You are reading

Kew Gardens Attorney Gets 30 Months in Prison for Bribing a Witness in Double Homicide Trial

Attorney John Scarpa

Sept. 24, 2019 By Allie Griffin

A criminal defense attorney who practiced in Kew Gardens has been sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for bribing a witness to commit perjury in a double homicide trial, according to prosecutors.

After a four-day trial in May 2019, John Scarpa, Jr., 66, was convicted of the charge and was sentenced Monday to 30 months imprisonment and fined $10,000 in Brooklyn federal court. 

Scarpa had been practicing law in New York since 1982 and was a prosecutor at three district attorneys’ offices in the metropolitan area before entering private practice in 2003. His law office was on Queens Boulevard across from Queens County Criminal Court in Kew Gardens. Scarpa, who is from Long Island, will also be disbarred.

According to prosecutors, Scarpa plotted with a co-conspirator, Charles Gallman, to bribe a convicted murderer to take the fall for Scarpa’s client, Reginald Ross, who was charged with the execution-style murders of two men. 

Scarpa bribed the imprisoned Luis Cherry to falsely testify in Suffolk County Supreme Court that he alone committed the second of the two murders and that Ross was innocent. In exchange, Scarpa and Gallman promised to help Cherry appeal his own murder conviction and spread word in the prison system that Cherry wasn’t a government informant. 

Despite Cherry falsely testifying, the judge found Ross guilty of both murders. 

“As a defense attorney and former prosecutor, Scarpa was sworn to uphold the law he so egregiously subverted,” United States Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement.  “Scarpa went from practicing law to breaking the law and will now pay a price for his crime.” 

email the author: news@queenspost.com

One Comment

Click for Comments 

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Holden calls out Mayor Adams—will he reopen ICE office on Rikers Island and tackle migrant crime?

One day after Mayor Eric Adams expressed his willingness to collaborate with the incoming Trump administration on addressing the migrant crisis and signaled a readiness to meet with former U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) head Tom Homan, Council Member Robert Holden called on the mayor to reopen the ICE office on Rikers Island.

Holden, who represents District 30 in Queens, which encompasses Maspeth, Middle Village, and parts of Glendale, Ridgewood, Elmhurst, and Rego Park, has been advocating for changes to the city’s sanctuary policies since July. In a letter, he previously urged the mayor to roll back laws that restrict local law enforcement agencies—including the NYPD, Department of Correction, and Department of Probation—from cooperating with ICE.