Brooklyn civil court judge candidate files suit against ex-DA
O'Hara v. City of New York et al
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John O’Hara, a candidate for Brooklyn civil court judge, is filing a federal malicious prosecution lawsuit against ex-DA Charles Hynes.
(JESSE WARD)
Now it’s John O’Hara’s turn.
A candidate for Brooklyn civil court judge is filing a federal malicious prosecution lawsuit against ex-DA Charles Hynes, who he says used staffers and politicians to wrongfully prosecute him for voter fraud, the Daily News has learned.
As a result of O’Hara’s conviction — which took three trials by former prosecutor John O’Mara to land the guilty verdict — his law license was revoked and he became a felon, served 1,500 hours of community service and paid $20,000 in fines.
Two decades later, the District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit overturned O’Hara’s conviction — fulfilling a promise the late DA Ken Thompson made to during his 2013 campaign.
According to the lawsuit O’Hara plans to file Tuesday in Brooklyn Federal Court, the spiteful investigation began more than 30 years ago because O’Hara “made enemies” with those who ran the Brooklyn Democratic machine, specifically then-Assemblyman James Brennan.
From 1988 until O’Hara was indicted in 1996, he unsuccessfully ran five times for various elected positions, and his eligibility was challenged each time by Brennan, Hynes and various employees of Hynes’, who looked for grounds to remove him from the ballot, the lawsuit says.
“For John, we are looking to hold Joe Hynes accountable for his decades of abuse of power as the most powerful political person in Brooklyn politics,” said O’Hara’s attorney, Dennis Kelly.
The investigation began in 1994, when Brennan, his Chief of Staff John Keefe and attorney John Carroll hired private investigator Neil Spungin and conspired with Hynes and his staffers to look into O’Hara’s residence to neutralize his political activities, according to the lawsuit.
O’Hara noticed and was alerted that he was under surveillance.
According to the suit, a man in a black suit seated in a black Town Car, belonging to the DA’s office, was parked outside O’Hara’s home and questioned neighbors and their children about him.
O’Hara’s bank records and tax returns were subpoenaed and his mail was held at the post office — under the direction of prosecutors — so they could sift through it, the court papers said. Meanwhile, O’Mara and DA investigator Allen Presser allegedly kept Brennan, Keefe and Carroll up-to-date with the O’Hara’s investigation.
Notes regarding the ultra surveillance done at the direction of Hynes, O’Mara, Brennan and Presser were intentionally not recorded, the lawsuit states.
The investigators charged O’Hara for shacking up with his girlfriend on 47th St. in Sunset Park while voting in a district 14 blocks away, which he claimed as his residence.
O’Hara, a political activist, became the second person in history to be indicted for voter fraud — after suffragist Susan B. Anthony in 1873.
The defendants in the lawsuit, which also includes former prosecutor Dino Amoroso, attorney Jeffrey Waite and the city, created a story that the Board of Elections was investigating O’Hara for violating election law, according to court papers.
A woman who answered the phone at Hynes’ Queens address, did not identify herself and said the 81-year-old former DA was unavailable and not feeling well.
“(Hynes)has left countless bodies behind and there’s not accountability. The amount of lives he ruined for his own political purposes and gain is just sick,” said Kelly, referring to the 23 people the CRU has exonerated from the Hynes’ administration.
O’Hara’s first trial landed a conviction, but was overturned on appeal.
Prosecutors went to trial a second time, and that case ended in a mistrial. Before the unprecedented third trial in 2001, O’Mara made a notation to research avoiding a civil lawsuit if they offered a plea deal that would erase from O’Hara’s criminal history in six months.
The damning note was unearthed in 2015 during the CRU’s investigation.
Messages left for O’Mara at his job at the state’s prosecutors training institute were not returned.
“Mr. O’Hara's complaint will be reviewed by the Law Department once we are served,” a Law Department spokesman said..
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