[Speaking Truth To Power]
ADA Lomp couldn’t find his witness Adorno yesterday for the trial against Gounden. Photo: Linkedin
Joseph Adorno, the prosecution’s star witness and main complainant in the Queens County District Attorney’s bogus case against Kris Gounden is now himself a defendant after being charged with assaulting his wife.
This means the Queens DA’s office will have to convince a jury that its top witness in the case against Gounden is a wife-beater. After convicting Adorno, the Queens DA then has to somehow rehabilitate his reputation and convince another jury in a separate trial that Adorno was a victim of a hit-and-run from a vehicle driven by Gounden last year. Gounden has maintained all along that Adorno lied about that case from last year and that in fact he’s the victim. Adorno’s own statements, to police and to Allstate insurance company has already undermined his credibility.
Now his arrest on May 14, 2019 for allegedly assaulting his wife Evaline Orovco –who has already said she was prepared to testify that he lied about the Gounden case– destroys his credibiity. Adorno appeared in court on May 15, 2019. He was charged with third-degree assault of Orovco.
Even though Gounden’s trial was to have started yesterday, the Queens DA had not revealed the alleged assault charges against Adorno to the defendant Gounden even though the arrest was two months ago. Assistant District Attorney Peter Lomp is handling the prosecution of Gounden.
Gounden believes the Queens DA’s office will go to any length to get him convcicted so he can be killed while behind bars. The DA’s office has prosecuted Gounden on scores of bogus cases for over a decade now.
Adorno, the prosecution’s top witness against Gounden claims that last year, on Feb. 5, 2018, he was the victim of a hit-and-run in a car driven by Gounden, who then fled from the scene in Queens. Gounden claims Adorno, who was driving a black BMW –and who was not a pedestrian as he later claimed– struck his car several times from behind while he’d stopped at a red light, as previously reported in several Black Star News articles. Gounden then dialed 911 and drove back to his nearby grandmother’s home even as Adorno chased him and kept hitting his car; Gounden called 911 a second time, records show.
When officers from the 106 –a precinct whose officers have arrested Gounden more than a dozen times in a vendetta dating to 2007— arrived on the scene, they arrested Gounden instead of Adorno. Gounden surreptitiously recorded his interactions with the Adornos, and the officers, including Carlos Bello. The recording shows that Bello, the arresting officer, sided with the Adornos. He didn’t even ask to see the evidence the Adornos claimed they had in their possession–a purported cell phone video recording to prove their claim that Adorno was the victim of a hit-and-run by Gounden.
Adorno later filed a claim against Gounden’s insurer Allstate. During an examination under oath by an Allstate attorney, Adorno initially conceded that he had been driving his car at the time of the Feb. 5, 2018 incident before his lawyer interjected that he’d actually stepped out of the car; a suggestion Adorno agreed with. Adorno also provided a different address for the location of the alleged hit-and-run than what Officer Bello recorded in his police report. He told Allstate that he’d been injured on his neck, back and knees; a DA intake report said Adorno had been hit on his hand. Adorno also apparently played the race-card, telling Allstate there had been a “black man” in the car with Gounden, something he’d never told Bello, the arresting officer.
As readers of The Black Star News know by now, the Queens DA has engaged in malicious prosecution of Gounden for many years. The bogus cases all start with a false arrest by officers from the 106 precinct. The vendetta started shortly after the Goundens, dark-skinned ethnic Indian immigrants from Guyana, purchased a two-house waterfront property in Howard Beach in 2007, as reported in several Black Star News articles.
When retaliatory attacks against the Goundens started from some White neighbors who didn’t welcome the family, The Daily News in a 2007 article reported the incidents as akin to something from the deep South “circa 1950.” The Goundens had 24 x 7 police protection for months. After media coverage died and the protection was withdrawn, the retaliation escalated. Multiple false police arrests, bogus charges, and malicious prosecution, combined with tickets for fictitious violations from city and state agencies that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, drove Gounden from his home and destroyed his business. A married NYPD officer named James Wilfinger has now even moved into Gouden’s prized Howard Beach home and is living with the mother of his three children.
Gounden has prevailed in all the previous bogus cases brought against him. He’s represented in the current case by top-notch lawyer Ron Kuby. Yesterday, Lomp and Adorno were no shows by the time the trial was to have started. Eventually, Lomp appeared and told the presiding judge, Eugene Guarino, that he couldn’t locate Adorno because he’s currently homeless and doesn’t have a phone. The case was adjourned until September 16. (Gounden has previously appeared before Judge Guarino on another one of the bogus Queens DA’s cases; that case was withdrawn).
The Black Star News later learned about the assault case against Adorno. His wife, Orovco, has a restraining order against him.
Responding to inquiries about the assault case against Adorno, a spokesperson for the Queen’s DA said, “The case is pending. The defendant’s next court date is July 30, 2019.” The spokesperson didn’t respond when asked what impact Adorno’s alleged crime will have on the DA’s case against Gounden. She also wouldn’t provide details about the alleged assault.
Several months ago Orovco, Adorno’s wife, said she was prepared to tell the Court that Adorno had “made up” the whole case against Gounden, records show. Nevertheless, the Queens DA has pressed on with the case.
It’s not clear whether Adorno’s arrest and alleged assault charges were related to his wife’s reported statement about him concocting the claims against Gounden.
