McMahon’s Puppets Caught Acting!

McMahon’s Puppets Caught Acting: Early Voting Surge and a Stage-Managed Feud

Staten Island is seeing an unprecedented election turnout. Early voting check-ins on Staten Island are about five times higher than in 2021. On the first day alone, 6,420 Staten Islanders cast ballots, up from just 1,584 on Day One four years ago.

Amid this historic surge, a public spat has erupted between Democrat Party Judge Raymond Rodriguez and Republican Assemblyman and GOP Leader Michael Tannousis. Both men are entangled in a high-stakes judicial race, featuring Rodriguez against Republican candidate Judge Matthew Blum. Observers are calling the dust-up political theater—a fake fight timed to perfection with the early voting boom.

Judge Rodriguez, the Democratic nominee for State Supreme Court, projects an image of steady integrity. He currently serves as Staten Island’s top judge, “lead[ing] the Criminal and Civil Terms of Staten Island Supreme Court with integrity and efficiency.”

But the GOP swiftly went on the attack. The Staten Island Republican Party blasted Rodriguez on social media as an untrustworthy de Blasio appointee. “DON’T BE FOOLED!” the GOP warned voters, casting Rodriguez as a product of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s soft-on-crime judiciary. Party boss Michael Tannousis amplified the charge, painting Rodriguez as a partisan hack installed by Democrats.

The timing of this feud is suspicious. It erupted right as record numbers of Staten Islanders hit the polls. Political insiders note how both sides benefit: Democrats rally around Rodriguez’s outrage, and Republicans double down on Blum’s law-and-order messaging.

“Mike and Judy McMahon are choreographing the whole thing,” said Richard Luthmann – the bombastic former attorney-turned-journalist. “Their bets are hedged. They want Rodriguez to win, but if he doesn’t, they still own Tannousis, who wants to get made as a judge himself.”

Luthmann says the latest spat is merely a sideshow under the McMahon machine’s big tent – choreographed bumper bowling where no one can really get hurt.

“They aren’t talking about any real issues because they already traded the judgeships. For Ray Rodriguez, a real issue would be Part N and his go along to get along when dozens, if not hundreds, of black and brown defendants were railroaded to pad Mike McMahon’s stats,” Luthmann said. “And for Tannousis, it would be that he is owned by and beholden to the McMahons and that he engaged in the same railroading and misconduct of a teenage Black immigrant as prosecutor in DA McMahon’s office.”

Luthmann says the back-and-forth allegations are “silly” for anyone who knows what’s really going on.

“Ray [Rodriguez] isn’t soft on crime. He was actually a very good criminal defense attorney. But now he’s with the McMahons, and they’ve made their statistics shine for a decade by sending young black and brown men up the river. Ray’s been with them basically from jump,” Luthmann said. “Tannousis knows this because he did the same thing as an ADA in the Victor Abraham case.”

He says the plan is for the “political hacks” to energize bases while the real power brokers pull the strings offstage. Insiders say that the anti-Mamdani law-and-order voting bloc is mobilized. The fear is that if not enough Staten Island black and brown Democrats turn out in a high-turnout mayoral election, the McMahons stand to lose off-island clout.

“This whole thing is ginned-up. The Uni-Party on Staten Island is putting on its annual October dog and pony show, and the McMahons are in the director’s chair. Never forget that,” Luthmann said.

Luthmann proceeded to give a history lesson.

Part N Scandal: Rodriguez and a Rigged Courtroom

Years before this election drama, Staten Island’s court system was rocked by a whistleblower exposing a rigged courtroom scheme. In 2017, a top court clerk revealed that Supreme Court Justice Judith N. McMahon – wife of DA Michael McMahon – conspired behind the scenes to steer cases to prosecution-friendly judges.

Secret recordings captured Justice McMahon meddling in criminal case assignments even after she officially stepped aside to avoid conflicts. She and her DA husband created a shadow “Part N” narcotics court, a special part of criminal court designed to guarantee tough outcomes.

The whistleblower’s lawsuit details how Justice McMahon sent cases into Part N to sidestep “defense-oriented” judges. She controlled these judges who tagged violent crime as a drug case just because a joint or other small amount of contraband was found on the defendant, ensuring the case went before the hand-picked Part N judge.

This “Part N” scandal was well-documented with evidence and testimony. Former clerk Michael Pulizotto recorded colleagues acknowledging that Judith McMahon was still “in the criminal lane ” while her husband was DA, and that this was forbidden. The allegations showed systematic bias: charges were manipulated, and judges were handpicked to benefit prosecutors.

