Michael Vecchione
Appearances
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
And I was in charge of the investigation begun by Frida Hanimov, who started this by walking into our office and telling us that she was about to lose her children because a judge had been fixed.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Semenovsky particularly became a lot less strident in terms of his feelings towards her.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
This is the infamous Archives Bar. That's where- The bar. Bar restaurant where Semenovsky and the judge would meet often for drinks and dinner and where much of the money was spent on the judge.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Yes. We had a microwave dish that would read the signals being sent back to our office. This was our plant. And this is where we had the recording devices that recorded the judge's chambers, both video and audio.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Yes. We had people who were monitoring it all day long and into the evening.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
I'm gonna get to work. Simonovsky kind of has the run of the room, and I mean, nobody else really has this kind of access.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Oh, absolutely. Without question. And he is not candid about reaching into the candy dish at any time.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
a Supreme Court judge being paid off, being bribed. You can't get much more serious than that. So he decided to put a recording device on her.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
We said, well, will he take a gift for the advice? And Semenovsky told us, absolutely. And we knew that he was a cigar smoker.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
One afternoon after Szymanowski went to lunch with the judge and after he paid for the lunch again, he came back to the robing room and gave him the box of cigars and said, this is thanks for your help in the Levy case.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
You'll see him reach into his pocket and he takes out $1,000 and he hands it to the judge. The judge takes it and he puts it into his pants pocket. Now Semenovsky leaves and the judge takes it out of his pocket and you see him counting it, takes a couple of bills and puts it into another pocket and puts some in an envelope.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
It's a stark military area here in Brooklyn Inn. There's barbed wire around the place.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
I mean, not a place that we were very happy about sending her into, but it was necessary. She was not the type of individual who you would normally put a recording device on. She was pregnant, and to have a pregnant woman who had no experience doing this, it was harrowing on us as well.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Well, no. None of us believe she did. She felt that the husband had been manipulating her child, which is what happened.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
She could have been harmed. She could have been hurt. She could have been killed.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
We explained to her that we needed to, in essence, test her to see if what she was telling us was the truth.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
We couldn't cover her inside the warehouse. It's a rather stark and daunting place. It's kind of brick and closed up. So once Frida went into that location, she was on her own.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
The very fabric of the legal system is at stake here. There is a question. If I walk into a courtroom, am I getting a fair shot? Am I getting a fair shake? I'm Michael Vecchione, and I am the Chief of the Rackets Division in the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
Her allegations were that a Supreme Court judge had been bribed. She was about to lose her children.
48 Hours
Behind Chamber Doors
See, we didn't really know what Nisim Elman was about. We didn't know what he was capable of. How's her demeanor?