Categories for Investigations

Jul 16

2025

ICE deception on immigrant detentions

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On X, ICE has used these words to describe detainees who were already incarcerated. Graphic by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. Since Donald Trump took office in January, the Buffalo ICE office has issued a steady drumbeat of press releases and social media posts purporting to show that its agents are taking dangerous criminals “off the streets.” But in reality, more than half of the immigrants ICE Buffalo has publicized since Trump’s inauguration were already in state or federal prison. Following a White House-issued quota, ICE data shows that arrests in the region have skyrocketed from 83 last year to 335 through the[...]

Posted 6 months ago

Jun 6

2025

Concerning contributions to Scanlon campaign

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Under city law, one of Buffalo’s largest paving contractors could have been fined and barred from bidding on lucrative contracts because of its admission to wage theft. Instead, the Common Council, despite reservations and headed by then-President Chris Scanlon, awarded D&H Paving $6.9 million in work last July.  At the time, the lawmakers expressed concern that D&H Paving was under investigation by the state Department of Labor. That probe, the state’s second into D&H, resulted in a nearly $28,000 fine and a finding that the company’s violations were “willful.” In the midst of the Council’s deliberation, the company’s owner, Michael[...]

Posted 8 months ago

May 1

2025

Prison nurses face choice between patients, abusive guards

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Illustration by Dion MBD for The Marshall Project. When New York corrections officers attack prisoners in infirmaries — as has happened dozens of times in the past 15 years — it is nurses who must document and treat the resulting injuries. Their choices can save lives or cover up abuse. A prisoner at Green Haven Correctional Facility, in the Hudson Valley, accused a nurse of medically clearing him to be sent to solitary confinement to cover up a beating by guards that left him with life-threatening injuries: a punctured lung, broken ribs and a fractured hand. By contrast, at nearby[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Apr 30

2025

In some state prisons, infirmaries dens of hidden violence

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Guards beating Robert Brooks in an infirmary at Marcy Correctional Facility on Dec. 9, 2024. Brooks died the next day. Photo: New York State Attorney General’s Office. The guards carried Robert Brooks into the infirmary face down, holding him by his cuffed hands and ankles. Once inside a private exam room at Marcy Correctional Facility, near Syracuse, New York, on Dec. 9, officers beat and choked him while nurses lingered in the hall. Brooks died the next day at a nearby hospital. Lawyers for the Brooks family say the guards intentionally took him to the infirmary because it lacked cameras[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Apr 29

2025

Neighbors say site of Allentown murders was ‘unsafe’

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Neighbors of Mickey Harmon and Jordan Celotto — the Allentown couple murdered in their home on March 4 — say the tragedy might have been averted if the building they lived in had been better maintained and secured. The couple’s landlord disputes that notion. Harmon and Celotto moved into the lower apartment at 5 St. Louis Place last September. Their upstairs neighbor, Jordan Bidwell, who lived in the property since 2021, was not was not home during the break-in, but she claimed the basement window that accused murderer Bryan Chiclana used to access the house was boarded up with a[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Apr 25

2025

ICE arrests two Buffalo men

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  Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents detain man on Buffalo’s West Side. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Wednesday morning arrested two Buffalo men on the city’s West Side, Investigative Post has learned. ICE has so far refused to acknowledge the arrests but bystanders and family members confirmed that two men were arrested around 9 a.m. Wednesday. Witnesses said four unmarked law enforcement vehicles pulled up to the corner of Rhode Island and 14th streets. Photographs provided to Investigative Post show ICE officers arresting two men who were loading a blue Chevrolet Silverado work truck. A witness told Investigative Post[...]

Posted 9 months ago

Mar 19

2025

More subsidies for restaurateur accused of wage theft

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A Niagara Falls restaurateur under investigation for allegations of wage theft received a third round of tax breaks Wednesday. With little discussion, the Niagara County Industrial Development Agency unanimously approved $51,000 in sales tax breaks for Muhammad Shoaib to open a Church’s Chicken, Jamba Juice and Carvel Ice Cream in downtown Niagara Falls. Meanwhile, five former employees, three of them managers, have come forward with new allegations that Shoaib and his wife, Hina Qureshi, failed to pay overtime and withheld tips from their workers. They told Investigative Post the couple altered payroll entries and told employees to destroy records and[...]

Posted 10 months ago

Jan 23

2025

Subsidized ‘Falls restaurateur accused of wage theft

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A Niagara Falls business owner who is seeking a second round of tax breaks for his growing portfolio of fast food restaurants cheats workers out of wages and tips, nine current and former employees have told Investigative Post.  Muhammad Shoaib, who owns 10 fast food restaurants — including the Moe’s Southwest Grill, A&W Restaurant and Papa Johns Pizza in Niagara Falls — frequently fails to pay hourly employees overtime and managers the weekly minimum salary set in state law, six current and former employees said. Six employees also alleged that Shoaib has withheld thousands of dollars in credit card tips[...]

Posted 1 year ago
Investigative Post