A Manhattan prosecutor recruited her pals in the DA’s office to rig a criminal case against her estranged New York Times scribe hubby as part of a nasty custody battle — and got the NYPD in on it, a scathing federal lawsuit claims.
Assistant District Attorney Amanda Goun conspired to have her husband, health-care reporter Joseph Goldstein, busted on trumped-up assault and child-abuse charges in 2022 to win custody of their two young children — and even coached the kids to lie about their dad’s reputed abuse, alleges the Manhattan federal complaint reviewed by The Post.
“Rather than accept the determination of the responding NYPD officers who had thoroughly investigated the matter, defendant Goun chose to leverage her position of influence and authority as a DANY prosecutor to pursue false criminal felony charges against Mr. Goldstein,” the father’s suit claims.
The suit was filed by Goldstein on May 16 and names Goun, two other prosecutors in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and two NYPD employees as defendants.
Goun and the other prosecutors, Kelly Keating and Lawrence Newman, who now works for the Brooklyn DA’s Office, did not respond to Post requests for comment.
A rep for the Manhattan DA’s Office declined to discuss the case.
“We are aware of the lawsuit and referred it to the [city] Law Department,” the representative said.
A representative for the Brooklyn DA’s Office declined to comment, noting the alleged conspiracy took place before the office hired Newman out of the NYPD’s legal department.
The NYPD did not respond to Post requests for comment about the complaint, which names department employees Detective Rachel Lutz and police Officer Carmen Fabian as co-defendants.
The suit says Goun and Goldstein met in 2014 and were married in August 2015. Once they had children, Goun left her Manhattan DA’s Office job to raise the kids before returning to work in 2018 with a job at the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the lawsuit says.
In 2022, Goun was back in the Manhattan office — as the marriage began to splinter, the court documents say.
On Sept. 2, 2022, Goun filed for divorce — and according to the lawsuit, broke into Goldstein’s apartment in Brooklyn, where the pair had previously lived, to “obtain evidence to use against Mr. Goldstein in the divorce proceeding.”
On Oct. 8, 2022, the troubled marriage devolved into a spat at their home while their two children, ages 4 and 6, were inside the apartment, court documents claim.
Goun called 911 and told cops that Goldstein slammed a door on her and bruised her arm — but her account of the encounter changed after she conferred with Lawrence about how to make felony charges stick during a phone call from the scene, the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint claims that Goun embellished her account, ultimately telling cops that she not only hurt her arm but fell to the ground, prompting a felony assault charge against Goldstein.
Goun later alleged that Goldstein also physically abused their children, with the lawsuit claiming that both kids were coached to claim their dad had been rough with them in the past.
Goun’s claims began an eight-month nightmarish ordeal for Goldstein during which a Manhattan judge issued an order of protection keeping him from his kids, with his estranged wife allegedly using the trumped-up charges to fight for custody of their children, the suit alleges.
Goldstein’s suit accuses Newman and later Lutz, the NYPD detective, of working with Goun to file a “false” complaint based on Goun’s account, with Keating and Fabian allegedly playing a role in the case by upgrading charges against Goldstein.
The reporter dad was charged with assault, harassment and endangering the welfare of a child while claiming in his suit that his children were coached to back up the child-endangerment charge.
That case was eventually moved to The Bronx at the request of the Manhattan DA’s Office, which sought to avoid any possible conflict of interest because Goun worked there, the suit says.
The charges against Goldstein were eventually dropped, and he gained partial custody of the youngsters, according to the court document.
A family-court probe into Goldstein’s alleged abuse of his children was also dropped, which the city’s Administration for Children’s Services deemed the child-abuse complaints unfounded, the suit says.
Embittered by the alleged conspiracy against him, Goldstein filed his 62-page lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages and the return of property he claims Goun stole.
He declined comment to The Post.
Goun and Keating are still employed by the Manhattan DA’s Office.
Newman resigned from the office for unrelated reasons about two months after the spat between Goldstein and Goun, taking a job with the NYPD legal counsel’s office. He was then hired by the Brooklyn DA, where he currently works.
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