Attorney Testifies, Says Former IT Employee Admitted Leaking Emails

Mark Tabakin, the city’s former corporation counsel, said in court Monday that ex-IT employee Jonathan Cummins “freely admitted” in May 2011 to forwarding hacked emails to the fire chief and former public safety director.

“Inexplicably and almost out of nowhere,” Tabakin testified, “Jonathan said ‘I did it … they’re my friends, they asked me to do it.’”

Tabakin continued that he was “completely blown away by the fact that he confessed to it.” 

The day before, on May 16, the city had found that emails between Mayor Dawn Zimmer and her two aides—Dan Bryan and Juan Melli—as well as Liston and Tabakin were automatically being downloaded into an “archive” folder on the computer shared by Cummins and former IT director Patrick Ricciardi.

Ricciardi, who was effectively Cummins’ boss, was arrested last November and charged with interception of wire and electronic communications.

Cummins, who was fired from the city last year, is appealing his termination, claiming that when he was called into a meeting with former Business Administrator Arch Liston and Tabakin, he was denied representation.

“At no time, with or without representation, did Jonathan submit to any wrong doing,” Marcia Tapia, Cummins’ attorney, said during Friday’s hearing. Tapia also said that Cummins asked for a union representative four separate times.

The city, represented by Corporation Counsel Melissa Longo, maintains that Cummins was not denied his union representative.

Tabakin said that Cummins confessed about ten minutes into the meeting. After that, Union Representative Diane Nieves was called into the meeting. An hour or so after that, labor attorney for the city Merrick Limsky showed up to City Hall, Tabakin said. Limsky also testified on Friday morning.

It was only after Cummins’ admission that the union representative was called in, Tabakin said.

“Until he admitted it he wasn’t the target of anything,” Tabakin said. “Arch and I were dumbfounded.” Tabakin said that had Cummins not confessed, there would have been no disciplinary action.

According to the complaint against Ricciardi last November, Cummins falsely admitted to sending the emails to third parties, in an attempt to cover up for Ricciardi.

“Mr. Cummins is lying to somebody,” Tabakin said on Monday. “There’s a lie going on and it’s not a small one.”

On May 17—as Cummins was being questioned by Tabakin and Liston—Ricciardi was placed in a nearby office and didn’t admit to anything, according to Monday’s testimony.  “Mr. Ricciardi was crying,” Tabakin said, “he was visibly shaken.” 

When asked in court on Friday if Tabakin knew if Blohm was the subject of any FBI investigation, Tabakin said he didn’t know, but added “he probably should be.”