Maguire to Plead Guilty to Obstruction
By Faith Ann Butcher
Raymond Maguire, Jr., the former chief of staff for convicted former state Sen. Vincent Leibell, will appear before a U.S. District Court judge this afternoon and plead guilty to a charge of obstructing a federal grand jury investigation.
The one-count charge is the result of a plea agreement that has been worked out between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Maguire regarding to the Maguire’s involvement in the case dealing with Leibell, who is currently serving 21 months in federal prison for tax evasion as well as obstructing a federal grand jury investigation.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, Maguire instructed a contractor to lie to federal grand jury about the cost of the work done on Leibell’s $1.7 million Patterson home. Maguire was the general contractor in charge of overseeing the building of the 6,000-square-foot three-story house that has a six-car garage, five bedrooms, eight baths, five fireplaces and a 2,000-square-foot covered porch.
Memos that prosecutors filed during Leibell’s case stated that favored contractors would provide “deeply discounted services” for work done on the house while receiving “millions of dollars-worth of contracts” to work on senior housing that was being built by the Leibell-founded Putnam County Community Foundation.
Maguire’s attorney is Richard Willstatter from the White Plains law firm of Green & Willstatter. He stated that Maguire, who was serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Afghanistan, returned to the U.S. on Sept. 8 to enter his plea.
“He voluntarily returned to New York to accept responsibility for committing the crime,” Willstatter said. “He is a good man who did wrong here. He is very sorry. We believe that a prison sentence would be inappropriate and hope to convince the court not to sentence Mr. Maguire to jail.”
Willstatter stated that because Maguire was serving in a theater of war, a request had to be made to the Air Force and permission had to be received from the U.S. Department of Defense in order for him to be released from duty and return to New York.
“The principal agreement between [the U.S. Attorney’s Office and Maguire] is that there is a guideline range for 12-18 months,” he added. “However, the plea agreement permits the parties to seek a sentence outside of the guidelines so in accordance we will ask the judge to consider sentencing Mr. Maguire to a sentence that does not include imprisonment.”
Judge Cathy Seibel will preside over the case.
Calls to the Air Force were not returned.
Leibell, 64, a Republican who served for 28 years — first in the Assembly and then the Senate — represented Putnam County and parts of Westchester and Dutchess Counties. He pleaded guilty in December to federal obstruction of justice and tax evasion charges unrelated to the work on the house.
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.