Federal judge orders rare review of grand jury transcripts in high-profile case

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WIVB) -- A federal judge Thursday ordered prosecutors to provide grand jury transcripts for a rare private review to determine whether there is merit to allegations that they misled a grand jury.

The high-profile case involves six men accused of conspiracy to impede justice by retaliating against government witness Crystal Quinn to stop her from testifying against Pharaoh's Strip Club owner Peter Gerace in his separate sex-and-drug trafficking case.

In December, a jury convicted Gerace of eight crimes, including drug-and-sex trafficking and bribing former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni to shield him and a drug-trafficking organization from law enforcement investigations. Quinn did testify to the grand jury, but died before the start of Gerace's trial.

Quinn's death led prosecutors to seek new charges against Gerace and five other men, including John Ermin, a longtime manager at Pharaoh's and purported leader of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, and Simon Gogolak, the only person the government accused of providing Quinn with the fatal dose of fentanyl.

Gogolak called 911 to report Quinn's death on Aug. 1, 2023, at his Wellsville home. They were high school friends.

In May, defense attorneys accused the government of misleading the grand jury with a "clearly false and utterly absurd" narrative that Gerace learned of Quinn's cooperation when one of his former attorneys added her to their witness list in June 2023, roughly a month before her death.

Quinn was a protected witness, which means her cooperation could not be disclosed to any of the defendants until trial.

Mark Foti, one of Gerace's attorneys, said federal prosecutors inadvertently disclosed Quinn's cooperation during a March 2023 detention hearing for Gerace before either side filed their witness lists.

Prosecutors said the allegations of misconduct are “meritless.”

U.S. Magistrate Jeremiah McCarthy ordered prosecutors to provide him with grand jury transcripts for a review behind closed doors to determine if there's validity to the allegations.

Prosecutors initially agreed to do so, but a week later, the government requested a suspension of the decision, which a judge approved.

The following week, prosecutors accused McCarthy of abusing his discretion by "inventing the basis" to review the grand jury minutes and sought to remove him from the case.

On Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Elizabeth Wolford denied the government's appeal and directed prosecutors to produce the grand jury minutes.

Such reviews are rare, but can happen if defendants show "that a ground may exist for a motion to dismiss the indictment," Wolford wrote in her decision.

In Wolford's decision, she said "the issue is a close one," but "given the highly deferential standard of review, the Court finds that the government has failed to demonstrate that the Magistrate Judge’s Order requiring the production of the grand jury transcripts for in camera review amounts to clear error."

Later that evening, prosecutors filed a letter to McCarthy asking for clarification on how many transcripts he wanted to inspect.

"To the extent the government offered at oral argument to produce 'everything that we have' including 'all the Grand Jury transcripts' and 'all the exhibits underlying the transcripts,' it seems clear from a review of the Court’s comments on May 21, 2025, that the Court was not interested in reviewing the evidence presented to the Grand Jury," prosecutors said. "Accordingly, unless directed otherwise, the government will not burden the Court by providing hundreds of pages of Grand Jury witness transcripts."