Friends in high places? Crist and Miqueli; Gudin, Crist’s ex-girlfriend claims wrongful prosecution
Tatyana Gudin says instead of charging her ex-boyfriend for attacking her the Manhattan District Attorney’s office is prosecuting her because her assailant’s sugar-daddy is a Catholic priest who is well-connected to, and protected by, the New York archdiocese.
What’s more, the same assistant district attorney who intended to prosecute her former boyfriend, Keith Crist for illegally locking her out of their apartment in an earlier incident is now handling the case against her.
Gudin says she dialed 911 when her on-and-off-again boyfriend Keith Crist attacked her on May 19, 2015, in their apartment on Park Avenue in Upper Manhattan. When Gudin fled to another part of the apartment and called the police, Crist, unaware of her own call, also called 911, she says.
A Black Star News reporter was able to hear a recording of Gudin’s 911 call.
Crist has a record of previous arrests for assaulting domestic partners including herself, she says.
Phone records show that by the time Crist called police and told a dispatcher that Gudin had pushed him into a window, she was actually still on her own 911 call, she says. “This proves I couldn’t have pushed since I was on the phone with my 911 operator at the time he claims I did it,” she says.
The couple had a court date the next morning and a judge was to sign a restraining order that would have barred Crist from the apartment due to the illegal lockout incident a month earlier, on April 16, Gudin says.
Instead, on the night of the May 19, 2015 incident, Crist lied to police and Gudin was arrested.
Gudin claims before the police arrived, Crist, who is a 6′ 2”, 220-pound muscle-bound bodybuilder, broke a window in the apartment, carefully removed a shard with a piece of cloth, ran near the front door of the apartment and slashed his own arm. Instead of arresting Crist who was bleeding from the alleged self-inflicted wound, the police took her away in handcuffs, Gudin says.
Gudin claims she pleaded with the arresting officer from the 23 precinct to listen to her 911 call first which would have exposed Crist’s lie. She also asked the officer to examine the window. “He would have seen that there was no blood trace on the broken window and no blood trail leading from the window or anywhere in the apartment,” she says. “This is because Keith carefully removed the broken glass and cut himself outside the apartment in the stairway. That was the only place where there was blood.”
Gudin claims when the officer asked his supervisor permission to determine who the primary aggressor was, as required in cases involving domestic violence, the sergeant refused. “He said ‘just arrest her,'” Gudin says.
The officers were aware that Crist was in a sexual relationship with the well-connected Catholic priest, Peter Miqueli, by the time of the May 19, incident, based on his arrest for the earlier illegal lockout incident.
Father Miqueli had called Officer O’Brien of the 23 precinct, who was Crist’s illegal lockout arresting officer, and asked for leniency for Crist, Gudin claims.
“Had he been properly arrested and booked for the illegal lockout I would have been granted a restraining order and he never would have been in the apartment to beat me up on May 19 and then get me arrested,” Gudin says. “He’s getting preferential treatment because of his sexual relationship with father Miqueli.”
Instead of being taken downtown and processed after his arrest for the April lockout of Gudin, Crist was only given a desk appearance ticket, records show. Ordinarily, someone charged with illegal lockout must be taken downtown for processing.
Gudin says her current court case involving Crist started when his jealous sugar-daddy ordered him to kick her out.
Records reviewed by The Black Star News show that Miqueli pays $1,075.50 of the Park Avenue apartment’s $1,275.50 rent. The New York City Human Resources Administration pays the $200 difference because Christ told the agency he didn’t have income, Gudin says.
On the HRA rent support application dated December 12, 2014, Miqueli signed as Crist’s guarantor and agreed to pay the $1,075.50 portion. The catholic priest identified his employer as St. Frances de Chantal, his then Bronx parish, on the application, and declared a monthly income of $2,545.74.
In addition to the rent, father Miqueli also paid Crist $ 1,000 per week. In return, every Wednesday, Crist would go to the catholic priest’s New Jersey home to spend a few days, returning to the Manhattan apartment during the weekend. Miqueli also liked buying Crist expensive gifts, including a $5,000 turntable, Gudin says. Christ is also a record collector and DJ, she says.