When Pulizotto and his then-lawyer, Luthmann, blew the whistle on Part N in early 2017, the fallout was swift. Justice McMahon was demoted from her position as an administrative judge soon after.

Rodriguez’s ties to this disgraced system raise eyebrows. He rose through the same courthouse during the Part N era and eventually assumed the top judicial role on Staten Island. Yet there’s no record of Rodriguez objecting to the rigged Part N practices. He was appointed as a Criminal Court judge amid the McMahons’ reign and later became Administrative Judge. The McMahons were successful in making yet another high-placed ally totally beholden to them.

In other words, Rodriguez thrived in the very system the McMahons corrupted. The Part N saga exposed a culture of judicial manipulation that benefited prosecutors at defendants’ expense.

Rodriguez now claims to champion integrity, but his ascent was nurtured by a machine that punished whistleblowers and rewarded loyalists. Staten Island’s court insiders whisper that Part N may be gone, but its legacy lives on – and Rodriguez was, at best, a silent witness to it all.

Scumbag Prosecutor Tannousis’s Trial by Ambush: The Victor Abraham Case

Michael Tannousis earned his political stripes as an aggressive prosecutor in DA McMahon’s office. One of his last cases before turning to politics now stands as a textbook example of prosecutorial misconduct.

In 2016, Staten Island teenager Victor Abraham was charged with two robberies with scant evidence beyond shaky eyewitness IDs. ADA Tannousis barreled ahead with the case even as those identifications fell apart under scrutiny.

NOTE: Support Victor Abraham and Independent Journalism. You can purchase the FULL VIDEO HERE.

A judge later suppressed multiple police lineups and photo arrays as “unduly suggestive” and unconstitutional. In one photo array, Abraham’s picture was the only one in a white shirt while all fillers wore dark hoodies – “[his] photo stood out,” the court noted. A prior suggestive procedure so tainted another lineup that the judge ruled “in essence, this was a two-person line-up” and threw it out.

Tannousis’s case relied on these flimsy IDs, yet he pressed forward. Crucial exculpatory evidence was withheld. One victim, Alex LaPierre, had initially told police, “It looks like Abraham when shown a single photo, far from a confident ID. That uncertainty was kept hidden from the defense until a pre-trial hearing, where LaPierre admitted under cross-examination that he never actually said “that was him,” only that the perpetrator “looked like” Abraham.

Even more shocking, another victim had taken a photo of a different person he thought was the robber on a bus days after the crime. Detectives never disclosed this “bus photo” or the victim’s earlier misidentification. ADA Tannousis only revealed this photo’s existence on the eve of trial – claiming he learned of it late because police “could not find it” earlier.

By then, a grand jury had already indicted Abraham on the faulty IDs, and the young man had spent nearly a year at Rikers Island awaiting trial. At trial in late 2018, with most of the suggestive lineups suppressed, the prosecution had little beyond in-court identifications. The jury swiftly acquitted Victor Abraham of all charges.

Tannousis and McMahon’s office had railroaded an innocent teen, using discredited tactics and hiding evidence, only for the case to collapse. A subsequent federal lawsuit blasted the “shocks-the-conscience” misconduct: suggestive police procedures, Brady evidence withheld, and a prosecution that clung to a case with “no probable cause” once the tainted IDs were excluded.

This is the prosecutorial legacy of Michael Tannousis: a wrongful prosecution that Staten Island’s uni-party establishment would prefer everyone forget.

McMahon’s Puppets Caught Acting: Uni-Party Corruption Unmasked

Behind the orchestrated political theater and courthouse scandals looms the figure of District Attorney Michael McMahon – and his judiciary powerbroker wife, Judith. For nearly two decades, the McMahons have manipulated Staten Island’s levers of power. They command a uni-party machine in which Democratic and Republican insiders perform public rivalries but privately protect the status quo.

Judge Rodriguez and Assemblyman Tannousis are, in effect, McMahon’s political puppets, products of a system the McMahons shaped. Rodriguez owes his rise to the courthouse culture Judith McMahon controlled. Tannousis cut his teeth enforcing Michael McMahon’s will in court. Even as they pretend to feud across party lines, both men’s careers trace back to the McMahons’ influence.

