Manhattan DA Records Request

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the New York State Freedom of Information Law (1977 N.Y. Laws ch. 933), I hereby request the following records:

From September 1, 2013 to the present (1) all records of communication in any form, including but not limited to electronic mail, texts and mobile messaging, between Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Alex Spiro, and (2) all records from electronic mail, texts and mobile messaging from accounts of Karen Friedman-Agnifilo with the terms "Alex" or "Spiro."

The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, and is not being made for commercial usage.

In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. Please fulfill this request electronically, by e-mail attachment or DVD.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 5 business days, as the statute requires.

Sincerely,

Mira Berenson

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

To Whom It May Concern:

I wanted to follow up on the following Freedom of Information request, copied below, and originally submitted on March 30, 2015. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response, or if further clarification is needed.

Thank you for your help.

Dear Maureen T. O'Connor:

I requested "From September 1, 2013 to the present (1) all records of communication in any form, including but not limited to electronic mail, texts and mobile messaging, between Karen Friedman-Agnifilo and Alex Spiro, and (2) all records from electronic mail, texts and mobile messaging from accounts of Karen Friedman-Agnifilo with the terms "Alex" or "Spiro" by written request made on March 30, 2015.
Although the receipt of the request was acknowledged and I was informed that a response would be given by May 3, 2015, no response has been given. Consequently, I consider the request to have been denied, and I am appealing on that basis.
As required by the Freedom of Information Law, the head or governing body of an agency, or whomever is designated to determine appeals, is required to respond within 10 business days of the receipt of an appeal. If the records are denied on appeal, please explain the reasons for the denial fully in writing as required by law.
In addition, please be advised that the Freedom of Information Law directs that all appeals and the determinations that follow be sent to the Committee on Open Government, Department of State, One Commerce Plaza, 99 Washington Ave., Albany, New York 12231.

Sincerely,
MB

Dear Patricia Bailey:

In response to the letter of Maureen T. O’Conner dated July 15, 2015, a check for $14.75 was sent under separate cover. Notwithstanding the payment, I am appealing the denial of access of records on two grounds.

First, regarding redacting clients’ names, invoking Matter of Pittari and In Re Application of Legal Aid Society, to the present FOIL request is equally misguided and bizarre. Those cases involved the denial of disclosure of records from a law enforcement agency about the same agency’s criminal investigation.

The present FOIL request involves communications between a law enforcement agency and a criminal defense attorney. The sum of those communications, including clients’ names, are neither confidential nor privileged and have nothing to do with the agency’s criminal investigation. The communications about a criminal defense attorney’s clients’ are records subject to disclosure without exception. There is no precedent for invoking Public Officers Law Sect. 87(2)(a), 89(2)(b) for communications between a law enforcement agency that is subject to FOIL and a private party, defense attorney or not.

Second, there is likely a gulf between what District Attorney’s office believes to be of a personal nature and not relevant to the agency and what a citizen believes about the same. The records may shed light on a relationship, whether is evidences favoritism, cronyism or something else, between a former employee of the agency and a current, executive employee of the agency in light of the very personal nature of the communications. Therefore these records may on their face seem to be of a personal nature and not relevant—when quite the opposite is the truth.

Even the records are of a personal nature, the wholesale denial of access is over-broad (as evidenced, part, by the position of the agency that a defense attorney’s clients’ name would be redacted, but the record otherwise disclosed). See The New York Times Co. v. City of New York Fire Dept., 4 N.Y.3d 477 (1995).

Dear Patricia Bailey:

In response to the letter of Maureen T. O’Conner dated July 15, 2015, a check for $14.75 was sent under separate cover weeks ago. The records have not yet been received. Therefore, I am appealing the denial of access to the requested records.

MB

To Whom It May Concern:

Please find enclosed a check for $14.75 to satisfy the fee associated with the attached public records request.

Thank you.