Michael Gawel, former Niagara Falls City Councilman, former attorney and former certified public accountant, was arrested last week for assaulting his girlfriend and fighting with Niagara Falls cops, a couple of dumb stunts. You can't make this stuff up, and we don't.
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Gawel was arrested on Dec.11 on charges including menacing, harassment, obstructing police officers and resisting arrest.
According to reports, Niagara Falls Police Department Patrolmen Mike Scozzafava and Jimmy Tedesco were dispatched to a residence on Glenn Street shortly after midnight after Gawel's lady friend, Gloria Perriman, complained.
She said she was in bed, asleep, when a drunken and enraged Gawel barged into her bedroom, picked her up by the hair, and said, "I'm going to smash your teeth in. Do you want to go at it?"
Clearly, she did not. By the time the officers arrived and the shaken woman related her ordeal, Gawel had taken to bed himself.
He became verbally abusive toward the officers and wanted to continue his fight with Perriman, the report stated. Because it was a domestic violence complaint, the officers, under law, needed to remove him from the home. At that point, the highly intoxicated Gawel shoved Scozzafava, the report stated.
He began fighting with both officers, was subdued, handcuffed and transported to the Public Safety Building, where he was locked up without bail because of the domestic nature of his crime.
He was charged with harassment, menacing, obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest.
He was held without bail overnight and later released on a $1,500 cash bond.
And it wasn't Gawel's first brush with the law.
Last year, after organizers complained of financial irregularities following the successful Niagara Wine, Food and Music Festival, Gawel came under the scrutiny of Niagara County District Attorney Matthew J. Murphy's office. The investigation was later dropped for lack of evidence.
In 1997, Gawel was arrested twice, once for drunken driving and a second time for obstructing governmental administration and endangering the welfare of a child following a domestic incident at his 84th Street home.
In a bizarre twist in that case, Gawel attempted to elude police officers by leaping out a second-story window and was captured while hiding in some bushes three doors away, records show.
In 1995 and 1996, Gawel was in the federal prison down in McKean, Pa., serving five months of a 17-month sentence for money-laundering, tax evasion and conspiracy. While awaiting trial on those charges in 1994, he was arrested by the FBI on charges of witness intimidation. Also in 1994, he was again arrested in Niagara Falls for drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident.
He was disbarred following his federal convictions, and lost his accounting certification.
At the time of his arrest this month, Gawel claimed to be unemployed. This was clearly a falsehood as, in recent months, he has acted as a spokesman and promoter for Joe Anderson's Niagara Falls enterprises, including the Club Malibu on Third Street and the Wintergarden.
You're a coward if you hit a woman, but you're an idiot if you hit a cop. The day after his arrest, Gawel brassed it out, serving as a Republican pollworker at the Knights of Columbus hall downtown for the school district referendum.
With a rap sheet as long as his arm, Gawel should expect little sympathy from the city court judges handling his case.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Dec. 21 2004 |