The criminal case against Sasha Masri, the Saddle Rock resident and former candidate for trustee whose misdemeanor count of attempted assault against Saddle Rock Mayor Dan Levy was overturned in January, is now closed, his attorney Donna Aldea said.
Nassau County Court of Claims Judge Philip Grella ordered Wednesday that Masri’s case be sealed, closing the case, Aldea said.
The sealing of the case comes after the state Court of Appeals earlier this month denied the Nassau County District Attorney’s office’s application to appeal an Appellate Division decision to overturn the conviction of Masri.
In court documents dated June 10, New York Court of Appeals Associate Judge Susan Phillips Read denied the DA’s application for leave for appeal, filed March 19.
Aldea said the filing means an appeal won’t even be heard by the state Court of Appeals.
“There’s no judgment,” Aldea said. “Basically it means the Appellate Division judgment stands.”
Paul Leonard, press secretary for the DA’s office, said the DA declines to comment.
The Appellate Division ruled in January that the Nassau County Supreme Court should not have accepted Nassau County prosecutors’ request to consider the misdemeanor charge without also considering four other charges files against Masri including felony assault with intent to cause physical injury with a weapon.
“Contrary to the People’s contention, there is no reasonable view of the evidence that the defendant attempted to assault the complainant, but was unsuccessful in doing so,” the January decision said.
The DA’s office argued in the March court documents, forwarded by Aldea, that there was “ample basis” to conclude Masri intended to injure Levy, though he did not succeed in causing the intended injury.
“The sole question is whether there is a reasonable view of the evidence that a defendant who strikes the victim with the intent to cause him physical injury but fails to cause such injury has committed attempted third-degree assault,” the DA’s request reads. “This Court has never addressed this specific question, which is recurrent and of State-wide significance.”
Masri, who unsuccessfully ran for Village of Saddle Rock trustee, was sentenced in August 2013 to serve a year of probation after being found guilty of attempted assault in July 2013.
Prosecutors said at Masri’s trial that after an October 2012 Village of Saddle Rock Board of Trustees meeting, Masri caused deep lacerations to Levy’s head and fractures to Levy’s shoulders after a physical confrontation.
The confrontation began when Masri approached village Trustee David Schwartz after a board meeting to ask him about an outgoing audit of village finances.
Efforts to reach Masri and Levy were unavailing.
Witnesses said that after Marsi made his request, Levy — who considered Masri a disruptive presence at village meetings — began to belittle Masri, and the two started to swear at each other.
Differing accounts in arguments made by defense attorney Robert McDonald and Assistant District Attorney Christine Geier’s say Masri either slapped Levy with an open hand or punched Levy in the face with keys in his hand.
The defense said Levy, who was recently elected president of the Great Neck Village Officials Association, was motivated by anger and a desire to discredit Masri, and that Levy’s injuries were not a result of Masri’s initial blow.
But prosecutors cited medical testimony from the surgeon who treated Levy to show his injuries came from a sharp object, such as Masri’s keys.
Masri’s defense filed an opposition to the DA’s application to appeal to the state Court of Appeals in April, saying that the Appellate Division’s decision to overturn the conviction was based on intent, not a lack of injury.
The trial brought to light documents showing auditors were concerned about some of the Village of Saddle Rock’s financial practices, including Levy’s cashing of village checks written out to a contracting firm owned by a personal friend.
The auditing firm Satty, Levine and Ciacco prepared an audit of the village’s finances for the fiscal year ending in February 2012. The firm sent a memorandum to the village highlighting missing invoices, questionable charges on the village gas card, an unaccounted purchase of a laptop and checks to a contractor personally cashed by Levy as issues.
Levy pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked about the village’s finances during the trial.
A Nassau County District Attorney’s investigation into the village’s finances determined in January 2014 that Levy committed no criminal wrongdoing in his handling of the village’s finances.
