A public-record response to the latest attempt to make the lawyer the scandal while avoiding the harder questions about power, sex, overtime, retaliation, and accountability inside the NYPD.
I. The Smear Is the Strategy
There is a familiar pattern in civil-rights litigation, public-corruption disputes, retaliation cases, and institutional-abuse matters. When the underlying facts become uncomfortable, the defenders of the institution stop arguing the record and start attacking the lawyer.
They do not answer who approved the overtime. They do not explain what the records show. They do not identify what senior executives knew, when they knew it, or why the public narrative keeps shifting. They do not confront whether power, sex, payroll, retaliation, and institutional protection were operating inside the highest levels of the NYPD.
They attack the lawyer because distraction is easier than accountability.
That is what appears to be happening now. After I publicly called out the Epps-obsessed, disbarred lawyer who appears determined to protect former NYPD Chief of Department Jeffrey B. Maddrey, a so-called article suddenly appeared trying to make me the scandal. Not Maddrey. Not the overtime approvals. Not the alleged coercion. Not the retaliation claim. Not the NYPD’s knowledge. Not the federal investigation. Me.
The timing is not subtle. It is the point.
The article dresses itself up as journalism, but it reads like a defense brief for the Maddrey-protection industry. It takes stale headlines, collateral matters, selective fragments, and recycled attacks, then packages them as a public-interest inquiry. But the actual purpose is obvious: move attention away from the unresolved questions about Maddrey, Epps, overtime, command approvals, retaliation, and institutional protection, and redirect the audience into a sideshow about counsel.
A lawyer’s biography is not a substitute for payroll records. A recycled smear is not evidence. A disbarred lawyer’s obsession is not reporting. A hit piece is not a defense.
And when that hit piece is pushed by Richard A. Luthmann, the public should inspect the messenger before accepting the message.
II. Public Records Cut Both Ways
If Richard A. Luthmann wants to talk about public records, then the comparison has to be honest.
My record is simple. I am a licensed attorney. I am in good standing. I have never been professionally disciplined. I continue to represent clients, file cases, try cases, and force uncomfortable facts into the public record.
Luthmann’s record is also public, and it is not a close call.
According to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, Richard A. Luthmann, an attorney licensed by the State of New York, was sentenced on September 9, 2019, by United States District Judge Jack B. Weinstein to four years in prison after pleading guilty to wire-fraud conspiracy and extortion conspiracy. He was also ordered to pay restitution and forfeiture. The United States Attorney’s Office stated that Luthmann used his law practice as a “launching pad” for schemes to defraud businesses in the United States and abroad and to extort a former client for the purpose of lining his pockets.
That is not gossip. That is not spin. That is not a whisper campaign. That is the United States Attorney’s Office describing a lawyer who used his law practice as an instrument of fraud and extortion.
The federal government described shell companies, fraudulent scrap-metal transactions, customers deceived into paying for goods they did not receive, worthless filler materials shipped instead of valuable materials, law-firm accounts used to route fraud proceeds, and an extortion scheme directed at a former client. The FBI’s public statement was equally direct: attorneys are supposed to be honest brokers of justice, and Luthmann’s conduct chipped away at the foundation of that system.
Then came the disciplinary consequences.
In Matter of Luthmann, 2020 NY Slip Op 07198 (2d Dep’t Dec. 2, 2020), the Appellate Division, Second Department struck Luthmann’s name from the roll of attorneys after his federal felony conviction. The court held that, by virtue of his conviction for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, he was automatically disbarred and ceased to be an attorney pursuant to Judiciary Law § 90(4)(a). The court noted that he pleaded guilty in the Eastern District of New York to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to extortionate collection of credit, was sentenced to 48 months’ imprisonment, and was ordered to pay $599,911.26 in restitution, along with a $130,000 forfeiture judgment.
New Jersey reached the same conclusion. The Supreme Court of New Jersey disbarred Richard A. Luthmann after his guilty pleas in the Eastern District of New York to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit extortionate collection of credit. The New Jersey order states that his convictions established violations of RPC 8.4(b), meaning criminal acts reflecting adversely on the lawyer’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a lawyer. The order also references violations of RPC 4.1(a)(2) and RPC 8.4(d), and permanently restrained and enjoined him from practicing law.
