A federal grand jury in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday handed up a superseding indictment for Long Island businessman John Drago, adding one more charge in a case over alleged banking and tax-related crimes weeks after a federal judge's decision to suppress prosecution evidence obtained through an unconstitutional search warrant.

Drago pleaded not guilty to a list of charges handed up in 2018, including failure to collect and pay over taxes and failure to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program in connection with his check-cashing businesses in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

On Sept. 10, a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York found that evidence had been obtained by law enforcement under a search warrant with "plainly unconstitutional" language. She recommended that the evidence be thrown out, and on Sept. 25, U.S. District Judge Sandra Feuerstein filed an order adopting the magistrate's recommendation.

At the time of Feuerstein's ruling, however, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York had already declared it intended to seek a superseding indictment.

The main difference between the original and superseding indictments appeared to be that Tuesday's indictment accused Drago of engaging in unlawful monetary transactions in 2015 and 2016. No charges were dropped, bringing the new total number of charges to nine.

David Siegal of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, who is one of Drago's lawyers, said the defense team is evaluating the new charging instrument.

"Nevertheless, we continue to believe that the government will face significant hurdles in any case against John, given the court's ruling suppressing the search evidence," Siegal said in a statement.

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