Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon is under fire for lying under oath in a case against investigative journalist Richard Luthmann, who is the editor in chief of this publication. Critics say the DA is weaponizing his office with a bogus complaint to punish a political adversary—a move that could now lead to federal scrutiny, investigation, and prosecution.
By Dick LaFontaine and Rick LaRivière
DA Claims “Fear for Life” Over a Newsletter Email
Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon, 67, stunned observers by filing a sworn police complaint claiming he was“afraid for his safety/life” after receiving a single Substack email.
The July 13 email in question wasn’t a threat or even about McMahon – it was a mass newsletter about Family Court Violence sent to over 33,000 subscribers by muckraking journalist Richard Luthmann, 45.
Luthmann’s newsletter, titled “This is For Real.,” did not mention McMahon by name and contained “no explicit or implied threats of violence,” according to records.
It was a political commentary piece authored by another writer, world-renowned domestic violence expert Dr. Bandy Lee, M.D., P.Div., and merely introduced by Luthmann. It reached McMahon’s official government inbox as part of a standard distribution.
McMahon’s complaint to the NYPD accuses Luthmann of “Criminal Contempt in the First Degree,” a Class E felony punishable by up to four years behind bars. The district attorney alleges that the email violated a 2018 order of protection, which barred Luthmann from contacting him.
In the complaint form’s “Victim’s Emotional Impact” section, McMahon answered “YES” when asked if he feared for his safety or life.
Multiple independent outlets have reported on the case, openly questioning how a mass media email, complete with an unsubscribe link, could genuinely put the DA in fear.
No direct threat, physical contact, or personal targeting occurred, the police report itself notes.
This has led critics to suggest McMahon’s dramatic claim of being terrorized by an email is not only far-fetched, but potentially a fabrication in a sworn statement – in other words, perjury.
Luthmann’s journalism has been critical of corruption in the Staten Island courts and political scene, and specifically of the McMahons’ pension double-dipping, as reported by the New York Post.
Longtime Feud With a Pro-Trump Muckraker
The bizarre complaint didn’t come out of nowhere. It stems from a long, rancorous feud between McMahon and Richard Luthmann that dates back a decade.
Luthmann – a former Staten Island attorney and an outspoken Trump loyalist since the day the future president rode down his golden escalator – has made a name for himself as a gadfly targeting political corruption. He currently writes for several outlets (including The Family Court Circus, NY News Press, and Florida Gulf News) and takes pride in exposing what he calls crooked officials.
McMahon, a Democrat, has been one of his prime targets. In 2015, when McMahon was running for DA, Luthmann lampooned him with a parody Facebook page, dubbing McMahon “Smilin’ Jack” and skewering his allies as the “Irish Mafia.”
The page was clearly marked as satire and even linked to McMahon’s real campaign site, but McMahon bristled at the ridicule. Luthmann also publicly backed McMahon’s Republican opponent and accused McMahon’s campaign of filing “fraudulent” petition signatures from dead voters – a charge reported in the local press at the time.
McMahon won that election, but bad blood was already boiling. Luthmann had exposed “inconvenient truths” about McMahon, including in this video from 2015:
Two years later, Luthmann helped expose a courthouse scandal involving McMahon’s wife, Judge Judith McMahon. Acting on a whistleblower tip, Luthmann revealed that Judge McMahon (then Staten Island’s top administrative judge) and her DA husband “conspired to develop and use Part N – the special narcotics part – as a way to steer grand jury applications” away from independent judges and into the hands of a prosecution-friendly judge.
Judge McMahon, then the Administrative Judge on Staten Island, was not supposed to handle criminal matters (like warrants) because of the clear conflict with her husband as District Attorney. The New York State Office of Court Administration appointed Judge Steven Rooney as the “Administrative Judge for Criminal Matters.”
However, a January 18, 2017, recording shows differently. Judy McMahon was “butting in” on criminal matters that should have been left to Judge Rooney and Judge Charles Troia, Judy McMahon’s hand-picked subservient.
These bombshell allegations and hours more of tapes, which Luthmann detailed to The New York Post, suggested the McMahons rigged the system to get search warrants rubber-stamped by a compliant jurist. The fallout was swift: the secret “Part N” court was dismantled, and Judge McMahon was demoted in 2017.
But the whistleblower who recorded the scheme, Chief Clerk Michael Pulizotto, was punished by the New York judicial machine.
Then, McMahon’s ire turned toward Luthmann for airing the dirty laundry.
By this point, Luthmann had cemented his status as a relentless McMahon critic – and a thorn in the powerful couple’s side.
Lawfare, Lies, and a “Bogus” Charge
What followed was, as Luthmann’s allies describe it, classic “lawfare” – the weaponization of law to destroy a political enemy. In 2018, not long after Judge McMahon’s embarrassment, District Attorney McMahon’s office hit back at Luthmann over the Facebook parody.
McMahon recused himself (claiming to be the “victim” of the parody) and had a special prosecutor appointed. The first special prosecutor refused to indict Luthmann, citing free speech protections for obvious satire.
McMahon then hand-picked a second prosecutor, Eric Nelson, who finally secured a felony indictment, absurdly charging Luthmann with criminal impersonation and falsifying business records – all for a spoof social media page.
Those who followed the case were aghast: the DA was effectively treating parody as a crime.
Around the same time, federal prosecutors brought fraud charges against Luthmann (involving a business dispute and a dodgy informant who Frank Parlato subsequently outed as a major Wall Street fraudster).
