NYC NOW - September 6, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: September 6, 2024

New Jersey real estate developer, Fred Daibes, who was convicted alongside Senator Bob Menendez this summer has pleaded guilty to a separate federal bank fraud charge. Plus, WNYC’s Janae Pierre and Maia Hibbett discuss the latest on the FBI raid on the homes of several top officials in the Adams administration and the federal investigation targeting members of the NYPD. And finally, WNYC’s Samantha Max reports on how some incarcerated people at the Sing Sing maximum security prison are being trained to critique movies for New York’s first known film festival inside a correctional facility.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene A P.A. A New Jersey real estate developer who was convicted alongside Senator Bob Menendez this summer has pleaded guilty to a separate federal bank fraud charge. Prosecutors say Fred Davies was charged with making false entries concerning a loan from 2008 when he was chair and CEO of Mariners Bank. They say Davies claimed another person was the borrower on a one-year-old. $1.8 million loan that was in fact for him.

Debees could face up to 30 years in prison as well as a maximum fine of a million dollars. As you've probably been hearing, the FBI has rated the homes of several top officials in the Adams administration. Soon after, the NYPD confirmed that there's a federal investigation targeting members of the department. Despite these serious developments, Mayor Eric Adams insists he's focused on his job. Everyone has heard me from time to time. Stay focused, no distraction and grind. My job is to make sure I'm fighting on the behalf of New York. And that's exactly what I'm doing.

For the latest on all of this, I talked with Maya Hibbett, editor of WMYC's People and Power Desk. Maya, there's a lot going on here. What more have we learned about these raids and what are federal officials looking for here? Well, we don't know what they're looking for yet. What we do know is that on Wednesday morning, the FBI raided the home of Phil Banks, he's the deputy mayor for public safety, and a house that his brother, schools chancellor, David Banks, shares with his partner, Sheena Wright, who's the first deputy mayor. So that's a lot of jobs, but Phil Banks is in charge of policing and public safety for the

Adams administration, and Sheena Wright advises the mayor on all kinds of things throughout the administration, policy issues. And then David Banks, of course, is in charge of New York City schools. David Banks said he's cooperating with some kind of federal inquiry, but he didn't give us much more than that. Sheena Wright and Phil Banks have been pretty tight-lipped about it. And then we learned that multiple members of the NYPD are also under federal investigation. A few outlets are reporting that Edward Caban, the police commissioner, had his phone seized by the FBI. But there are a lot of details that are not out yet. So what does any of this have to do with the mayor? Do we know? We don't really. It's certainly noticeable how high up some of these people are. Whether the investigation has anything to do with Adams himself or not, it's clear his inner circle is under scrutiny. But the mayor's office says neither he nor his staff or the target of any investigation.

I'm wondering, Maya, how are city officials and other local leaders responding to this? It's a mixed bag. As you played earlier, Adams and his allies say that this does not affect his ability to govern, while his critics say this destroys it. Jumani Williams, who's the public advocate and a pretty frequent Adams critic, said that this shakes New Yorkers' trust in the mayor, and he demanded that the administration explain what's actually going on. It's probably not a shock, but most of the mayor's competitors for his reelection next year have jumped on this. They're promising that messy episodes like this one wouldn't be a problem under their administrations for voters who want to change.

Controller Brad Lander and former controller Scott Stringer both put out statements saying that this does affect the mayor's ability to focus and to do his job. They've both made it clear that they plan to run against Adams. But there are a few more like state senator Jessica Ramos and Assembly members Oran Mamdani, who are both rumored to be planning to run against Adams, and they've also gone after him over this. While that may turn into a problem for Adams on the campaign trail, it's important to remember that that's campaign rhetoric, and it doesn't necessarily tell us anything more about the case. Maya, any sense of what happens next? I don't want to speculate, and none of us actually know what's going to happen next. It seems clear that something is heating up,

and there very well may be another big development, but we don't know what it'll be yet. All right. That's WNYC's Maya Hibbitt, editor of the people and tower desk. Thanks, Maya. Thank you. Next month, a New York prison will host the state's first known film festival inside a correctional facility. More on that after the break. While famous actors and directors have gone to Italy for the prestigious Venice Film Festival, some non-traditional movie critics are preparing for their own competition right here in New York.

