Our Readers Respond...


Mother Sympathizes with “Deepest Hearts”


Dear Editor:


With regard to “Deepest Pockets Win Over Deepest Hearts,” I have heard this to be very true of that particular judge and I have heard it to be true of “witch hunter” Theresa Malach. What can be done over such a misuse of justice? How can a mother who was left to raise her children lose to the very parent that abandoned them?

One would never think this could happen in today’s times. This has a flavor of Salem, Massachusetts, and burning at the stake. If this happened to her, it can happen to any other mother who has little funds to defend herself. Shame on you, Westchester. I hope there is someone who can help this mother. I can only offer my prayers and the hope that justice will be served.

Another Mother


Concerning Weapons of Mass Destruction

Dear Editor:


The “weapons of mass destruction” justification for invading Iraq is not only, as Polvere notes, “distortion, fiction, and…deceit.” It is also hypocritical. Yes, Saddam Hussein probably dreamed of having and supported work on developing weapons of mass destruction.

But was he the only bad dictator to be doing so? Was he the only ruler on unfriendly terms with the U.S. to do so? Was Iraq closer to achieving WMD than a lot of other countries? Are all countries whose governments dream of and work to achieve WMD dictatorships? Are all countries whose governments dream of and work to achieve WMD on unfriendly terms with the U.S.?

Which countries are closest to achieving WMD? If some are currently friendly with or compliant to the U.S., what are their prospects for staying so? Was not using the WMD pretext for invading Iraq applying a double standard?

Jeanette Wolfberg
Mount Kisco


Judges and Attorney’s Should Know Better


Dear Editor:


“The judiciary would be bringing a frivolous lawsuit if it takes political leaders to court to demand a raise for the state’s 1200 judges,” said Governor Eliot Spitzer in response to Chief Judge Judith Kaye’s strategy for securing bigger paychecks for New York’s judiciary. “Judges should know better than to sue for a raise.” Judge Kaye said she’ll also consider taking administrative action if the state comptroller and attorney general say she has the authority to do so.

Never mind that the Bench, having failed to rally enough support among members of the Bar, sought the clout of the business community to lobby the New York State Legislature for more compensation. New York City Corporation Counsel, Michael A. Cardozo, said judges and lawyers carry only so much clout in Albany on the pay issue because, “past a point, decision-makers can dismiss their concerns by saying, ‘Oh, they’re just looking out for their own.’ ”


The Albany-based Business Council of New York State, Inc., the corporate lobbying group at the state capital that best positions its economic issues stated, “ is is not an issue our members asked to make a priority.” What can a raise-hungry judiciary do?


Business corporations, like the legal/professional sector, have moved in the latter half of the twentieth century from pay raises based on New Deal-era-like protections for the workforce, to a performance-based pay, according to a recent report by W. Bentley MacLeod, an economics professor at Columbia University. As companies began using information technology to determine more accurately the contributions of individual employees and law firm partners and associates, employers and law firm executive committees began to “discriminate among employees and lawyers based on performance.

No longer are people with different abilities and capabilities paid the same amount for doing similar jobs. The fact is, more Americans are paid less on the basis of a job title and more on their individual output.” Greater management and technical skills proven in the corporate
marketplace like finer legal skills and ‘rainmaking generation’ in the law field yield greater earning power. Due to a shifting economic and political environment, even judges have to prove a competency and productivity on their job.

Control of the legal system is not free from judicial intervention as if the law itself were acting, unhampered and unburdened by strong-arm action of court governance; oversight of the process in New York State Courts has been labeled an “inappropriate intrusion” of the judiciary’s internal governance by former Administrative Judge, Jonathan Lippman. Judicial performance has indeed been productive, not in problem solving or administration of fair and expedient justice, but rather as a lucrative, case-churning machine for law guardians in custody matters, legal counsel in divorce litigation, and the myriad of tangential performers in New York State’s Family and Supreme Courts. Forensic psychologists and forensic accountants whose investigations and reports are, with alarming frequency, dismissed as unreliable, immaterial, and unenforceable; but only after their fees have been summed and paid are a good example of this phenomenon. This is not the “generating performance” that W. Bentley MacLeod had in mind; performance of the “job” fits the bill.

Acknowledging the work of the 1995 Committee to Examine Lawyer Conduct in Matrimonial Actions, the Matrimonial Commission in
February 2006 addressed the pervasive, persistent shortcomings in New York State’s Divorce Courts. The Commission urged for greater
accountability for professionalism and civility among members of the Bar practicing in these matrimonial parts. Adherence to promulgated
rules and zealous attention to client’s aims and interest is the touchstone for attorney performance whether it be for the child custody client or the litigating client spouse in a divorce action. The high stakes for the parent and spouse in these railroaded cases has been repeatedly addressed by various writers to The Westchester Guardian. ‘Deepest Heart’, Margarita Walter, Bill G., and Debra Weissman, tellingly depicted the lack of fairness, accountability, and transparency in the courtrooms at 111 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Judges
and attorneys were named.