That is the public record of the person now attempting to lecture me about professional credibility.
A federal fraud-and-extortion conviction is not a press credential. Disbarment is not investigative journalism. A criminal record does not become moral authority because the person holding it found a keyboard and a headline.
That is why this latest so-called article is so revealing. In my view, it is consistent with the same fraudulent behavior of dishonesty that defines Luthmann’s public record. Not because he criticized me. People can criticize me. Not because he used public records. Public records are fair game. But because he selectively weaponized fragments while refusing to inform readers of the central fact that destroys his smear: despite everything they love to recycle, I have always remained in good standing.
That omission is not accidental. It is the architecture of the hit piece.
If the public is going to be told about an accusation, the public should also be told the outcome. If the public is going to be told about a grievance-related narrative, the public should be told that the Committee on Grievances determined that no action was warranted. If the public is going to be asked to assess credibility, the public should be given the full record, not a fraudster’s curated version of it.
Public records cut both ways. Luthmann should know that better than anyone.
III. The Bankruptcy Lie
The recycled bankruptcy-and-contempt narrative is designed for people who stop reading at the accusation. That is the trick. They want the public to remember the arrest, the jail image, the bankruptcy headline, and the old smear. They want people to believe that some unresolved professional cloud remained over me.
It did not.
I filed for bankruptcy protection as a legal strategy to protect my client, not because I was drowning in personal debt. I have always had, and continue to have, A-1 credit in the high 800s. The people pushing the old narrative do not want that context because context destroys the caricature.
They also do not want the public to understand what happened to me personally and professionally. I suffered losses in the millions because of these attacks. My safety was placed at risk when I was jailed with murder suspects and other felons. My image was being plastered across television screens. My family, my clients, my reputation, and my law practice were all affected.
But I was not broken.
Even inside that environment, the inmates and guards understood who I was. They respected me because I carried myself with dignity, told the truth, and stood on my name. I was not a schemer. I was not hiding from anything. I was an honest lawyer fighting through a dirty situation.
That is the context the hit-piece crowd does not want. They want the optics without the explanation. They want the smear without the ending. They want the public to believe that bankruptcy equals disgrace, when the truth is that the filing was part of a legal strategy to protect a client, not evidence that I was financially ruined or professionally compromised.
The bankruptcy lie survives only when the full story is withheld.
IV. The Part They Never Say: No Discipline, No Bad Standing
Here is the part they never want to say plainly.
On March 20, 2015, the Committee on Grievances for the Eastern District of New York reviewed the relevant documents in Case No. 13-MC-885 and determined that no action was warranted.
No discipline.
No professional sanction.
No bad standing.
That is the ending. That is the record. That is the fact that collapses the smear.
The hit-piece crowd wants the accusation to be loud and the outcome to be invisible. They want the beginning of the story, not the conclusion. They want the arrest, not the disciplinary result. They want the jail image, not the fact that I remained in good standing. They want readers to remember the damage, not the exonerating endpoint.
That is dishonest.
In 2015, WND, a conservative-leaning outlet, published an article titled, “THE MIRIAM CAREY MYSTERY: ‘Murdered mom’ attorney wins fight with feds — Beats ‘mean-spirited, vindictive’ attempt to disbar him.”
For fun, people should read it.
I do not need to agree with every editorial position of any publication to recognize when someone had the balls to write the follow-up that legacy hit-piece reporters ignored. WND followed the matter beyond the damage and reported the part others did not want to emphasize: the grievance matter ended with no action warranted.
That is what journalism is supposed to do. Not simply amplify damage. Not simply repeat allegations. Not simply run with an institution-friendly version. Follow the record, ask what happened next, and tell the public how it ended.
Luthmann’s hit piece does the opposite. It tries to revive the accusation while burying the professional outcome. That is not informing readers. That is manipulating readers.
And coming from a disbarred lawyer convicted of fraud and extortion, the dishonesty is not surprising. It is consistent.
V. While They Were Attacking Me, I Was Trying Cases
There is another part of the record the hit-piece crowd does not want to discuss.
After my own rights were violated, after the contempt mess, after the public attacks, after the personal and professional damage, and after the people who thought they could break me tried their best, I did not disappear.
I walked into Brooklyn federal court as a solo practitioner and tried a major police-brutality case.
