Yanti Greene a/k/a Michael Cruz, P.I. hired by Dan Ribacoff, IIGPI, Accused of Rape, Guilty of Criminal and Civil Contempt in High Profile Long Island Sexual Assault Case

By Jeffrey Augustine

Greene / Cruz, Retired NYPD Detective Hired by Dan Ribacoff to Surveil Long Island Woman in 2018

Yanti Greene a/k/a Yanti Mike Greene a/k/a Mike Greene a/k/a Michael Moretti Ford Cruz, a retired NYPD detective was one of several men hired by celebrity polygraph examiner Dan Ribacoff’s firm, International Investigative Group (IIGPI), to surveil a female subject in 2018. Dan Ribacoff is the CEO of IIGPI, a private investigation company based in Rockville Centre, NY. Ribacoff’s children, Lance Ribacoff and Lisa Ribacoff, are both managers at IIGPI, and Lisa Ribacoff is a polygraph examiner for Dan Ribacoff’s affiliated company, InDepth Polygraphs. Dan Ribacoff also appeared on NBCUniversal’s “The Steve Wilkos Show” until recently, when racist text messages, he allegedly sent, were uncovered. Ribacoff hasn’t appeared on the show since. Shortly after the Daily News published a similar story regarding “racial gatekeeping” through the use of polygraph examinations of new job applicants at the New York Metropolitan Transit Police (MTA), Ribacoff’s contract to supply polygraph services for the MTA was terminated.

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According to court documents, Greene, along with other ex NYPD cops and PI’s, including Richard Custodio of Levittown NY, and Ferdinand “Fred” Caravousanos of Babylon NY, were hired by the Ribacoff’s to conduct surveillance of a Long Island, NY woman during her divorce and custody proceedings in 2018.

As alleged, the Ribacoff’s surveillance subject was elusive and frequently evaded their investigators, which put IIGPI’s lucrative contract and themselves at risk of being terminated by their client. Supporting evidence, in the form of hundreds of text messages turned over by IIGPI investigators and submitted to the Court by the Plaintiff, indicate that the Ribacoff’s were aware of and condoned the interactions taking place between their investigators and the subject, in an effort to control her movements and avoid losing her. It is a well-established, industry protocol, that private investigators should NEVER interact with the subject of an investigation.

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Greene/Cruz Wasn’t Licensed as a Private Investigator when he Allegedly Raped the Plaintiff

The New York Department of State (NYDOS) recently investigated the Ribacoff’s and IIGPI, based on complaints they received, and concluded that IIGPI subcontracted private investigation work to Yanti Greene (now Michael Cruz), who did not hold a valid NYS private investigator license in 2018 in violation of various state laws. NYDOS oversees private investigator licenses in New York, and as a result of their findings, issued a warning (admonishment) to Dan Ribacoff in November of 2021, citing a “demonstration of incompetence,” and notifying Ribacoff that the state may take disciplinary action against his license. According to these findings, Greene was not personally licensed to conduct private investigation work in New York State at the time he allegedly raped the subject.

 In December of 2021, the subject filed a lawsuit against IIGPI and the Ribacoff’s for negligence, alleging, among other things, a lack of oversight and supervision during the investigation, which allegedly contributed to her sexual assaults by their investigators, including Greene/Cruz, Custodio, and Caravousanos.

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Subject files Lawsuit Against Greene/Cruz, Custodio, and Caravousanos for Sexual Assault

The no contact rule didn’t appear to apply to Greene, Custodio, or Caravousanos, who allegedly “befriended” the subject while surveilling her. According to court documents, these interactions eventually turned physical, and in 2019, the female subject, now the Plaintiff, filed a sexual assault lawsuit, alleging that Richard Custodio raped her inside her home; Yanti Greene drugged and raped her inside his vehicle and recorded the rape without her knowledge; and Ferdinand “Fred” Caravousanos sexually assaulted her at several Long Island venues; and while each was on duty surveilling her for the Ribacoff’s and IIGPI.

In response to the Plaintiff’s lawsuit, the defendants initially denied her allegations. But several investigators have now allegedly admitted their wrongdoing in sworn affidavits, confirmed the Ribacoff’s awareness of the interactions and the utter lack of supervision from IIGPI while the Plaintiff was being surveilled.

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Greene turns over Several Short Video Clips, claims they Prove Plaintiff Assaulted Him

Greene, however, claimed it was the Plaintiff (subject) who raped him– a 6-foot 3, ex NYPD cop weighing approximately 260 pounds, who studied “Krav Maga” (Israeli karate) for 30 years. Then in August of 2019, under court order, Greene produced several short videos, totaling approximately 90 seconds in duration, as his defense, and claimed they backed up his ludicrous story.