In filed court documents, Luthmann claims Guy Cardinale was “walked in” to the EDNY U.S. Attorney’s Office by attorney Bruce Baron, in a move orchestrated by then-court officers union boss Dennis Quirk and McMahon himself.
The overwhelming pressure (EDNY Prosecutors initially sought LIFE imprisonment) led Luthmann to accept plea deals in both the federal and state cases. He would spend roughly four years in federal prison.
Notably, Luthmann has never been accused or convicted of any violent act against McMahon. His offenses were non-violent, yet McMahon’s actions ensured the outspoken lawyer-turned-journalist was behind bars for years, silenced and sidelined.
Fast forward to now: having rebuilt his life as an investigative journalist in Florida, Luthmann once again drew McMahon’s wrath through critical reporting.
McMahon’s response was the contested complaint over the single Substack email. Observers quickly spotted signs of bad faith.
For one, in the NYPD report, McMahon described Luthmann as a “stranger” – flatly false given their well-documented history of clashes.
That check-box lie in a sworn instrument could itself constitute a multitude of crimes involving false instruments, sworn statements, dishonest reporting, and perjury.
Next, Luthmann maintains he was never actually served with the 2018 order of protection McMahon is now invoking. It is clear that Luthmann never appeared in court on the case, nor did he receive any explicit instructions from Judge Marina Cora Mundy, as referenced in the report. Under New York law, you generally can’t violate an order you weren’t notified of.
And even if the order is valid, it’s debatable whether a generic newsletter to a governmental email counts as a willful violation, since it wasn’t a personal message or threat. The newsletter was sent automatically to a list of subscribers that happened to include McMahon’s official address – hardly a targeted harassment.
By all accounts, the email’s content was political and family court commentary unrelated to McMahon, not menacing stalking.
These facts have led many to brand McMahon’s new charge as baseless retaliation – “bogus,” in the words of Luthmann’s supporters – built on lies. They argue that the DA is abusing the law to target a personal nemesis on a phony pretext, continuing a vendetta under the guise of authority.
The stakes are high: if a Staten Island judge buys McMahon’s tale and signs an arrest warrant, Luthmann will be taken into custody in Florida. He could then face a harrowing journey northward – enduring “diesel therapy,” the gruelling prisoner transport that means weeks of shackled bus rides and jail hops before he even sees a New York courtroom.
In effect, McMahon’s maneuver could steal months of Luthmann’s life and liberty through the punishment of process – even if the case later gets tossed out.
Federal Heat and Fallout for McMahon
McMahon’s aggressive move may now be blowing up in his face. Law enforcement sources say a criminal referral outlining McMahon’s alleged misconduct is being prepared for FBI Director Kash Patel, as authorities take a hard look at whether the DA crossed the line. In a striking sign of the times, Patel – a Trump ally appointed to lead the FBI – is believed to have a far less tolerant view of politicized prosecutions than his predecessors.
The Frank Report and other outlets covering this saga have explicitly raised the question of “weaponization of justice,” calling McMahon’s complaint a textbook case of a prosecutor abusing power to settle a score.
If that view gains traction, McMahon could find himself under formal investigation. Federal statutes make it a crime for officials to violate citizens’ rights under color of law or to obstruct justice, and legal analysts note that McMahon’s alleged deceit could fit those definitions.
Potential charges include 18 U.S.C. § 242 (deprivation of rights under color of law) – a federal civil rights violation – and 18 U.S.C. § 1519 (obstruction of justice). Convictions for those offenses can carry serious penalties, including up to a year in prison for the former and 20 years for the latter.
McMahon also faces professional backlash: at the very least, ethics panels or state oversight could discipline or even remove him from office for this kind of malfeasance.
The saga has drawn national attention to Staten Island’s DA office. Powerful figures are watching. Frank Parlato, the publisher of The Frank Report, is reportedly well-connected within pro-Trump circles. He has maintained working relationships with FBI Director Kash Patel, who formerly served as a top advisor to Trump on intelligence matters.
Parlato also shares a longstanding friendship with Trump confidant Roger Stone, having collaborated on media projects and political exposés.
![Two American Treasures: Legendary Political Strategist Roger Stone [L] and President Donald J. Trump [R].](https://thefamilycourtcircus.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Image-7-2-1024x719.jpg)
Sources indicate that Parlato regularly communicates with both Patel and Stone. His reporting has garnered the attention of President Trump himself, who is known to appreciate Parlato’s work on Letitia James’ corruption, as evidenced by a recent Truth Social post by the President.
Parlato’s coverage has publicly implicated the New York Attorney General in weaponizing the law for personal attention and involvement in kidnapping and assault at a NYC agency Christmas party. The investigative reporter raises serious questions about James’s own conduct and fitness for office.
Luthmann (a Truth Social “Red Check” Journalist) has also written about “Deranger-in-Chief” James’s mortgage fraud scandal, claiming the corrupt New York Democratic Party Establishment protects her.
What started as a local power play by McMahon – seemingly aimed at silencing a long-time political nemesis-turned pesky conservative journalist – now risks turning into a career-ending scandal for the DA. The very tactics he – and his radical New York Prosecutor counterparts like Tish James – used to torment critics have triggered a spotlight on his own honesty and abuse of authority.
As investigations loom, Michael McMahon may soon be answering pointed questions under oath himself.
In a bitter twist of fate, the DA who cried “fear” could end up facing the legal consequences of his false claims, while Richard Luthmann – the man McMahon tried to muzzle – watches the wheels of justice finally turn in his favor.
