Jury sides with 5 Pointz

From Curbed:

A jury has concluded that 5 Pointz developer Jerry Wolkoff violated the law when he whitewashed that buildings without warning, erasing graffiti from dozens of artists. The jury’s findings will serve as a recommendation to the lawsuit’s presiding judge, who will then render a final verdict, reports the New York Times.

“The jury sided strongly with the rights of the artists. This is a clear message from the people that the whitewashing of the buildings by its owner was a clear and willful act,” said lawyer Eric Baum, who represents the artists that filed the suit.

The judge will ultimately determine the repercussions of Wolkoff’s actions, which could include making him pay the artists for destroying their artwork.

Judges fed up with some jury duty attendees

The last time I served jury duty, the judges were quite perturbed by the excuses the jurors came up with for not serving.

If you know you can't hear well, you should have brought your hearing aid.

Being a chiropractor is not a life or death profession that requires your attendance at work.

If you can't understand English, then how did you figure out what the judge was asking you?

Malcolm Smith, Vince Tabone convicted

From NBC:

Former Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Smith has been found guilty of scheming to bribe Republican party leaders so he could run on the GOP line in a New York City mayoral race, making him the latest ex-Albany leader to be convicted of corruption.

Smith is the latest line in Albany's corrupt legacy. Sheldon Silver, speaker of the State Assembly for more than two decades, was arrested late last month on federal corruption charges.

Vince Tabone was also convicted on all charges.

Piss poor planning leads to parking nightmare

From the Daily News:

The city shuttered the decrepit Queensboro Hall municipal parking garage a week early on Wednesday after tagging the half-century-old structure a safety hazard.

But local leaders said the Department of Transportation has no concrete plan to accommodate hundreds of people — including jurors and court personnel — who use the roughly 500-space facility every day.

Workers handed out flyers to confused drivers Wednesday, outlining nearby private garages and bus routes.

The lot serves both Borough Hall and the Queens Criminal Court facilities in Kew Gardens.

Transportation officials originally planned to close it Oct. 1 but announced late Tuesday it would shutter the next day.

“This came fast,” said Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, who fears frustrated drivers will spend hours circling nearby streets, adding heavy traffic around nearby Public School 99.

“What we need right now is for the city to give us alternatives where people can park,” she said.

One of those options could be to shuttle people from Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and nearby colleges, Katz said.

The borough’s criminal justice system is also expected to take a big hit, a spokesman for District Attorney Richard Brown said.

“The garage’s closing will be extremely burdensome on crime victims, witnesses, jurors and defendants, as well as the surrounding neighborhood,” he said.

Halloran, Smith trial on hold

From the Times Ledger:

Hours of conversations and hundreds of text messages in Yiddish have stalled the federal corruption trial of state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Hollis), former Bayside Councilman Daniel Halloran and the ex-vice chairman of the Queens Republican Party, Vincent Tabone.

Attorneys representing the Queens trio, who are charged with participating in Smith’s alleged scheme to bribe his way onto the GOP line for the 2013 mayoral election, have urged the judge to dismiss the indictments and call a mistrial because they say the government did not turn over Yiddish conversations quickly enough for them to prepare for proceedings.

Judge Kenneth Karas instructed prosecutors and defense attorneys to submit documents detailing their arguments over the weekend and planned to resolve the dispute during a Monday conference in federal court in White Plains, according to Herb Hadad, a spokesman for prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Hadad said the judge intended to call the jury back Tuesday and inquire whether the jurors could remain in court past June, when he had initially planned to wrap up the trial.

Karas then will decide how to proceed.

Dan's dirty hands exposed in court

From the NY Post:

Former City Councilman Dan Halloran offered to dole out tens of thousands of dollars in no-show city consulting work to an undercover agent in exchange for funds to boost a congressional run — and then demanded to be paid even after losing the race, the federal agent told jurors Monday.

Jurors at the White Plains federal corruption trial of Halloran, state Sen. Malcolm Smith and Queens GOP operative Vincent Tabone also heard audiotape of Halloran telling the agent that he’ll take his money in cash.