Miqueli did seem to live beyond his declared means. He purchased the Brick, New Jersey, home for $264,000 in cash, records reviewed by The Black Star News show. As of March 2013 Miqueli had cash assets totaling $694, 972. 28 primarily with Hapoalim Securities Inc., records show.
Gudin says she and Crist have had an open relationship for over 10 years. They first lived together in Brooklyn; eventually Crist moved to Florida when they broke up. When Crist moved back to New York he began his relationship with father Miqueli who first met him through a website called www.Rentboy.com. Miqueli would hire Crist for escort services for $300 an hour.
“He’s not really bi-sexual. He’s gay-for-pay,” Gudin says of her relationship with Crist.
In December 2014 Crist asked Gudin to move in and join him in the Park Avenue apartment.
Father Miqueli was a regular visitor to the apartment where he and Crist spent time in one of the bedrooms. Crist had asked her to tell Miqueli that her name was “Lisa” and that she was subletting a room. “He warned me that father Miqueli was very jealous and would be furious if he ever found out the truth,” Gudin says.
Ironically, it was Crist himself who exposed her true identity to Miqueli, Gudin says. The priest and Crist got high on Dilaudid, an opioid which is normally prescribed for pain medication. The drug also loosened Crist’s tongue, Gudin says. “It’s like a truth serum for Keith,” she says. “He told Miqueli who I really was.”
Miqueli was enraged and told Crist to kick her out of the apartment, she says. “I refused. He had asked me to move in from my place in New Jersey.”
She says Crist even told her Miqueli had offered to cover her rent for one year in her own apartment and buy her furniture if she promised not to talk about his relationship with Crist. “I wouldn’t budge. I don’t do bribes,” she says.
On April 16, 2015, Gudin had scheduled a dental surgery appointment. Crist was supposed to meet her at the doctor’s office and to sign as her escort since she was going under anesthesia.
Instead, he called her at the doctor’s office to tell her not only wasn’t he coming but that he’d changed the locks to the apartment and thrown all her belongings in the trash, she says.
Gudin says she rushed back to the apartment, found her belongings in the trash and the locks changed so she called the police.
By then, Crist had gone to Miqueli’s home in New Jersey. When officers from the 23 precinct arrived on the scene one of them, Officer O’Brien, called Crist. “He told O’Brien that when he returned from New Jersey in three days then he would surrender. That’s how much power Miqueli has,” Gudin says.
Gudin moved into a shelter for a few days until she was able to see a judge who signed an order restoring her to the apartment.
Gudin also met with an assistant district attorney, Amy Gordon on May 5, 2015, who was assigned to her case and she told her about the relationship between Crist and Miqueli. “She told me she would do everything to protect me,” Gudin recalls.
Gordon’s notes from that meeting — Gudin obtained them later through discovery — show that Gudin also told her that Miqueli had hired Crist as one of two trustees when he presided over the Roosevelt Island parish and put him on payroll. Crist was also made manager of the thrift shop and boasted to Gudin that he and Miqueli kept for themselves thousands of dollars in the cash receipts, she says. The other trustee had been a psychiatrist who treated both Crist and Miqueli.
Gudin says after their meeting Gordon told her that she would prosecute Crist for the illegal lockout and talk to her supervisor about the allegations about Miqueli’s and Crist’s church embezzlement on Roosevelt Island which is the New York County DA’s jurisdiction.
When Crist came back from Miqueli’s home on April 19, 2015, and surrendered at the 23 precinct he was issued a desk ticket and returned to the apartment. Gudin returned to the apartment by Housing court order, the next day.
Gudin says when she contacted Gordon on May 12, 2015 to inquire about the investigation into the alleged church embezzlement and the illegal lockout, her tone had changed. “She said her supervisor told her they were not going to investigate Miqueli. When I asked her what about Keith and the lockout she said ‘I’ll get back to you.’ I began to smell Miqueli’s influence,” Gudin says.