On February 3, 2016, a Brooklyn federal jury awarded Black NYPD Officer Larry Jackson $15 million after finding that he was beaten and falsely arrested by police officers inside and outside his Queens home. The verdict included $12.5 million in compensatory damages and $2.6 million in punitive damages.
That verdict was not delivered by a giant law firm. It was not handed to me by institutional privilege. It was not the product of a machine. It was won by a solo practitioner, a person of color, standing in federal court and forcing a jury to confront police brutality against a Black police officer.
That is my record too.
While Luthmann’s record was moving toward fraud, extortion, prison, restitution, forfeiture, and disbarment, I was standing before juries and fighting police misconduct. While others were using law practices as vehicles for fraud and extortion, I was using mine to hold abusive officers legally accountable.
The comparison is not close, and no hit piece can make it close.
This is why the public-record comparison matters. Luthmann’s record reflects criminal abuse of legal status. My record reflects civil-rights advocacy, good standing, and trial results. He lost his license. I kept mine. He went to federal prison. I kept standing in federal court. He became a cautionary tale. I kept representing clients.
That is not arrogance. That is the public record.
VI. Why the Lawyer Attack Does Not Answer the Maddrey/Epps Facts
The most revealing part of the so-called article is what it fails to answer.
It does not answer whether Epps worked the overtime hours at issue. It does not answer who approved the overtime. It does not answer whether the overtime was authorized, tolerated, encouraged, or later weaponized. It does not answer what Maddrey knew. It does not answer what senior NYPD executives knew. It does not answer what internal interviews showed. It does not answer what records exist or what records are missing. It does not answer whether the NYPD smeared a sexual-harassment complainant while a federal investigation was pending.
Most importantly, it does not answer whether power, sex, overtime, retaliation, and institutional protection intersected at the highest levels of the NYPD.
That is the real issue. That is why the distraction is necessary.
If Maddrey’s defenders had clean facts, they would argue the facts. If the records cleared him, they would publish the records. If the overtime issue were as simple as they pretend, they would explain the approvals, the supervision, the payroll process, the internal knowledge, and the timeline.
Instead, they attack me.
That tells me everything.
The public should reject the cartoon version. This is not a simple hero-villain story. This is about power inside One Police Plaza. It is about what happens when a senior official’s office becomes the center of allegations involving sex, overtime, retaliation, and institutional protection. It is about whether public payroll became private currency. It is about whether the Department tried to reframe a sexual-harassment complainant as the sole scandal while protecting the people above her.
Those questions do not disappear because Richard A. Luthmann wants to talk about me. They become more important because the attack on me appears designed to prevent the public from focusing on them.
The lawyer attack is not the answer. It is the dodge.
VII. Conclusion: The Work Continues
I have been attacked before. I have been threatened before. I have been jailed before. I have lost money before. I have had my name dragged before. I have dealt with racists, opportunists, workplace parasites, institutional cowards, and hit-piece clowns who thought they could fuck me over and break me.
They failed.
The law firm failed miserably. The employee who tried to ride that situation into something bigger was never successful. I kept my license, kept my standing, kept my name, and kept building.
That is what they hate.
They want a broken man. They do not have one. They want a disciplined lawyer. They do not have one. They want someone hiding from the record. They do not have one. They want someone intimidated by a disbarred fraud-and-extortion convict with a keyboard. They definitely do not have one.
I am still licensed. I am still in good standing. I am still representing clients. I am still filing cases. I am still forcing uncomfortable facts into public view.
That is why the attacks continue. The work threatens people who depend on silence. The filings threaten people who depend on secrecy. The public record threatens people who depend on spin. A lawyer who refuses to fold is always a problem for people who survive by intimidation.
So let the disbarred fraud-and-extortion clown write. Let the Maddrey defenders whisper. Let the hit-piece crowd recycle old noise. Let them try to make the lawyer the scandal because they cannot answer the facts.
The record remains.
Luthmann’s public record is fraud, extortion, federal prison, restitution, forfeiture, and disbarment.
My public record is good standing, civil-rights advocacy, trial work, and a $15 million federal jury verdict for a Black NYPD officer beaten and falsely arrested by police.
They can recycle the beginning of old stories all they want.
I will keep telling the ending.
The timing tells the story. The record tells the rest.
And the work continues.
