Opening Statements Read in Jury Trial of Former Municipal CU Board Chair

A New York jury heard opening statements Tuesday that began the trial of Sylvia Ash, former board chair of the $4.2 billion Municipal Credit Union, who was indicted on obstruction of justice charges for allegedly attempting to impede a federal investigation that exposed widespread criminal fraud and corruption at New York’s oldest financial cooperative.

“This is a case about a cover-up. It is about how the defendant, Sylvia Ash, deleted and hid evidence from a federal grand jury that was investigating a multimillion-dollar fraud,” Federal Prosecutor for the Southern District of New York Alona S. Katz said in her opening statement to the jury. “It’s about how she lied to a federal agent. It’s about how she knowingly signed a false document, designed to mislead federal investigators. And it’s about how she tried to cover up the fraud and protect herself. We are here because the defendant obstructed justice.”

A July superseding indictment charged Ash, a Brooklyn state Supreme Court Justice, with two felony counts of obstruction of justice, one felony count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one felony count of making false statements to federal officers.

But in her opening statement, Ash’s defense attorney, Carrie H. Cohen, declared, “the government just got it wrong.”

“I’m telling you flat out: Ms. Ash never lied to the government. Ms. Ash never deleted emails or withheld text messages to frustrate their investigation,” Cohen said. “Ms. Ash never wiped her phone in an effort to cover up anything. Quite the opposite. You will learn Ms. Ash cooperated with the government’s investigation. She spoke to them voluntarily. She answered their calls and met with them numerous times.”

In early 2018, Katz said Kam Wong, MCU’s former president/CEO, had become the focus of an investigation for a multimillion-dollar embezzlement. He pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $10 million and was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in 2019.

Katz said that Wong needed a cover story for federal investigators who were questioning him in 2018 when he turned to Ash to help sell his cover story to federal agents.

When federal investigators pressed Wong about the millions he had taken from MCU, he wrote a memo. That memo claimed in 2015 that Ash, while serving as MCU’s board chair, had told Wong that it was OK to take millions of dollars — that he was permitted to take cash from MCU instead of an insurance policy, according to Katz.

“Wong asked the defendant to sign this phony memo, but before she agreed to sign, he gave her one last freebie — a brand new Apple iPhone,” Katz said. “Once the defendant had signed that memo, Wong gave it directly to federal agents, claiming it showed that he was innocent. The memo was false, phony. That conversation never happened. And when federal investigators confronted the defendant with her signature, she confessed that she knew the memo wasn’t true. The federal investigation continued, and so did the defendant’s lies.”

Cohen retorted that federal prosecutors think Ash signed the memo to help Wong cover up his crimes, but the evidence will show that is not correct.

“Ms. Ash, you will learn, like so many others, trusted Wong. She also is a victim of Wong’s. He used her and used others to try to help cover up his crimes,” Cohen said. “Wong didn’t admit his crimes to them. He just told lies to them to enlist their help. Ms. Ash was one of those people he lied to, to enlist her help to commit his crimes. She trusted him. She thought she knew him. She believed in him like so many others did. And boy, did she get that wrong.”

Katz pointed out, however, that while Wong was embezzling millions, he made sure that Ash got plenty of perks and reimbursements for any expense she submitted.

“After all, as chair of the board, the defendant was the one responsible for approving Wong’s extravagant credit card bills each month. While the defendant served on the board, she got tens and thousands of dollars of perks, flying around the world for conferences, all expenses paid to the Greek Islands, England and the Caribbean,” Katz said. “MCU reimbursed her personal internet, cable and phone bill. Wong gave her the latest Apple devices, and, whenever she asked, tickets to all the sports games, even prime seats at the U.S. Open. The defendant regularly used the MCU suite at a baseball stadium to host her birthday parties, billing all the food and alcohol to MCU.”

Although Katz acknowledged that those expenses did not necessarily violate MCU policy, Ash was required to report gifts and outside income to the state every year because she was serving as a New York judge. But Ash allegedly never reported those MCU gifts and income to the state.

“In fact, the defendant shouldn’t have even been serving on the MCU board because it was a conflict of interest with her position as a judge,” Katz said. “When a state ethics committee found out, they told her to resign from the board. But she didn’t. She stayed on until an ethics complaint was filed against her. Only then did she resign, in 2016.”

What’s more, even when Ash was no longer on the MCU board, the perks continued, whether it was an all-expense paid trip to Las Vegas or more parties at MCU’s suite at the stadium, according to Katz.

Cohen countered that the government told the jury about the gifts, benefits, trips and reimbursements to infer she did something wrong.

“And even if for some reason you think taking those benefits wasn’t right, that is not the question you are being asked to decide beyond a reasonable doubt. No one is perfect. On that, I’m sure we all can agree,” Cohen said. “But making mistakes does not make you a criminal. Sylvia Ash’s biggest mistake was placing her trust and faith in Kam Wong, a man who turned out to be a fraudster, a huckster, a liar and a thief. But that serious error in judgment does not mean that the government has it right. It does not. No lies, no cover up, no crime by Ms. Ash.”