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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Brooklyn Prosecutor Charged in Wiretap Scandal

In the latest wrinkle in a scandal that rocked New York tabloids late last year, a Brooklyn prosecutor has been charged with wiretapping the cellphones of a love interest.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CN) – In the latest wrinkle in a scandal that rocked New York tabloids late last year, a Brooklyn prosecutor has been charged with wiretapping the cellphones of a love interest.

Tara Lenich, a 41-year-old former assistant with the Kings County District Attorney’s office, spent nearly 16 months forging the signatures of multiple New York State judges to try to intercept communications on two cellphones.

After Lenich’s arrest in November, sources told the New York Post and New York Daily News that the prosecutor had tried to listen in on the conversations of NYPD Detective Jarrett Lemieux, a married love interest.

Lenich was also said to have targeted the calls of fellow prosecutor Stephanie Rosenfeld.

Court papers unsealed on Monday morning do not confirm Lenich’s motives or targets, but they contain new allegations that Lenich forged the signatures of multiple judges to accomplish the wiretaps.

“To accomplish this forgery, the defendant Tara Lenich physically cut a copy of each such judge’s signature from a legitimate document and taped the signature onto the fraudulent documents she had created,” the 9-page indictment states.

In December, the Daily News reported that attorneys for two of the men charged with trafficking 153 guns from Georgia to New York City through Delta Airlines would use Lenich’s scandal for a motion to dismiss their cases.

Acting U.S. Attorney Bridget Rohde said Lenich “violated her duty to the public.” Rohde signed the indictment on March 23, nearly four months after Lenich’s arrest.

Lenich is charged with two counts of illegal interception of communications, one for each cellphone she is accused of tapping.

Her attorney Morris Fodeman, a partner at the New York-based firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Categories / Criminal

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