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Carolyn Mccray Biography & Facts

Paul Bergrin (born December 8, 1955) is an American convicted felon and former criminal defense lawyer who practiced law in Newark, New Jersey. Prior to his conviction, he was known for defending a range of famous and notorious clients. He was convicted of conspiracy to murder a witness and other racketeering, cocaine and prostitution offenses, and sentenced to six concurrent life terms in federal prison in 2013. He was disbarred by the Supreme Court of New Jersey in 2016. A veteran lawyer from the area said that the crimes alleged in the federal indictment would make Bergrin "the craziest, most evil lawyer in the history of New Jersey," and "that is saying something", and a federal court has likened Bergrin's downfall to the plot of a drama by Sophocles or Martin Scorsese. Early life and legal career Bergrin grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens, then a middle-class neighborhood. He attended Brooklyn College and studied law at the Shepard Broad College of Law. Bergrin joined the U.S. Army in 1979, serving as a major in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Bergrin was admitted to the Florida bar and the New Jersey bar in 1980, and the New York bar in 1986. After his discharge from the Army, Bergrin held posts as a prosecutor in Essex County, New Jersey and, starting in 1987, for the U.S. Government as an assistant U.S. Attorney, where he served under both Samuel Alito and Michael Chertoff. In November 1989, Bergrin testified as a character witness on behalf of two investigators for the Essex County prosecutor's office who were charged with protecting a Newark drug dealer in exchange for cocaine and money. Bergrin called the defendants "upstanding individuals who would never put their careers or jobs in jeopardy by stating anything other than the truth." Although Alito assured Bergrin before his court appearance that his job would not be affected by his testimony, Bergrin said afterwards that he felt a "coolness and aloofness" towards him from his fellow prosecutors. Several months after his testimony, Bergrin decided to resign from the U.S. attorney's office and become a defense lawyer. From 1990 to 2005, he was a partner at Pope, Bergrin & Verdesco. Bergrin's clients included gang leaders, drug dealers, and celebrities, including drug kingpin Hakeem "E.T. Hak" Curry, Angelo "The Horn" Prisco, Queen Latifah, Naughty by Nature and Lil' Kim. He also represented Heather "Hedy" DiCarlo, a former Mrs. New Jersey accused of bouncing more than $70,000 in checks. He defended Javal Davis (charged along with Lynndie England), an Army reservist from Roselle, New Jersey who in 2005 admitted abusing detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, as well as PFC Corey R. Clagett, who was convicted in the Iron Triangle Murders. Among his last cases prior to his arrest was a national multi-defendant OxyContin racketeering (RICO) case, in which his client Enin Martin pleaded guilty in February 2009 to racketeering, facing 17 years in prison. Criminal career Velez perjury In 2001, after Marilu Bruno-Velez dropped off her nine-year-old daughter, Carolyn Velez, at school, her husband Norberto Velez, from whom she was in the process of getting a divorce, approached her car and asked to speak with her. Carolyn was living with her father at the time under a joint custody agreement and had just spent three days with her mother, and Velez became angry that she had not returned sooner. They began arguing over custody of their daughter, and Velez stabbed his wife eight or nine times with a steak knife. A number of other parents outside the school who witnessed the stabbing called the police, and Velez was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Velez was represented by Bergrin, who argued that his client was acting in self-defense and temporarily insane. On July 8, 2003, Velez was acquitted of attempted murder, second-degree aggravated assault, and third-degree aggravated assault on the grounds of self-defense, and acquitted of fourth-degree aggravated assault with a deadly weapon on the grounds that he was temporarily insane. Bergrin alleged that Bruno-Velez abused both Velez and his children, and "led him into deep depression and psychosis." Velez was 40 years old when the trial began and had never been arrested before, and Bergrin suggested that "something had to happen" on account of his wife's "repeated threats to remove his children and not allow him to ever see them again." Bergrin elicited testimony from Carolyn Velez that her mother had taken the steak knife used in the stabbing from her father's home, and argued that Bruno-Velez had brought it to the scene and used it to attack Velez, who Bergrin said had defensive wounds on his hands. Bergrin said that Carolyn Velez would not lie for her father's sake, as she would fear being beaten by her mother, which he said had been going on for some time. After the acquittal, Bergrin said that he had a pretty good chance of winning Velez full custody of his children. Velez faced another trial for witness tampering stemming from an allegation by his wife that he threatened to kill himself if she did not drop the charges, and was acquitted in that trial as well. After Velez told Carolyn he had been acquitted, she told her mother that Velez, Bergrin, and Bergrin's girlfriend, Yolanda Jauregui, had coached her to lie under oath. On July 9, Bruno-Velez took Carolyn to the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, where she made a 90-minute video-recorded statement that she had been coached to lie. Velez later testified that Bergrin told her he needed her help to keep her father out of prison, and that "this is the kind of case where you can't tell the truth." She said that Bergrin told her to falsely claim that her mother "was mean and nasty and threw me down the stairs and beat me with hangers," and to falsely tell investigators that Bruno-Velez had grabbed a kitchen knife when she and Carolyn had stopped at his house to pick up her book bag on the way to school. Velez also recalled trips to New York toy stores, restaurants, and movies, as well as the gift of an autographed photo from one of Bergrin's other clients, Queen Latifah, which prosecutors characterized as bribes. She testified that she lied in statements to investigators and as a witness at a bail hearing, an evidence-suppression hearing, and her father's trials, and that after her father found out she had told the truth at one session, her father picked her up screaming, grabbed her by the neck, pushed her, and told her he would go to jail, after which she reverted to her rehearsed story, telling investigators that she was afraid of her mother because her mother had hit her and told her what to say. Bergrin suggested in his own trial that after the acquittal, Velez' mother, grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins had put her up to changing her story, and pointed out that Velez said in the video-recorded statement that she did not want to see her father again because he needed "anger management," questio.... Discover the Carolyn Mccray popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Carolyn Mccray books.