NY Judge Served as MCU Board Member & Presided Over Court Cases Involving the CU

Court documents reveal a New York judge, who served as former board chair of the $3 billion Municipal Credit Union, presided over court cases and issued an order or opinion in multiple cases in which the credit union was a party.

This revelation and others were detailed in a criminal complaint against Sylvia Ash, a judge of the Kings County Supreme Court in Brooklyn and former board member for New York City-based MCU. A federal criminal complaint accused the 62-year-old judge with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice stemming from a scheme to seek to influence and impede a federal investigation into fraud and corruption at the credit union.

Court documents also reveal that former MCU CEO Kam Wong, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison for stealing nearly $10 million in June, gave New York Yankees’ game tickets in exchange for opiate prescription drugs allegedly supplied by former supervisory committee member, Joseph Guagliardo, a retired New York City cop. Guagliardo was also charged last week with the distribution of controlled substances, fraud, embezzlement and conspiracy.

Ash’s lawyer, Roger Archibald, said his client is innocent, pointing out that the tens of thousands of dollars in reimbursements and other benefits she received from MCU annually, were legitimate reimbursements for credit union conferences she attended from 2012 to 2016.

“She has maintained her innocence and will continue to maintain her innocence because she didn’t do anything wrong,” Archibald said. “One of the things I think they tried to impugn some type of a motive was that she was reimbursed for expenses and travel, but that is what every board member got, so there is nothing nefarious or illegal about that. All board members were reimbursed for travel as it related to credit (union) business…so I see no motive in that or any impropriety.”

However, Archibald declined to comment on the obstruction charges that Ash allegedly agreed to continue to seek to influence and impede the federal investigation in multiple ways by concealing and deleting relevant text messages and email messages and wiping her MCU-issued Apple iPhone in a further effort to destroy and impair the availability of evidence that had been sought by federal grand jury subpoenas, and making false and misleading statements to federal investigators in interviews conducted as part of a criminal investigation.

Guagliardo’s lawyer, John Arilia, did not return a CU Times phone call and email messages requesting comment.

Federal investigators said in court documents that Ash joined the MCU board in May 2008 and resigned in August 2016 after the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct filed a complaint against her for serving on the board because MCU was regularly engaged in “adversary proceedings” in the New York courts, which was an alleged violation of rules governing a judge’s extra-judicial activities. Ash has been serving as a New York judge since 2006 and was placed on paid leave pending the outcome of her criminal case.

What’s more, in May 2015, prior to Ash becoming MCU’s board chair, she sought advice from the New York State Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics as to whether she could serve as MCU’s board chair. The advisory committee said Ash could not serve on the MCU board. Even though Ash told the board she would resign, she didn’t do so until a year and three months later in August 2016.

Additionally, federal investigators said, Ash failed to report that she served on the MCU board and to report reimbursements, gifts or compensation she received from the credit union, which all New York judges are required to disclose annually to the New York State Office of Court Administration. In 2015, MCU spent more than $63,000 for the benefit of at the direction of Ash, which was the most spent by any board member in that year. Those credit union funds paid for Apple devices, airfare and hotels for her and a guest while attending conferences in Cancun, San Juan and the Greek Isles.

Starting in 2011 and continuing through January 2018, Wong texted and emailed Guagliardo and his spouse, a doctor at a New York public hospital, numerous times whenever the former CEO needed refills for his addiction to opiate prescription drugs such as Vicodin, Hydrocodone and Codeine, according to court documents.

In one email, Wong wrote to Guagliardo’s spouse, “I have reserved one set of the Subway Series tickets for you and also have the following Yankees tickets available. You can give me your delivery address for the tickets and I’ll have a messenger delivery and also pick up the prescription at the same time.”

Although Ash and Guagliardo have been accused of committing felonies they have not yet been indicted or have entered pleas.