Hubby Sues Judges over Court Scam

By Brad Hamilton and David Hafetz
New York Post
December 6, 2005

A man whose custody case was handled by embattled former Brooklyn Judge Gerald Garson is suing two of the state's top justices, claiming they refused to investigate alleged bill-padding by Garson's cohort and two court experts.

In a suit filed in Brooklyn federal court, Gennady Gorelik says Chief Administrative Judge Jonathan Lippman and head matrimonial Judge Jacqueline Silbermann ignored evidence that his ex-wife's lawyer, Paul Siminovsky — who has admitted he bribed Garson — trumped up his bills.

Gorelik is also accusing a court-appointed shrink and a law guardian of playing with their numbers.

Gorelik says his ex-wife, Elena demanded he pay her $120,000 legal bills since he lost the custody case.

Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Michael Ambrosio, who took over the docket after Garson was indicted on bribery charges, was also named in the suit.

It seeks to establish that the state violated Gorelik's constitutional rights by refusing to hear his evidence of the alleged fraud.

It could open the door for hundreds of other litigants who think they were wronged.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/59059.htm

To read actual lawsuit in PDF format click here

Perv Sent from Hosp to Prison

By Joe Mahoney and Helen Peterson
New York Daily News
November 24, 2005

A convicted child molester who was among 27 sex criminals confined to a mental hospital after finishing jail terms was released yesterday - then immediately sent back to state prison.

Sex predator Robert Warren was ordered jailed after parole officials learned he was planning to move back upstate to rural St. Lawrence County in "close proximity" to a 9-year-old girl, said Scott Steinhardt, spokesman for the state Division of Parole.

"Mr. Warren is resuming his prior status in state custody until such time as a suitable supervision and residential plan are developed," he said.

Steinhardt would not be more specific but other officials said Warren, 42, who was convicted in 1998 of sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl, had planned to move into the house where the 9-year-old lives.

Warren was scheduled to be freed yesterday from Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, a maximum security facility on Wards Island, after psychiatrists there determined he was not mentally ill. Instead, he was shipped to Downstate Correctional Facility in Dutchess County.

His release order came after a mandatory review of his case after being held at Kirby for 60 days.

While there, Warren and other sexual predators filed a lawsuit challenging the detention. A Manhattan judge agreed they were entitled to a hearing before being sent to Kirby and the minimum-security Manhattan Psychiatric Center, also on Wards Island.

Gov. Pataki defended his order committing the men and has been trying to get the Legislature to pass a civil commitment law.

 

ALBANY — A dozen sex criminals who won their conditional release in court after being ordered held in a psychiatric hospital by Gov. Pataki will instead remain in custody as the state appeals the court decision, the governor said Friday.

State Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann on Tuesday ordered the release of the prisoners — whose crimes include the rape and sodomy of boys and girls — pending examinations of each inmate by two court-appointed psychiatrists. Pataki appealed that decision Friday, leading to a temporary stay on the judge’s order, Pataki’s office said.

The convicted sex offenders had been ordered held by Pataki. After years of failing to secure a law that would allow civil confinement of some sex offenders when their sentences end, Pataki decided to “push the envelope” of the law by ordering them held in a psychiatric hospital. Pataki used the state’s involuntary commitment law, which normally deals with the non-criminal mentally ill, to win extended confinement of the sex offenders.

Lawyers for the prisoners petitioned the court for their release, arguing their clients’ detentions were illegal because the state violated the law that governs the transfer of apparently mentally ill prisoners to hospitals.

“We feel very strongly that the state has to comply with the corrections law, which it simply didn’t do,” said Stephen Harkavy, deputy director of Mental Health Legal Services. He represented the 12 defendants. Harkavy said he will try to get the stay lifted by an appellate court.

The case will probably be argued early next week, he said. From there it could be appealed to the state’s highest court, and it could take months for the Court of Appeals to rule.

Pataki asserted he acted within his legal rights. “I’m going to do everything in my power as governor to keep these predators, when it’s appropriate and when it’s legally permissible, away from our children and away from society,” Pataki said during a TV appearance.

“I have no doubt I have the legal authority to take the steps I have taken.”

Richard Hamill, president of the New York State Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, said there are some offenders who are too dangerous for society, but civil commitment is “hugely expensive” and affects only a tiny fraction of pedophiles, rapists and other sex criminals.

“If you put 400 offenders in civil commitment, you’ve really addressed less than 2 percent of the registered sex offenders out there,” he said. “And there are probably 10 offenders out there for every one that has been arrested and registered. It’s not a potent way to make the community a lot safer.”

Hamill said lifetime probation is one idea that has been very effective in reducing the number of offenders who commit crimes after they are released from prison.

Pervs Lose as Pataki Wins a Stay

By Joe Mahoney
New York Daily News
November 18, 2005

ALBANY - A dozen dangerous sexual predators who hoped to be sprung from a mental lockup aren't going anywhere now that Gov. Pataki has won a stay of the order freeing them.

"These people are going to remain confined until the governor's appeal is heard," Pataki spokesman Kevin Quinn said yesterday.

