiki and Vyasa. They
argued that edits would erase
their religious and cultural his-
tories and urged the commis-
sion to reject the changes.
Moreover, they asked the com-
missioners to adopt a more
inclusive and culturally com-
petent frameworks document.
The community’s efforts
was also supported by a coali-
tion of 20 government leaders
and elected officials, including
Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard (D-HI), CA State
Senator Steven M. Glazer
(District 7), and several local
leaders.
Academics such as Barbara
A. McGraw of St. Mary’s
College of California, an
award-winning scholar and
former American Academy of
Religion president, and Sofia
University philosophy profes-
sor Kundan Singh also testi-
fied.
While HAF and other
groups believe progress has
been made, concerns remain
about the way in which the
edits were accepted. “Our con-
cerns remain with how many
of these edits were accepted,
particularly in the commis-
sion’s apparent privileging of
one group of scholars over the
views of many others,” said
Murali Balaji, HAF’s Director of
Education and Curriculum
Reform.
he IQC will publish its
revised set of recommenda-
tions two weeks before the
May 11 State Board of
Education hearing.
Protest In California Over Replacing
‘India With South Asia’ In Textbooks
Over 100 “Hindu Americans” stage a protest in Sacramento March 25 to voice their concerns about the
California Department of Education Instructional Quality Commission’s plans to accept “problematic
edits” made by a small group of South Asian studies faculty members.
7
News India Times
April 8, 2016
