Luke Wenke mailed this 11-page letter (Document #69) from Olean, New York to the federal courthouse in Buffalo in August 2023.
USA v. Wenke – 1:22-cr-00035
Document #69 – Filed August 14th, 2023
USA v. Luke Wenke – Document #69 – Letter
Page 1
“8/11/2023
Hello,
I am going to do something I’m sure most people you see in the form you met me in don’t do. I am going to write to you how I REALLY talk. Forgive how long I expect this letter to be and forgive the fact that I do not have lined paper to write this on. I wanted to speak to you like me over a year ago. Alex told me to rewrite the letter I sent you before August 2022 sentencing so it would be more ‘typical’. Well guess what, criminal court is not ‘typical’ for me. Shame on me for allowing life to go this way.
I will start by saying my grandmother Carolyn Giardini was the village judge in the Town of Carrollton NY in the 1990s. I am including paperwork to prove this fact. I wanted to show you a lot during an early June court hearing but Alex said no, proof of my employment was good enough. She worked at the Olean Social Security office. She came in through Ross Perot’s third party; nationally the Reform Party but in NY state it was the Independence Party. She was appointed after a vacancy. She was not re-elected but it’s not like she got 1% of the vote. So she was an unelected judge in a state that elects judges. My grandfather Jerry Giardini was a St. Bonaventure University janitor and he was her baliff in the courtroom. Growing up with her we would always listen to her at the dinner table bragging about how she ‘almost’ put a police officer in jail once. She would do her courtroom paperwork on a card table she would prop up by her living room chair. As time went on, her and my grandfather started a euchre club that would meet at the Allegany Legion once a week. As the 2010s started, she and my grandfather got involved with the Tea Party. The type of person she was…one time a pollster called her on the phone and she said on the phone she was surprised Obama hadn’t been shot yet. She watched Fox News with my grandfather. I lived with them Aug. 2011 to Dec. 2016 after I moved out of my mother and then stepfather’s house outside Salamanca. It is 2023 now…you are simply seeing Sarah Palin’s Tea Party in it’s late stages. She died in the Salamanca nursing home right as Covid started. My sister Camille is still a CNA at that same nursing home. So basically the former village judge for Carrollton was one of these ‘Cuomo Nursing Home Victims’ you hear about.
I am deeply ingrained in Cattaraugus County. I did not know you when I first saw you in court Apr. 2022. It is not pleasant to sit in the position you met me in. Your last name is Sinatra so next I will talk about Italian stuff. My grandmother is my mother’s adopted mother. I am biologically Polish but it’s the Giardini side [turn]…”
Page 2
“…that always won in family court in my extremely divorced upbringing. Her grandfather was Ergildo Martinelli. He was a music professor at St. Bonaventure University. He played organ for a Pope over 100 years ago. The Martinellis are a legacy family of employees at St. Bona’s up to today. My grandmother’s father was a Panada, another Italian name of Olean. So it is my great grandmother Marie Panada who was a Martinelli at birth. She was on the Olean Police Force…the first woman having done so in Olean history. Through the Martinelli side I am first cousins twice removed with Paul Kenyon. He knows Carl Paladino, I met Carl through Paul before Covid. Carl was my first vote at 18 in 2010. I have been with Carl in his office me and him in 2019 when I was Cattaraugus County Libertarian Chairman. This ever ubiquitous ‘How do we separate from NYC’ was the subject. Paul Kenyon has given tours of the Haunted Hinsdale House in our county for years. He has been on tv; Paranormal Lockdown: Destination America over that same house and he has books on Amazon over that house. Carl will also attest to the fact that Paul is with Angel; a girl 41 years younger than him (one year younger than me). In 2012 my grandmother Giardini and her sister Patty tried pulling Angel away from Paul and onto me. Nope I stood up for them because Angel is my age and I saw that it was real between them. In 2023 they are still together. In 2015 I directed a dinner theatre/cancer benefit at ‘Good Times of Olean’ (closed since Covid) for Angel…Carl donated.