This election’s tabloid-ready squabble is a distraction from Staten Island’s real battle: honest government versus the McMahon machine. The McMahons have amassed extraordinary sway over local justice, politics, and the press. Michael McMahon sits atop prosecutions, deciding whom to target (critics like Luthmann, for instance) and whom to shield.

Judith McMahon, as a judge and former administrative judge, placed loyalists in key positions and punished whistleblowers who threatened their fiefdom. Republican and Democratic leaders alike bend to the McMahons’ will, making backroom deals on judicial nominations and patronage. The result is a borough effectively run by a one-party cartel wearing two jerseys.

“You won’t read about any of this in the Staten Island Advance because Brian Laline’s head is so far up Mike McMahon’s ass he can lick his nostrils,” Luthmann said.

But cracks are showing. Public outrage over cases like Part N and the Abraham fiasco is mounting. Legal experts note a growing demand to hold “rogue prosecutors” accountable for misconduct. Federal authorities are increasingly scrutinizing abuse of power in local DAs’ offices. Nancy Pelosi loyalist Michael McMahon’s name is surfacing in these conversations, as Staten Island’s pattern of fabricated evidence and retaliatory prosecutions comes to light.

No one has been more outspoken about this than Luthmann, who effectively declared war on the McMahons’ regime. He continues to publish exposés on their corruption, even after being personally targeted by DA McMahon with dubious charges.

“The McMahons corruptly engineered hundreds of wrongful prosecutions, including mine and Victor Abraham’s,” Luthmann said. “We’re at opposite ends of the spectrum. I hate his politics. But I know he got railroaded and deserves due process. We both still suffer from McMahon-caused PTSD, and that may never go away.”

According to filings and Luthmann’s public statements, McMahon himself – in his personal capacity – lodged a felony complaint based solely on an ICARD—a police “investigation card” that does not constitute a valid criminal charge or warrant. No judge ever signed a warrant or verified probable cause, and no grand jury indictment or preliminary hearing ever occurred.

“The NYPD can arrest me on sight in NYC, even though the crooked cops know that I’m not in NYC and they haven’t taken it to a judge. It’s a substantial liberty violation,” Luthmann said. “It’s just another color of law violation that the [Trump] administration can tag on the McMahons to show modus operandi, common scheme or plan, intent, and lack of mistake, accident, or good faith.”

The ICARD, filed by subordinate NYPD detectives under McMahon’s direction as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of Staten Island, accused Luthmann of making “felony threatening communications” via a Substack publication—charges that federal law protects under the First Amendment.

Luthmann asserts the move was political retaliation for his reporting on McMahon’s corruption.

“It’s a bogus charge built on a piece of paper that isn’t even a warrant,” he said. “This is what happens when journalists expose the Staten Island Uni-Party machine. I can’t wait to see the McMahon perp walk just like crooked Tish James. I have the whole thing on tape from the cop’s mouth. And it looks like he’ll flip before he loses his gold shield.”

Luthmann says he has spoken with and provided information to city, state, and federal authorities, including the NYPD Internal Affairs Bureau.

“The ICARD is bullshit, but Albany people tell me McMahon said he won’t push it because no Staten Island judge will sign it, and he won’t pull it back. So I have to bring an Article 78 proceeding against the NYPD to put this all in front of a Manhattan judge to laugh out of court,” Luthmann said. “Then, I sue him personally down in my backyard in federal court. I don’t want a lung or a kidney. I’ll settle for a pension. He’s got two of those. In November, he’ll be the turkey, and then by December his goose will be cooked.”

In a dramatic statement, Luthmann warned that if he “vanishes,” the McMahons should be the prime suspects. That is the level of fear and tension now underpinning Staten Island’s politics. The McMahons are on the defensive, lashing out at critics and trying to cling to their empire.

Meanwhile, Staten Island voters are turning out in record numbers, perhaps sensing that real change is possible. The fake fights and smear posts can’t mask the truth forever: the island’s justice system has been hijacked by a corrupt cabal, and its last stand may be underway.

“If the Republicans want to ask Ray [Rodriguez] a real question the week before the election, ask him where my August motion went,” Luthmann said. “And if the disappearance came before or after he got talked to by Judy McMahon. Scumbags.”

This election – with its bizarre cross-party theatrics and unprecedented public engagement – could spell the end of the McMahons’ uni-party theater. Staten Islanders are finally peeking behind the curtain, and what they see are the puppet masters exposed under the harsh light of accountability.

The question now is whether the McMahon machine will finally face a day of reckoning, or if this well-oiled corruption will find a way to survive the public siege.