2 more letters to judge — 1 from priest — deemed bogus
Two more letters sent to a federal judge on behalf of a convicted fraudster were fabricated in part or whole — including one attributed to a Catholic priest.
Michael P. Fish, who was already facing federal prison time after pleading guilty in May to multiple felonies, was arrested Friday after he allegedly sent U.S. District Judge Mae D’agostino a letter falsely attributed to Jonathan Carman, a district director for U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik.
All three letters asked the judge to impose a lenient sentence on Fish, who pleaded guilty to identity theft, computer intrusion causing damage and possession of child pornography.
Federal authorities said the 25-year-old Albany resident, who had volunteered for Stefanik’s 2016 campaign, sent the fake letter from his grandfather’s computer.
Now, the Times Union has discovered that two other letters supposedly sent on Fish’s behalf contained fabrications, including one from the Rev. Michael A. Farano, the former pastor of St. Pius X Chruch in Loudonville.
Mary Deturris Poust, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, told the Times Union that “the refer
enced letter attributed to (Farano) has been altered without his knowledge or consent. Father Farano said the letter you have from court documents includes his original text but has been expanded without his knowledge.”
The other apparently fraudulent letter was attributed to Dale Annis, a former client of Fish’s when he worked at Northwestern Mutual insurance. Annis told the Times Union he was “100 percent positive” he did not send the letter. Annis, who seemed to barely remember Fish, said his entire dealings with the felon were over a span of at most two months before Annis transferred to an agent based in Baltimore, where he now lives.
In the letter, the person claiming to be Annis wrote that he was “extremely upset to hear about Mike’s troubles, I hope this letter can demonstrate his true character outside of the mistakes he made.”
The letter went into great detail: “My relationship with him was not a purely transactional one, as you could imagine with most financial advisors, but rather a friendship. He would call on birthdays, send cards on holidays, and always remember meaningful details about my family. I believe he truly breaks the stigma that can tend to define the industry he was in. I referred him to several friends, colleagues, and even family. They have all received the warmth care and service that Mike provided us.
“Some of his memorable words were, ‘I could not look you in the eye and tell you I did everything I could for you and your family if something ever happened to you and we didn’t address this,’” the letter stated.
Digital fraud was central to the crimes Fish pleaded guilty to on May 19, when he admitted that between 2016 and 2019, while attending the state University at Plattsburgh and later Albany Law School, he accessed the accounts of female students within the Plattsburgh school’s computer network. Fish created passwords, gained access to the women’s social media accounts and their personal information. Fish downloaded sexually explicit and embarrassing photos stored in other accounts, and traded stolen photos and videos online, the plea agreement said.
Fish distributed collages that mixed sexually explicit photos with innocuous photos of graduations. He identified the names of the women whose images he traded, and possessed information from more than 100 students at Plattsburgh and elsewhere, the plea agreement said.
The letter falsely attributed to Carman, the Stefanik aide, mixed portions of a letter that Carman had written on behalf of Fish years before his legal troubles. The Times Union reached out to Stefanik’s office for a response last week after a reporter examined the court filings; Stefanik’s senior advisor Alex Degrasse spoke to Carman and responded that the letter was “a falsified document submitted to court, which is a crime.”
At a hearing Tuesday, D’agostino removed Fish’s attorney, James Tyner, from the case. It’s was not immediately clear who will be representing him going forward.
Tyner said on Thursday that the allegations surrounding the first fabricated letter to come to light were a “complete surprise to me. Just like the government is investigating the situation, my office has undertaken a similar investigation to examine the validity of these claims.”
Fish’s sentencing was initially set for Jan. 8, but will be delayed indefinitely.