In 2006, dentist Leonard Morse was indicted for a “million-dollar Medicaid theft” by the attorney general’s office. The bewildered dentist went for trial and was acquitted after a bench trial at the King’s County Supreme Court.
Morse’s lawsuit had a number of initial causes of action including a number of civil rights violations including deprivation of the right to a fair trial as well as malicious prosecution and defamation. However, in a series of rulings, U.S. District Judge Carol Amon trimmed down the complaint and left it standing on only a single cause of action –deprivation of the right to a fair trial.
That was sufficient.
Former special assistant attorney general John Fusto and special senior investigator Jose Castillo (who left the attorney general’s office as soon as winds changed direction) were found to have fudged the bills and records to have Morse indicted.
Even though lawyers from the attorney general’s office tried to argue that no fabrication had taken place, and even if it had, Fusto and Castillo had prepared the records as part of their grand jury presentation and claimed absolute immunity, the jury disagreed.
The jury found that the two defendants had actually acted as investigators and not as prosecutors at the time they assembled the records. The jury also found that billing records had been fraudulently altered by the duo, while employed in the attorney general’s office, in trying to influence the decision of the grand jury and have Morse indicted.
The case is Morse v. Spitzer, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 07-4793.
