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A federal indictment returned in Newark accuses Paul Bergrin, 53, of protecting criminal clients by ordering hits on witnesses and pulling other stunts to keep them out of jail.
The indictment specifically details Bergrin’s role in the murder of a confidential witness in an Essex County federal drug case, and his alleged efforts to hire a hitman from Chicago to kill at least one witness in a Monmouth County drug case being prosecuted by the county.
As it turns out, the “hitman” turned state’s evidence for the feds.
Returned yesterday, the indictment was unsealed early this morning with the arrests of Bergrin and three co-defendants. A fifth defendant is in the Monmouth County Jail awaiting trial on state drug charges.
Federal prosecutors said they will ask a magistrate judge in Newark to order Bergrin held without bail, “citing his ongoing danger to the community and flight risk.”
(NOTE: Federal prosecutors on May 27 urged U.S. Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox Arleo to reject a $1 million bail application, saying Bergrin might leave the country and try to harm witnesses in his own case as he allegedly did in others. Arleo adjourned the hearing until the next day so Bergrin’s lawyer could cross-examine the DEA agent whose certification supported the government’s request for detention.)
The case centers on a hit the government says was ordered by Bergrin on a government informant who was planning to testify against one of his clients.
The informant — Kemo Deshawn McCray — bought drugs from William Baskerville in a buy-and-bust operation that led to Baskerville’s arrest on distribution charges, court papers filed by a DEA agent say.
Bergrin, after thumbing through legal documents, met with Baskerville in jail and identified McCray as the informant, federal authorities charge.
The lawyer then met with his client’s cousins, allegedly telling them that “if they didn’t kill ‘Kemo,’ William Baskerville would spend the rest of his life in jail,” the document filed in U.S. District Court in Newark says.
“After Bergrin discussed how Baskerville’s drug associates were going to pay Bergrin’s legal fee for his representation of William Baskerville, Bergrin said that if there was no “Kemo” to testify against William Baskerville, there would be no case against William Baskerville,” it says. “Bergrin said that if “Kemo” was dead, that William Baskerville would definitely get out of jail.
“When Bergrin left the meeting, he said ‘remember what I said, no Kemo, no case’.”
Kemo was standing on a Newark streetcorner in March 2004 when a killer who authorities say was hired by Baskerville’s cousins walked up and shot him three times in the back of the head.
Bergrin recently pleaded guilty in N.Y. State Supreme Court to conspiracing to promote prostitution through NY Confidential, a now-defunct $1,000-per-hour escort service.
But he was spared prison time, raising questions about his other activities. (See: Pimp Lawyer Gets Spanked)
The escort service was founded by Jason Itzler, who once proclaimed himself “King of all Pimps,” claims credit for taking Ashley Youmans of Belmar — better known as Ashley Dupre — from small-time movie-making to platinum hooking, before she helped bring down Spitzer, the former N.Y. State Attorney General.
Prosecutors originally said Bergrin faced up to 25 years in prison on charges of money laundering, promoting prostitution and conspiracy.
He cut a honey of a deal, however: probation and $50,000 in fines.
Now we know why.
A father of three, Bergrin once was a New Jersey success story, jumping from 10 years as an Essex County homicide detective to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey, then to private practice, where he defended some extremely shady rappers and gangsters, as well as high-profile clients who included Queen Latifah and Li’l Kim.
But word quickly spread that he was up to no good himself. And before long, investigators had converted rumor to evidence and evidence to charges.
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