Present at my 1992 St. John’s Church of Olean baptismal was Alfredo Napoleoni. He was the 1992 Democrat for state senate, narrowly losing to Pat McGee. Also a millionaire taxi company owner. He is in his late 80s these days and lives on the [removed]. I visited him alot during Covid. He yelled at the Olean Police last year for allowing what happened to me happen…and he was a crossing guard for them in 2013 in front of Olean Middle School after his wife Gail died. Now he is a Trump supporter simply because the 2020 Covid stimulus check had Trump’s signature on it. My grandmother the judge worked on his state senate campaign before getting upset that he was only running to direct the local population to his taxi business. He is still in my life nonetheless.”
Page 3
“Louis Magnano was a well known landlord in Olean who had known Donald Trump since the 1980s. I have seen the picture of those two together in Louis’ widow’s office at Bluebird Square in Olean I believe in 2018. Carl Paladino spoke as Louis Magnano’s funeral. The Magnanos are still ever present in Olean. I’m not sure if there’s distant relations to them on my mother’s side. Paul Petruzzi is a federal lawyer in Florida but from Olean who has been obsessively watching my case’s progress on PACER since this started Jan. 2022.
I met our state senator George Borrello in 2019 after Cathy Young had resigned. He was looking for the Libertarian cross endorsement for the special election. We went to Oishi Sushi in Olean. It made me feel very big to be a 27 year old Domino’s driver to meet the then Chautauqua County Executive. We do not have a county executive in Cattaraugus County, so I put myself on the ballot for coroner as if I was running for county executive from THAT position. 3% of the vote and I declared ‘we are the III%’ publicly. Minneapolis 2020 because of Libertarians from Facebook younger than me. Three years later it continues in an annoying format. Benjamin was on the North Carolina Libertarian State Committee, Ivan Hunter used to work with the former National Chairman Nick Sarwark. Marc Molinaro was going to do a video with me in my old Olean Politics Facebook group after Joel Giambra dropped out in 2018 but I got impatient waiting for Marc so I did a video with Larry Sharpe. Libertarians demanded more and more from me afterwards and so they sucked me in. It’s a stupid third party that doesn’t win elections and I saw it the day I became county chairman in Dec. 2018. It’s just one big ‘legalize every last vice industry’ movement. Woohoo free stuff for me, so it became a hobby off to the side. Now it’s just a bunch of unwelcome federal legal issues. The [illegible] became real and personal.
George Borrello remembers my old Facebook group ‘Let’s Bitch About Cuomo’ with over 10,000 members. He was in it. I also texted George while out in Minneapolis. I told the Libertarians in 2019 to stop with the 1% of the vote grandstanding. I said embrace the state senator. Libertarian so called party officials…[turn –>]”
Page 4
“…kept asking George mundane philosophy questions, I took my mother to his Sunset Bay Beach fundraisers because she is a Salamanca piano teacher who needs to be school board president. She outperforms my twice prom date Brooke Skiba who is a Salamanca Music Teacher these days. My mom’s students go places, Brooke limits them.
We’re going to blame Michael Crick of the Salamanca Zoning Board … and also a Lilydale licensed medium for constantly telling me and Benjamin/[Ryan] wind up as James Buchanan and William Rufus King to each other. Michael remembers my grandmother Giardini when she was alive and he says her spirit visits her. My deceased grandmother wants to give Benjamin/Ryan a bloodbath since my life went this way…says Michael Crick the Lilydale licensed medium of the Salamanca Zoning Board. Michael has pictures of me and George Borrello on his wall in his house. Michael Crick is going to meet Benjamin Ryan one day…says Michael Crick.
Do you see how I am sick of this ‘Is Luke mentally ill’ question? This is what happens when biological Polish people try to be like their adopted Italian relatives. I went to Minneapolis not realizing he was simply an arson going 1776 on everything. The word ‘entrapment’ was not in my vocabulary September 2020. A white gay person from the south being treated like a jihad. I’m not supposed to act like 1984 George Orwell had come down on him? Krystie from the FBI acted like we knew each other for years. Hardly. This is like a Grindr hookup gone AWOL with three years of backlash. We’ve hugged once. Mr. Sinatra you are Italian and you sympathize with the Al Capone days. There are Capitol Rioters from the Libertarian Party (Daniel Christmann, Jake Lang, etc) talking about me and Ryan saying ‘Luke went down for a dude who never gave him dick.’ Mr. John Sinatra…how do you think this entire situation makes me feel?”