The Plaintiff, who stuck to her story, had Greene/Cruz’s short video clips analyzed and determined, from metadata embedded within the submitted video files, that Greene/Cruz had likely withheld several minutes of footage from the night of her rape. After presenting these findings, the Nassau County Supreme Court Judge assigned to the case, ordered Greene to surrender the iPhone used to produce the recordings of the Plaintiff so it could be searched for the missing footage. Greene dodged these court orders for several months, held on to his iPhone and avoided the forensic analysis of its contents. Finally, the Judge ordered Greene to surrender his iPhone or face daily fines and imprisonment.

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Greene Dodges Court Orders for Months then Crafts Ridiculous Story – Claims Phone was “stolen” from Apartment while Walking Dog at 2am

Instead of complying, Greene claimed his iPhone was allegedly “stolen” from his apartment, while he walked his dog at 2am, on the same day he was supposed to hand it over, per the Court’s order. The Plaintiff was not about to let Greene get away with destroying the only evidence which could prove that he raped and recorded her, so she quickly asked the Judge to issue a court order for Apple to turn over Greene’s iCloud backup of his iPhone, to which Apple complied.

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Plaintiff Exposes Greene/Cruz’s  Scheme to “Pull the Wool” Over Court’s Eyes

After months of agonizingly waiting, Greene’s iPhone backup from Apple finally arrived and, just as the Plaintiff suspected, forensic investigators discovered almost 12 minutes of additional footage that Greene recorded but intentionally withheld from the court. Instead, Greene had apparently produced highly edited versions of the original footage, which he turned over per the Court’s order, to allegedly deceive the Court and support his narrative. But his story began to unravel quickly as the truth was finally uncovered and his sinister actions toward the Plaintiff were exposed.

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Plaintiff Discovers Over 12 Minutes of Video Documenting Her Rape on Greene/Cruz’s Phone

The missing footage allegedly contained disturbing visuals of the Plaintiff’s head jammed against Greene’s car door, her eyes closed, her hair disheveled, her face turned into the seat belt well, her shirt unbuttoned, her bra unhooked. The Plaintiff was barely responsive, Greene/Cruz could be seen forcibly grabbing her hands and placing them for his camera, and vile sexually explicit audio from Greene could be heard, events which appear to be consistent with the Plaintiff’s allegations and Greene/Cruz’s actions appear to be consistent with those of a perpetrator.

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Plaintiff Asks Court to Hold Greene/Cruz in Criminal and Civil Contempt

After viewing disturbing footage of her alleged rape from the newly discovered original video, the Plaintiff quickly filed criminal and civil contempt motions with the court alleging that Greene had willfully and intentionally violated court orders regarding his failure to turn over his iPhone for forensic analysis, for his failure to turn over ALL footage he recorded of the Plaintiff from night in question, and his attempted deception and manipulation of evidence involving her rape.

The court scheduled a trial for criminal and civil contempt, and hearings took place in Nassau County Supreme Court in June of 2021 and February of 2022. According to the transcript and observers in the courtroom, while Greene was on the stand, he was cross examined by former prosecutor and legal analyst Julie Rendelman, who exposed, what appeared to be Greene’s total lack of credibility.

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Former Prosecutor Julie Rendelman Catches Greene/Cruz Lying on the Stand

While on the stand, Greene, who served in the NYPD for 20 years, 10 years as a detective, “boasted of his alleged celebrity bodyguard assignments for Kanye West and the Kardashians.” He testified that he had written a book which advised the public on how best to avoid becoming the victim of a crime. Greene even testified that he was “single-handedly” responsible for completely eradicating crime in areas near “Times Square.”

Greene testified that he owns several weapons, one of which was allegedly in his possession on the night his phone was stolen, while the other two were allegedly left at his mother’s home. Inexplicably, Greene, who literally wrote a book on how to prevent crimes, took his gun but left his iPhone and cash in his “unlocked” apartment. Incredibly, Greene testified he was unaware that his iPhone was being backed up to his iCloud account, so Rendelman submitted evidence to the court of an email Greene sent to his friend “Tony Mykoniatis” the day after his phone was allegedly stolen, with Greene claiming he had to download the “backup” from the cloud.

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Greene Allegedly Boasted to Plaintiff he was Carrying a Gun Before Sexually Assaulting Her
The Plaintiff alleges that Greene boasted to her that he was carrying a gun the night she was sexually assaulted by him. Using a weapon to intimidate or coerce is considered a serious crime in most states. It is our understanding that a gun Greene revealed in an Instagram video he posted around the time of the Plaintiff’s rape, closely resembles a gun and holster that was supposedly identified in the missing footage, laying near the Plaintiff’s body, while Greene was in the process of allegedly raping her. This new information will likely be supplied to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.

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Greene/Cruz Initially Denies Editing the Footage, then Admits that Originals Existed

Greene initially denied altering any of the videos he turned over to the court. It was only after being confronted with the forensic analysis of his iCloud backup did Greene concede the existence of additional footage he recorded, referring to them as the “originals.”

After viewing the omitted footage during the trial, the Court acknowledged that the Plaintiff appeared to be in a “minimally responsive” state, which is consistent with her allegations regarding the night she was raped by Greene.

