Independent Reporter

Survivor Ann Marie Dempsey speaks at a news conference in Buffalo on Monday as members of the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee and their attorneys, Stacey Benson, Dan Chiacchia and Steve Boyd, look on.

Writing about the Diocese of Buffalo and the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Writing about the Diocese of Buffalo and the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

I love New York for many reasons, especially its sidewalk cafes. Photo credit for this one goes to my brother, Nick. This weekend, I graduated from the Columbia Journalism School nonfiction book workshop in New York. It began in January and consisted of two three-day “residencies” on the historic campus in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan.

Photo illustration by Charlie Specht. Source image: WGRZ I got a call yesterday from an extremely reliable police source who summed it up this way: “Karma’s a bitch.” He was talking about rumors that had been rippling through law enforcement circles after police found an abandoned Tesla in Niagara Square with a gun and a bottle of pills inside. The driver of the vehicle had fled the scene.

When I broke the story in June 2025 that the Rev. Dr. Christos Christakis was fired as priest of Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Buffalo after he was accused of diverting $365,000 in church funds for personal use, a church lawyer explained it in part by pointing to the “significant medical issues” of Christakis’ spouse. The attorney also stressed that the priest expressed remorse, that he had paid back the funds and that there would be no criminal prosecution of the matter.

Some personal news I’m deeply proud to share: This week, a reporting project I worked on with my colleague Sean Mickey at WGRZ received two national journalism awards for investigative reporting. Our series, “Shielded from Accountability,” examined the apparent cover-up surrounding a county sheriff’s narcotics chief involved in a series of hit-and-run crashes in Buffalo.

Recently, I sat down with attorney John Richmond of Richmond Vona LLC to chat about investigative journalism, my process for breaking big stories and going independent. John’s “Angles with John Richmond” podcast has become one of my favorites. He brings together interesting people from diverse industries — from Buffalo Sabre Tage Thompson to Chef Darian Bryan to Bills Mafia founder Del Reid and other business people and non-profit execs — to chat about about how and why they do what they do.

Good morning, everyone. I’m appearing on Buffalo Toronto Public Media NPR today to discuss my story from last week about a $5,000 donation that Erie County Sheriff John Garcia made to Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner (who is now in the State Senate). Ryan Zunner, assistant managing editor of the NPR station, interviewed me about the story and did some reporting of his own.

When State Sen. Jeremy Zellner released a statement Tuesday criticizing Erie County Sheriff John Garcia after a story in Investigative Post revealed that Garcia and his undersheriff, Bill Cooley, somehow failed to properly file their oaths of office with the county clerk, it may have looked like simple partisan politics since Zellner is a Democrat and Garcia a Republican.

From the “you can’t make this stuff up” department, we now have visual proof that cops in Buffalo are planning a retirement party for the Erie County sheriff’s controversial narcotics chief. I had a lot of people sending copies of this poster to me this week. A friend of mine who is in law enforcement jokingly asked me if I planned on attending. Hard pass on that one.