Page 5
“So I send you this letter speaking this way because you deserve a very genuine and human thank you for the time served. I do not lie… June 2023 you called me a public safety threat in the court room. That is the only time I found myself upset with you. I am the least physical person ever. Ask my high school principal Chris Siebert of Salamanca…me and Christian Milanowski in 2009, that situation was unheard of for me. The mental health evaluation saved me. I am sane and sick of this obnoxious life interruption.
One more thing to talk about. I am desperately trying to turn lemons into lemonade. There needs to be new ways to clear federal criminal records. Alex said no to a Rule 60 Motion. Chautauqua County Jail made me say Ok why not a program similar to NY state’s 5 hour course that takes points off our driver’s license. We do Peace Corps-style work to get records cleared. You see my history of organizing third party presidential debates and directing community theatre, all findable in Olean Times Herald history with Kellen Quigley’s help at their office. A convention in Olean where lawyers from across the country come to form this program. ‘No Felons Left Behind’ perhaps we call it. I can pay for The Old Library Inn myself. What if we got Olean Community Theatre and Olean Theatre Workshop to come together to do a patriotic show with everyone’s kids on stage at the Olean High School Auditorium with Ketanji Brown Jackson with them. The ‘first criminal defense lawyer on the Supreme Court’ lifted my spirits at Niagara County Jail when she was first nominated. I can see beyond the ‘first black woman’ thing. She has substance. I want Michael Crick to lead the very full OHS auditorium into Episcopalian prayer right in that public school auditorium. I think you would like to see that level of religious freedom practiced by a legitimate Salamanca government official on the Olean High School stage. Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks after the show with local kids about the Bill of Rights in her own words, to a very full rural auditorium. All levels of law enforcement welcome to patrol the event however they see fit. The lawyer convention at The Old Library Inn where lawyers form the logistics to create this program…”
Page 6
“…similar to NY state’s 5 hour driver’s license course [illegible]. Everywhere in between DUI felonies to A level federal felonies would require X, Y, and Z amount of community service hours with charities around the country willing to cooperate with such a federal program. Look at the amount of repeat offending with these people you typically deal with in that courtroom going on. It needs to be thwarted. It is a miracle I still have my house I bought myself after all this and it is not fair to my mother to pay my bills. I can’t have this disaster continue so I keep getting dragged down and resort to ATM raiding like Teeters Charleston SC friend Elexya does. My foundation has been shaken by this and I want my own legal issues solved the right way. I am a homeowner damned to solitude for whatever reason. This could be quite a positive on behalf of so many people beyond myself and I think you agree. No kidding it’s bad to make people feel threatened. Well guess what, Victim-1/R.G. never even met me and I spoke as myself giving you so many people who have known me face to face for years. Local city officials and county officials have known me for years around here. To get the Mayor of Olean Bill Aiello to speak to an Old Library Inn full of lawyers from across the country about Olean’s history regarding manufacturing with hopes of getting them interested in investing in Olean. So many successes from this event I want to organize for 2024 could come for this area. We have the US Space Force now. Dresser Rand of Olean doesn’t have to be all we have. Seneca Nation business leaders also invited to meet with these well connected lawyers from across the country. An entire area lifted up in so many ways all because one person wants his felony positively cleared.
I think you wanted to hear ME talk in that courtroom. Yes, I am DONE with being advised to not speak for myself. My grandmother Giardini the former village level judge who would be 83 today had Covid era nursing home policies not killed her off, would likely attend a local Tea Party meeting lead by YOU and listen to your thoughts on the world the entire time uninterrupted. Now that I’ve written this to you the day after I got back home, it’s making me want to talk to you face to face about what I want to make of this in 2024. I was one of George Borrello’s top donors. I am not trailer park trash. Thank you for reading. -Luke Wenke”