The governor got an automatic stay when he filed a challenge to the decision.

Pataki is trying to cow the Assembly into passing a civil confinement law by using a push-the-envelope strategy. He has sent the most dangerous perverts to a psychiatric hospital rather than let them leave prison when they finish their sentences.

But Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Jacqueline Silbermann ruled Tuesday the involuntary commitments violated state corrections law.

The sex fiends are represented by Mental Health Legal Services, which is expected to try to get the stay of the judge's order lifted next week.

Since the initial 12 offenders sued the state, 15 more sexual predators have been kept in civil confinement.

The case is expected to wind up in New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals.

Robert Warren

A dozen convicted sex fiends have been freed to hit the streets of New York as early as next week.

The "Dirty Dozen" perverts - exclusively profiled in Sunday's Daily News - were tossed into mental hospitals by Gov. Pataki, even though they had finished serving their prison sentences.

But Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann ruled yesterday that Pataki broke the law, reasoning that although the perverts may be menaces to society, it doesn't necessarily make them crazy.

"The Court takes no issue with the State's belief that each of these men poses a danger to society," Silbermann wrote in her decision.

"However, even persons acquitted of violent crimes by reason of insanity may not be civilly committed to a mental hospital solely because they pose a danger to society," she added.

The sex fiends could be released from city mental hospitals after five days - unless two court-appointed psychiatrists determine they are mentally ill or pose a significant danger to themselves or others.

Pataki was furious over the ruling, vowing to continue his crusade to keep convicted perverts out of New York neighborhoods.

"Today's ruling creates special, new judge-made rights and protections for rapists, predators and pedophiles who are about to be released from prison into our communities," Pataki said in a statement.

"Without question, if this ruling is allowed to stand it would jeopardize the safety of our children and communities throughout the state," he added.

The sex convicts have been held under lock and key in psychiatric hospitals on Wards Island since late September and early October.

Pataki has been trying to get legislation passed that would incarcerate sex offenders indefinitely, but the state Assembly has refused to go along with him.

In days, men like Johnny Torres, who brutally assaulted his ex-girlfriend in Brooklyn in 2004, or Charles Brooks, who broke into an apartment in the Bronx in 1997 and sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl, may be returned to society.

Civil rights advocates had blasted the governor for incarcerating these men after they had done their time. Yesterday, they lauded the justice's decision.

"It's appropriate for the courts to step in to prevent politicians, including the governor, from seeking to circumvent the law," said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Pataki, however, refused to give up the fight.

"If the Assembly majority continues to refuse to do the right thing, I will do everything in my power to ensure that sexual predators remain off our streets and away from our children," he said.

With Helen Peterson and Joe Mahoney

Pataki Must Free Pervs, Judge Rules

By Dareh Gregorian and Frederic U. Dicker
New York Post
November 16, 2005

A dozen sexual predators, ordered confined beyond their prison terms by Gov. Pataki's office, "are being illegally detained" and should be released, a Manhattan judge ruled yesterday.

"The court takes no issue with the state's belief that each of these men poses a danger to society," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jacqueline Silbermann said.

PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE:                  "However, even persons acquitted of violent
Gov. Pataki doesn't have the power to       crimes by reason of insanity may not be civilly
 send freed sex convicts such as Arnold      committed to a mental hospital solely because
Allen and Robert Trocchio (above) back     they pose a danger to society. A showing
 to jail - as reported exclusively by             of mental illness and a need for inpatient care
The Post - a judge ruled.                            and treatment is also required."  

The judge, who found the men's rights to due process had been violated, ordered the dirty dozen released pending "expeditious examinations of each" by two court-appointed psychiatrists.

If both doctors concur that the inmates are "mentally ill, in need of care and treatment at a psychiatric hospital, and pose a substantial threat of physical harm to themselves and others," they can continue to be confined in a mental-health hospital.

If both doctors don't agree, the state must "immediately release" the patient, the judge ruled.

Included in the perverted group is William Clark, 37, who sexually abused his own 7-year-old daughter at his Elmira home in 1997.

Another sex fiend, 62-year-old Arnold Allen, molested an 8-year-old boy and 13-year-old boy in Steuben County three years ago.

In a written statement, Pataki said he was "deeply troubled" by Silbermann's decision and would appeal it.

He said the ruling "creates special new judge-made rights and protections for rapists, predators and pedophiles who are about to be released from prison into our communities. The court is granting convicted sexual predators more rights than law-abiding New Yorkers."

"If this ruling is allowed to stand, it would jeopardize the safety of our children and communities throughout the state," Pataki said.

Lawyers for the 12 could not be reached last night. At a hearing earlier this month, Stephen Harkavy, of the state Mental Hygiene Legal Services, said state officials were the activists who were creating their rules.

He said the state didn't follow its own procedures for the involuntary commitment of the mentally ill. "They created their own procedure," he said.

He said there are legal ways the state could confine patients, but that on Pataki's directives, officials aren't following them.

In her decision, Silbermann noted that Pataki had told state officials to "push the envelope" on existing confinement law while he pushes the state Assembly to pass new laws.