Ex-assistant DA who wiretapped NYPD love interest gets year in jail
A broken-hearted, former prosecutor canned from the Brooklyn DA’s for illegally ordering wiretaps and search warrants to eavesdrop and read text messages of an ex lover and his new love interest, was sentenced to a year and a day in jail.
Tara Lenich, 42, once a supervisor in the Brooklyn DA’s Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau, used her position to forge wiretap orders and had a team of subordinates tap the phones of a married NYPD detective.
Lenich listened to phone conversations between her ex and his new paramour, who was also her colleague, and read their text messages for almost 18 months.
She pleaded guilty to two counts of illegally intercepting oral and electronic communications.
“I have a hard time even believing I’m in your courtroom as your defendant,” Lenich tearfully told the judge, explaining that working for 15 years as an ADA for the Brooklyn DA’s office, “was more than just a job, it was my life.”
Lenich said that her “completely destructive and unhealthy” relationship took a turn for the worse, as she worked with her married lover on what she deemed, “the biggest case of my career.”
It was then that the “relationship went from bad to completely disastrous and had a negative affect on that case, I truly imploded,” she said crying.
“I made the worst decision possible and abused my position of trust and humiliated the office I had worked so hard for.”
Lenich’s defense lawyer Morris Fodeman passionately spoke of her charitable work and her career of public service.
“Tara is a good, generous, compassionate person who somehow lost her way and made a series of terrible choices,” he said.
Lenich’s other lawyer, Gary Farrell called Lenich a “desperate, desperate woman in a very volatile situation” and spoke of his fear of her going to prison — requesting that she not be placed in a prison in New York for her safety.
“She would not be Tara Lenich the banker or Tara Lenich the molly dealer. She would be Tara Lenich the former gang prosecutor.”
Prosecutor Robert Polemeni wanted Lenich to serve 24 months, higher than the sentencing guidelines.
“For nearly 18 months Ms. Lenich lied to everyone around her. She abused her power daily. She forged documents, forged judges signatures to listen in on private and personal telephone conversations, to read private and personal text messages. ..she took her knowledge and she abused the system,” Polemeni said.
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“She supervised all the District Attorney’s office witetap investigations. That’s a problem. They will have to restore their credibility,” he said.
Brooklyn’s federal judge William Kuntz likened the scenario of lovelorn Lenich’s breakup and subsequent actions to a Shakespearean tragedy, comparing Lenich’s downfall to Othello’s jealous rage.
“We are all human but we need to reign it in. Every single person in this court probably wants to know what a love interest was up to. ..I would be a liar if I said I never wondered what a potential girlfriend was up to.”
But because of her position, Kuntz said, it has to be clear that “human beings given all of this power are not going to use it on their personal agendas.”
Lenich will surrender on March 14.