Transparency of a fair process is not meted behind the closed doors of “attorney-only conferences” of Bill G., “lack of credible evidence” in the case of Margarita Walter, the “case-fixing” of an Administrative Judge for Matrimonial Matters, Judge Jacqueline Silbermann, in the Debra Weissman divorce matter, and lack of judicial consistency in the custodial matter of ‘Deepest Heart’. Last time one looked, the transparency and accountability and productivity of this New York State Court’s judiciary was behind thick, slick, opaque and shut doors, not glass ones open to public scrutiny.

Pay judges and attorneys for doing their job? Sure! But only if, and when, “the job” is performed. So many are still waiting.

Name Withheld

In Our Opinion...


Justice Department Must Revisit Yonkers For Upcoming Mayor’s Race


Now that Phil Amicone, Mayor of Yonkers, has seen fit to pull Guilio Cavallo, as well as Nick Spano, and his mob, into City Government and the election process, one thing is certain; federal monitors and marshals will absolutely be needed to keep the outcome of the mayoral contest honest. There is no dispute regarding the shameful fact that Westchester’s county-wide, municipal, legislative, and judicial contests have frequently been fixed, altered, and/or otherwise defrauded over the past several years.

For example, in 2004, incumbent 35th District State Senator Nicholas Spano was actually defeated by then-County Legislator Andrea Stewart-Cousins by some 350 votes. Nevertheless, the combined effort and conspiracy involving Appellate Division Judge Robert Spolzino,
Nassau Supreme Court Justice Warshawsky, DA Jeanine Pirro, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, Election Commissioners Reggie LaFayette and Carolee Sunderland, the County Executive’s Office, particularly Larry Schwartz, and Nick Spano’s legal team of John Ciampoli, David Lewis, and admitted election fraudster Anthony Mangone, as well as three so called “good men” from the County Police Department (by no means the complete list), managed, over three months, to “wrestle” victory by 18 votes for Nicky from the jaws of defeat.

No reasonable observer of Andrea’s victory in 2006 can deny the importance the Justice Department’s presence and oversight played in bringing about that outcome. In 2005 the race for District Attorney between Tony Castro and Janet DiFiore produced, to be polite, very unusual voting patterns in several dozen election districts in Yonkers, not to mention a call from the Republican candidate, DiFiore, three days before the election, to have the machines impounded, a highly unusual and improper request, nevertheless granted by Chief Administrative Judge Francis Nicolai. Some three hundred machines from the City of Yonkers’ election districts were all stored in the usual warehouse facility on Saw Mill River Road in Yonkers, and “guarded” by Yonkers Police, a department that had endorsed DiFiore.

Castro’s first run for District Attorney, in 2001, against Jeanine Pirro, was the county-wide election, that complicit media for years thereafter would refer to as the “Non-Aggression Pact.” That race was flat-out fixed to return all of the incumbents - County Executive Andy Spano, DA Jeanine Pirro, and County Clerk, Len Spano - to office. The fix was arranged by Larry Schwartz, for Andy; David Hebert for Jeanine; and Nick Spano for his father Len.

Fallout from that charade continues to rain down on Westchester. Larry Horowitz, compelled recently to step down from his Supreme Court position for inappropriate conduct, in fact, was appointed to a County Court judgeship in 2002 from which to run for the Supremes,
in return for having agreed to be a “stand-in” Republican mannequin in the race for County Executive against Andy Spano.

In that same county-wide election, let us not forget Democrat Lisa Copeland, appointed City Clerk of Mount Vernon, who eagerly agreed to replace Bill Giacomo, who had been nominated by the County Democratic Committee to run for County Clerk against Len Spano. Larry Schwartz, mindful of his commitments to Jeanine Pirro and Len Spano, decided that a ticket of Andy Spano, Tony Castro, and Bill Giacomo, might just be too strong, and the Democrats could sweep. Naturally, putting up Lisa Copeland, a Black woman, virtually unknown throughout the County, and pulling down Bill Giacomo, was just the move that would assure the success of Schwartz’ diabolical election scheme. Interestingly, Giacomo was also promised a Supreme Court nomination for cooperating and accepting the embarrassment of removal, at the last minute, from the ticket. However, unlike the Horowitz Affair, for more than two years Larry Schwartz was not willing to honor his agreement, and, ultimately, it took the persistent efforts of Tony Castro, who virtually took him everywhere, to elect Giacomo.

Such has been the sordid tale of recent elections in Westchester, and particularly in the City of Yonkers. Given that history, We believe that the race for Mayor of Yonkers, pitting incumbent Republican Phil Amicone, and every undesirable political creature he can muster, against Independent Nader Sayegh, and Democrat Dennis Robertson, is a contest that will require the utmost attention of the Voters’ Rights Division of the Justice Department, and the provision of sufficient observers and enforcement personnel to protect the integrity of the outcome.