Further attacking his credibility, Rendelman asked Greene why he hadn’t appeared for a scheduled court conference regarding his phone. Greene testified that he was sleeping at the time the court attempted to contact him, stating that “…I woke up around 3:00pm or so and listened to the Court’s message at about 5:30 p.m. so I obviously missed the group call.”

Rendelman then confronted Greene with evidence that he had sent and received several text messages, including one to his friend “Sal Moustafa” at 1:05 pm, which completely contradicted his previous statement that he had been “sleeping” at the time the court attempted to contact him for a conference.

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Greene / Cruz Perjured Himself on the Stand Almost Immediately

According to the transcript, at the opening of the second day of testimony, Greene was asked by the Judge to take the stand. The Clerk of the Court then informed Greene to raise his right hand and asked him:

“Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give this Court shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

Greene replied:

“Yes, I do.”

At that point, Greene apparently perjured himself, as Attorney Rendelman was about to prove to the Judge and the entire courtroom.

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Rendelman’s Next Question to Greene: “Who is Michael Moretti Ford Cruz?”

Later in cross examination, Rendelman asked Greene “Who is Michael Moretti Ford Cruz?”, to which Greene nervously admitted he had formally and legally changed his name by petitioning the State of Delaware back in August of 2020 and failed to inform the court, prompting further questioning by the Judge herself, who asked Greene what name he currently goes by.

Minutes earlier, while on the stand, Greene had raised his right hand, sworn his name was “Yanti Greene” and even spelled it for the Court reporter. Lying under oath is a serious crime and it’s called perjury.

Despite testifying that his primary residence is his mother’s home in Princeton, New Jersey, DCPI has recently learned that Greene, not only legally changed his name to “Michael Cruz”, but apparently fled to the state of Louisiana, and is believed to be living in a rental complex in the downtown area of New Orleans.

By petitioning the State of Delaware, while he was still living in Manhattan, it appears that Greene/Cruz attempted to hide his name change and relocate to New Orleans without the Court or Plaintiff realizing. Greene/Cruz’s pattern of deception is quite transparent.

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Nassau County District Attorney Expected to Re-Open Rape Case Against Greene/Cruz

In light of Greene/Cruz’s guilty verdict from the Nassau County Supreme Court Judge, in addition to several eyewitnesses who have come forward, including other private investigators, the Nassau County DA’s Office is expected to re-open the rape case against Greene/Cruz. Apparently, when the DA initially reviewed the victim’s allegations, they were unaware of the original video footage that existed, which Greene/Cruz, as determined, apparently withheld from the court.

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Judge Finds Michael Greene/Michael Cruz Guilty of Criminal and Civil Contempt

On Monday April 4, 2022, Nassau County Supreme Court Justice, Sharon M. J. Gianelli, released the following ruling:

“Having presided over the contempt hearing, and considered all of the testimonial, as well as documentary evidence, the Court credits the testimony of Joseph Caruso, and finds Defendant Greene’s testimony materially lacking in credibility. The Court further finds that Plaintiffs have met their burden as to civil and criminal contempt.”

 “ORDERED and ADJUDGED, that Defendant Greene is guilty of civil contempt; and

ORDERED and ADJUDGED, that Defendant Greene is guilty of criminal contempt;

ORDERED, that in addition to the above directive that Defendant Greene pay attorneys fees in the amount of Twenty-One Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-Eight Dollars and Eighty- Three Cents ($21,998.83), Defendant Greene is also directed to pay within sixty (6o) days of the date of entry of this Order, any additional attorneys’ fees and costs associated with the four (4) above-referenced motion sequences that formed the basis of the hearing;”

The court awarded the Plaintiff’s a judgement against Yanti Greene a/k/a Michael Cruz for fines, penalties, and court costs, anticipated to be in excess of $300,000.00.

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At the conclusion of Greene’s trial, former prosecutor Julie Rendelman made the following statements directly to the Judge:

“Based on the testimony that we heard today we have an individual that came as close to confessing as anyone I could ever imagine in terms of contempt.”

 “…he darn well knew he was lying. And he didn’t just lie about anything besides the fact that he lied about everything. He lied about the very nature of what this contempt proceeding is about.”

 “…this is about his behavior. No one else’s. It’s about his decisions to try to get over not just on every person sitting in this courtroom, but to try to get over on you.”

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The Plaintiff’s attorney, Daniel Sczalkiewicz, then read a statement from the victim herself, the Plaintiff:

“Words cannot express the daily fear and anxiety I now suffer because of the existence of this video and knowing that I was, in fact, raped by Greene. I will never have any true peace as long as Defendant Greene is in possession of my images and videos of his rape of me.”

Mr. Sczalkiewicz then continued with his own closing statement:

“After 2 years and three court orders we finally learned the truth. Greene concealed critical video evidence, edited the two short segments he turned over, destroyed the device he used to record the videos, perjured himself and has lied repeatedly to this Court about the plaintiffs.”

This is a developing story, and DCPI will continue to update our readers as new information becomes available.

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