Meanwhile Crist started harassing her on a daily basis, demanding that she move out. He was enraged when he searched her phone and saw the e-mail messages she had sent to Gordon with the allegations about him and Miqueli. Gudin says she was afraid of him because he’d once beaten her unconscious.
When she never heard from Gordon, on May 19, 2015, at 11:39 AM, Gudin sent her e-mail messages with what she claims were past alleged crimes never investigated by the Manhattan DA’s office after she’d provided evidence.
Some were allegations of corruption unconnected to Gudin. One was a beating that Gudin suffered at a bachelor’s party that she had organized in 2012, by individuals she believes were prominent New York City officials, who were drunk and had been snorting cocaine. The incident was recorded on a surveillance camera at an event’s space. Even though one arrest was made there’s been no prosecution to date, Gudin claimed, in the e-mail message to Gordon. “I told her in that e-mail that I plan to go to The Daily News to expose the corruption in the Manhattan DA’s office.”
The Black Star News has reviewed the e-mail messages.
That same night, 12 hours later, on May 19, Gudin was arrested for allegedly assaulting Crist. “Do you really think this was a coincidence?” she says.
An assistant district attorney named Khan, who interviewed Gudin on May 20 was initially assigned to prosecute her. “khan told me he was going to talk to Gordon. Two days later she was assigned to my case to prosecute me,” Gudin says. “I feel hurt that the person who was protecting me, the victim of domestic violence, is now prosecuting me.”
(Meanwhile, in December 2015, the church parishioners from the Bronx and Roosevelt Island filed a civil lawsuit against Miqueli, Crist, the New York archdiocese, and Cardinal Timothy Dolan, alleging theft of $1 million and failure to respond to allegations made by church members. In articles about the lawsuit The Daily News and The New York Post also reported on Miqueli’s alleged sexual relationship with Crist and drug abuse).
“My lawyer, Brian Kennedy intends to argue that I was falsely arrested because I turned in Keith and Miqueli to the authorities.” Gudin says. The lawyer has subpoenaed Crist’s employment records from the New York archdiocese, she says.
Kennedy didn’t respond to questions from The Black Star News submitted via e-mail message.
During a November 14, 2016 court hearing in Manhattan criminal court attended by a Black Star News reporter, the assistant district Gordon told the judge that records of any 911 call made by Crist don’t exist. “She lied because his call would prove that I called first and reported him assaulting me,” Gudin says.
Tom J. Curran, a lawyer representing the archdiocese told the judge that the church opposes the subpoena.
“The reason that the archdiocese opposes the subpoena is because the records would prove that Keith failed the child abuse prevention background check and was still hired,” Gudin says. She says in 2014 parishioners found gay pornography downloaded on the Bronx parish rectory’s computer.
“As a result, Crist was banned from all church grounds,” Gudin says.
Curran didn’t respond to questions from The Black Star News submitted via e-mail message.
The case against Gudin has been adjourned to January 31, 2017.
Gordon, the assistant district attorney, didn’t respond to questions sent via e-mail message seeking comment.
A spokesperson for the New York County DA’s office declined to comment when contacted by The Black Star News “as it’s an open and pending case.”
Father Miqueli, when reached by telephone declined to comment, saying “I know nothing about the matter.”
Crist did not respond to questions sent via e-mail message.
Joseph Zwilling, spokesperson for Cardinal Dolan in an e-mail message said the church wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit alleging embezzlement by Miqueli and Crist or the investigation of the alleged adult material on the church computer since they were being handled by the district attorney.
Zwilling said Crist was “never” on the archdiocese’ payroll but that he didn’t know whether or not he had been on the church payroll in the Bronx and Roosevelt parishes. He didn’t respond when asked if Miqueli was still on the archdiocese’s payroll.
In a short statement, the New York Police Department (NYPD) said: “On May 20th 2015 Tatyana Gudin female 44 was charged with assault. All other inquiries on the matter shall be directed to the Manhattan DA Office.”
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