New York Post - 13.03.2020

New York Post, Friday, March 13, 2020

nypost.com

MIAMI — A University of

Miami professor who is a top

expert on money laundering

in Latin America is sched-

uled to plead guilty for trying

to hide $3 million in proceeds

from a corruption scheme

with Venezuela’s socialist

government.

Bruce Bagley, 73, was ar-

rested in November on three

money-laundering counts.

The charges arose from de-

posits Bagley received from

bank accounts in Switzerland

and the United Arab Emir-

ates that allegedly contained

the stolen proceeds from a

Venezuelan public-housing

project, authorities said.

He initially pleaded not

guilty. But this week, filings

in New York federal court in-

dicated he would change his

plea to guilty in a hearing

scheduled for March 20.

Bagley, an international

studies professor, is co-au-

thor of “Drug Trafficking, Or-

ganized Crime and Violence

in the Americas Today,” pub-

lished in 2015, among other

books. AP

$$-launder

charges vs.

Fla. prof

Germany’s domestic in-

telligence agency says it is

formally placing parts of

the far-right Alternative for

Germany party under sur-

veillance after classifying it

as extremist.

Thomas Haldenwang,

head of Germany’s BfV in-

telligence agency, said

Thursday that a radical fac-

tion within the AfD known

as “The Wing” is consid-

ered a proven extremist or-

ganization.

The Wing is led by AfD’s

regional chiefs in the east-

ern states of Thuringia,

Bjoern Hoecke, and Bran-

denburg, Andreas Kalbitz.

Hoecke, who notoriously

called Berlin’s memorial to

the victims of the Nazi

Holocaust a “monument of

shame,” and Kalbitz were

cited for anti-Islam and an-

ti-immigrant rhetoric.

Putting The Wing under

surveillance increases pres-

sure on the party and could

strengthen calls for it to be

banned. AP

Germany

heat on

‘hate’ party

By Lee Brown

An inmate who was Jef-

frey Epstein’s suicide-

watch “companion” in

their Manhattan lockup

has insisted the pedophile

was “not depressed” be-

fore he hanged himself.

Bill Mersey, 69, told Fox

Nation that he signed up

for the companion pro-

gram because he knew his

time in the Metropolitan

Correctional Center

would be “really boring.”

He ended up paired with

multimillionaire Epstein,

66 (inset) — ultimately

befriending him and mon-

itoring his behavior for

hours at a time.

“He was not depressed,”

Mersey told the new Fox

Nation documentary,

“The Final Hours of Jef-

frey Epstein.”

“Although I would have

conversations with him

and every so often where

he’d sort of drift off, and

I’d go, ‘Ah, he’s thinking

about the s--tstorm he’s in

the middle of.’ ”

Epstein — who was po-

tentially facing a long

prison stretch on serious

sex-crime charges — was

terrified of being behind

bars, Mersey said.

“The majority of the

conversations were first

and foremost about his

safety and how to handle

prison — over and over

again,” he said.

“He solicited advice on

how to handle the general

population. He thought

that intimidation was go-

ing to be a problem.”

Despite not seeing any

suicidal tendencies in his

companion, Mersey does

not buy the suggestion

that Epstein had no means

of killing himself.

“He had enough space to

hang himself. The bunk

beds get pretty high, so

you could rig something

up and you could kill

yourself,” he insisted.

Mersey said his job was

to “be alert for four hours,

sit in front of a window

across from one inmate

that you’re watching...

and write down every 15

minutes what’s going on.”

“We had normal guy

conversations, a lot of

sports, a lot of crime —

tons of crime,” he recalled,

saying Epstein was “just a

regular guy” who was

“like everybody I went to

high school with on Long

Island.”

He recalled one unusual

conversation in which the

multimillionaire investor

told him that “stocks are

like p-ssy,” with Mersey

chuckling as he recalled,

“And that was Jeffrey Ep-

stein’s investment advice.”

Epstein hanged himself

in his cell at the MCC on

Aug. 10.

New York City Chief

Medical Examiner Dr.

Barbara Sampson ruled

the death a suicide less

than a week later — al-

though Dr. Michael

Baden, a former city medi-

cal examiner hired by Ep-

stein’s brother, has

claimed there was evi-

dence of homicide.

[email protected]

‘Space to hang self’

Epstein insights from jail companion

Bernard Madoff, in a

court filing late Wednesday,

says justice won’t be served

if prosecutors succeed in

keeping him imprisoned

while he is dying from kid-

ney failure.

His attorney, Brandon

Sample, urged a federal ap-

peals judge in New York to

grant him so-called com-

passionate release, saying

retribution alone isn’t a suf-

ficient reason to keep him

behind bars in his final

days. The US Attorney’s Of-

fice had pushed back on the

request, saying Madoff

didn’t deserve a break after

carrying out the biggest

Ponzi scheme in US history.

But Sample said, “A crimi-

nal-justice system that re-

spects human rights not only

ensures accountability for

those who commit crimes, it

also makes certain that sanc-

tions are proportionate to

the crime and further the

goals of incarceration.

“Keeping a prisoner in-

carcerated past the point of

serving a legitimate pur-

pose begs the question of

whether our motives are

driven by retribution, deter-

rence or something else.”

Madoff last month asked

the judge who sentenced

him to 150 years in prison to

let him out after just 10

years, saying he’s dying of

end-stage kidney failure.

Prosecutors maintain that

Madoff, 81, could well out-

live the 18 months the US

Bureau of Prisons estimates

he has left. Bloomberg

‘Dying’ Madoff: Free me

Gen. warns

the Taliban

A top general said Thurs-

day the Taliban must signifi-

cantly reduce their attacks

under the accord they signed

with the United States.

“I would not consider what

the Taliban is doing as con-

sistent with any path to going

forward to come to a final

end-state agreement with the

current government of Af-

ghanistan,” Marine Gen. Ken-

neth McKenzie told a Senate

hearing. AP

Fleeing subway thief

struck & killed by train

A subway thief was struck

and killed by a train in Man-

hattan early Thursday when

he ran onto the tracks — mo-

ments after snatching a strap-

hanger’s cellphone, police

sources told The Post.

The crook, whose identity

was not immediately known,

was hit by a 1 train at the Ca-

nal Street station at around 4

a.m., sources said.

Before the fatal incident,

the suspect was aboard the

northbound train, where he

swiped a cellphone from the

hands of a 47-year-old man,

according to sources.

Medics responded and the

suspect was pronounced

dead at the scene.

The incident delayed ser-

vice on the 1 and 2 lines in

both directions.Larry Celona,

Ruth Weissmann

and Natalie Musumeci

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