Ramapo, NY: FBI Raids Town Hall, Seizes Documents, Hard Drives

FBI agents cleared employees from a suburban town hall Wednesday, then began a search related to a federal investigation, a bureau spokesman said.

Spokesman Jim Margolin would not say what the agents were looking for at Ramapo Town Hall in Suffern.

�We�re executing a search warrant,� he said. �It�s under seal and not a matter of public record.�

Town police and investigators from the Rockland County district attorney�s office were also on the scene as agents wheeled empty, flattened boxes into the building.

District Attorney Thomas Zugibe would say only, �We�re assisting the FBI in the execution of warrants at Town Hall.�

Town workers were asked to leave as agents arrived at about 3:30 p.m., Margolin said. �The search will be easier to accomplish without people milling around,� he said.

He said agents would likely be at Town Hall well into the evening.

Margolin said the warrant came from a federal court in New York but he would not say if the search was part of a new investigation or an existing case.

Mayor Noramie Jasmin and Deputy Mayor Joseph Desmaret of Spring Valley, a village within the Town of Ramapo, are among six defendants in an ongoing political corruption case at the federal courthouse in White Plains. That case centers on a plan to buy a line on New York City�s mayoral ballot for state Sen. Malcolm Smith. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty.

Herb Hadad, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney�s office, would not comment on the investigation.

(AP)