“Look, at this point, we don’t need all of it in checks. We can take green now,” he says in a Nov. 15, 2012, meeting at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in White Plains also attended by crooked developer-turned-FBI-informant Moses Stern.

“Cause now I can . . . I can pay vendors off,” he says. “Before, I had to show money coming in to help my campaign. Now, I don’t have to.”

Later that same day, Halloran (R-Queens) sent the agent — whose real name wasn’t provided to jurors — an e-mail containing a commitment letter pre-dated four days and promising $40,000 to $80,000 for consulting work on a Queens YMCA.

“I was being very clear that I was going to take his money,” the agent testified. “I expected we would do zero work related to that.”

The agent also said he previously gave Stern $6,500 in cash to create checks in others people’s names for Halloran’s campaign.

Halloran is also accused of pocketing $20,500 in cash bribes for masterminding cross-party negotiations for a failed bid to get Smith — one of the state’s top Democrats — the Republican line in last year’s mayoral race.

Photo from the Daily News

People ignoring jury notices

From the NY Post:

More than one-third, or 35 percent, of Queens residents ignore their jury-duty notices — the highest in the five boroughs.

“We’re dealing with thousands of people, and we just don’t have the staff,” said Queens County Clerk Audrey Pheffer, who acts as the commissioner of jurors.

In fact, Pheffer, a former assemblywoman, said the office stopped bothering to impose fines as it upgrades its jury-selection system.

Using voter-registration, motor-vehicle, tax and election records, the five city clerks blindly sent out more than 800,000 jury notices last year — not knowing if the residents are alive, living in another state, or didn’t understand what a jury summons is.

Recipients are supposed to show up at the courthouse or request a postponement — but many just ignore the notices.

Haggerty convicted

From NY1:

A former aide accused of stealing more than a million dollars from Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been found guilty of grand larceny in the second degree this afternoon by a Manhattan jury.

John Haggerty was also found guilty of money laundering in the second degree.

He was found not guilty of grand larceny in the first degree.

His company was also found guilty of money laundering in the second degree.

Haggerty is accused of stealing more than a million dollars from the mayor’s 2009 campaign, saying he would be performing a ballot security operation, but instead using the money to buy a house.

DOT liable for not heeding warning calls

From the NY Post:

A Brooklyn jury has found that the city should pay a staggering $19 million to a cyclist who suffered brain damage at age 12 when he was struck by a speeding car, The Post has learned.

It would be the largest legal payout in city history.

The panel believed that city officials ignored the warnings from Gerritsen Beach residents that Gerritsen Avenue needed to be revamped to slow down drivers who fly along the open stretch of road.

The award was part of a $36 million verdict on May 26 for Anthony Turturro, now 19, who was hit in 2004 by a driver going about 55 mph in the 30-mph zone.

“Anthony will need help for the rest of his life,” said his mom, Ellie. “My biggest worry is: What’s going to happen to him in the future?”
The jury found that the city should pay 40 percent of the $36 million award and that driver Louis Pascarella -- who had a suspended license at the time -- was responsible for 50 percent. They found the teen 10 percent responsible for his own injuries.

Two years before the accident, Councilman Lew Fidler and others sent letters to the Department of Transportation urging a traffic light on Gerritsen -- calling it a “potentially fatal situation.”

The DOT would not comment but launched a five-year study after the accident and took the roadway down from two lanes each way to one.

Now that was a bad decision

From the Daily News:

An ex-con who used his cell phone to snap photos of jurors in a buddy's murder trial was busted by Queens court officers Monday, the Daily News has learned.

Anthony Lalor, 24, was charged with disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration in the illegal stunt.

Lalor was nabbed around 1 p.m., shortly after jurors filed out of Justice Gregory Lasak's third-floor courtroom for a lunch break.

He managed to take at least one photo of a juror before he was caught, but his cell phone was confiscated, a source said.

State court officers feared Lalor would use the photo to intimidate jurors trying to decide whether his pal, Christopher Chisholm, is guilty of murder.

"He wasn't using it for his scrapbook," said one court official.