Former Tea Partier arrested in tax fraud case
A former state Tea Party organizer and strip-club mogul who used his Westchester newspaper as a soap box to claim the feds are out to get him was arrested Thursday on charges of falsifying loan applications, tax fraud, wire fraud and witness tampering.
Selim Sam Zherka of Somers, NY was arrested by FBI agents after being indicted by a grand jury and is being processed today in White Plains federal court.
The feds describe Zherka as a violent thug with alleged connections to the Albanian mob and a long rap sheet. In filings, prosecutors call him a habitual liar with no respect for the judicial system as they seek to have his bail denied.
The papers, citing several acts of violence described to prosecutors by a co-conspirator, allege Zherka once found a dead man duct-taped to a chair in the basement of one of his strip clubs. They also describe a 2005 incident in which one his daughters brought a black boyfriend to his office only to have Zherka allegedly pull out a shotgun and threaten to blow the mans f-ing head off if he didnt stop dating her.
Zherka, according to the indictment, allegedly made off with more than $146 million in loans from three banks between 2005 and 2010 by lying on applications. Hes also charged with participating in a decade-long tax fraud scheme, threatening a potential government witness in April 2012 and other crimes.
As The Post reported Monday, a direct-mailing company was subpoenaed by the feds to turn over its records of business dealings with Zherkas Westchester Guardian newspaper. The records sought were for a period in which the free, acid-tongued weekly published a March 27 front-page story calling federal prosecutors Perry Carbone and Elliott Jacobson unethical and corrupt hypocrites.
Zherka claimed the subpoena was issued to shake him up and was a clear attack on the First Amendment and free speech.
However, Carbone, Jacobson and fellow Assistant US Attorney Todd Blanche said in the memo requesting Zherka be denied bail that the Guardian article is filled with lies and defamatory statements.
The story accused Carbone and Jacobson of assisting the Internal Revenue Service in an ongoing tax-fraud probe of Zherka as a favor to Westchester District Attorney Janet DiFiore, a fellow Democrat who is also routinely verbally attacked by the Guardian.
The prosecutors filing also claims the article included not-so veiled threats against them by including their hometowns and a message of happy belated birthday.
Read this article:
Former Tea Partier arrested in tax fraud case