Next month, the Sing Sing Maximum Security Prison. just north of New York City will host the state's first known film festival inside a correctional facility, and all the judges are incarcerated. WMYC's Samantha Max reports on how they're being trained to critique movies. A group of men dressed in Hunter, Green, and Sneakers is sitting in the library at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossine. They're snacking on oatmeal cookies and peppermints while they learn how to evaluate movies. Filmmaker L. Sawyer is the teacher today. He brought rubrics for the men to rate different aspects of each movie. The group will judge the quality and the structure, whether the movies bring a fresh perspective.

You know, is it something new? Did we learn anything? Whether they're authentic and accurate. Especially if it was about prison and be like, that's not real. Come on, come on. The nonprofit criminal justice newsroom, the Marshall Project, is organizing the film festival. The idea is to let people who have personal experience with policing and prisons decide whether movies about these topics deserve to be awarded. The men will judge five documentaries, which have to be approved by the State Department of Correction.

This is the first time filmmakers, they're going to see what currently incarcerated people think about their film, about the system, whether it's authentic or not. Lawrence Bartley works for the Marshall Project. Before that, he would have been able to be. was incarcerated for more than 27 years, nine of them at Sing Sing. He says this film festival can expose the judges to a career path that isn't often open to people who go to prison. And he says it also provides some hope at a time when staffing shortages have curtailed rehabilitative programming. Having a program like this going on, this gives them a little bit of light in a dark tunnel in order to feel like they're doing something positive.

Yep. We're going to do the next one and we don't do it. Once the men have gone over the judging criteria, they start to watch some clips and discuss. Rahim Edwards from Brooklyn is impressed by the trailer for the movie Evolution of a Criminal. He says the film seems well made. It's pretty good. It shifts pretty seamlessly. So I gave it a fool on that one. The group is captivated when they watch an excerpt of one of El Sawyer's documentaries called Pull of Gravity.

It follows men transitioning back to life outside after being released from prison, including Sawyer, who was locked up as a teenager and spent eight years in a Pennsylvania prison. In this scene, a couple of police officers on bikes confront some of the men while they're filming and try to get them to move. This scene resonates for the men in Sing Sing. Alexander Aguilar from Long Island says it reminds him of when he was 12 years old, and police approached him and his friends. Got some drugs? Y'all got drugs on you?

Start a question of kids. It's summertime. So seeing that, it's just little flashbacks. Alonzo Miles from Brooklyn says it's important for films to be made about people who go to prison. He's serving 25 years to life, and he wants people who aren't incarcerated to understand what that means. not just the stereotypes they've built in their heads. But Miles says it's also important for people inside to watch these movies. So we can start to understand ourselves a lot more, too,

because it takes a lot of self-investigation and reflection, or be able to say, yeah, I was out there doing X, Y, and Z. I can understand why things was happening, but now I've got to change. Miles says he'll be watching movies differently after today, even his beloved Spaghetti Westerns. Every film I ever watched from here on out, I'm going to be critiquing it in that manner to really look to see the authenticity of it, to see the development of the characters, to see if the scenery is a character in the movie itself.

Miles says films provide a way to communicate the thoughts and feelings that can be tough to articulate. And that's something he's trying to get better at. That's WMYC's Samantha Max. Before we go, some news for Stargazers. If you look up at the night sky in the tri-state area this Saturday, you may be able to spot Saturn. The sixth planet from the sun is in opposition, meaning it's closer to Earth than it usually is. The planet will be fully illuminated by the moon, making it appear brighter and larger than at any other time of the year. Saturn and Earth will get farther apart day by day, but next it'll be Jupiter, Venus, and Mars' turn in the spotlight.

Those will be visible over the next few weeks. experts say get to the darkest skies possible to make the heavenly bodies appear more luminous, especially before sunrise. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Owen Kaplan, Audrey Cooper, Leorne Noam Cravitz, Jared Marcel, and Wayne Schollmeister, with help from all of my wonderful colleagues in the WNYC Newsroom.

Our show art was designed by. by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. See you on Monday.