The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

Silence Of The Lambs

Through the millennia of recorded history certain truths remain unchanged.Those of us fortunate to hang around long enough get to observe that fact repeatedly, human nature being what it is. As an early adolescent I can still clearly recall Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who over a relatively few years in Washington managed to destroy the lives of scores of innocent Americans, as he stepped on them in his quest to reach ever greater heights of power and authority. For some time he managed to very effectively ward off resistance and criticism holding himself out as a super-patriot, the ultimate defender of American freedom from the “worldwide threat of Soviet Communism.” None dared question him, for fear of being labeled “Pink,” a Communist sympathizer, or worse, “Red,” a Communist.

Numerous writers, actors, directors, and other creative and intelligent individuals were “blacklisted” and
virtually pushed into exile by the mere pointing of his finger. He had talented ambitious assistants. Young attorneys Roy Cohn, seated on his right, and Robert F. Kennedy, on his left as he skewered one witness after another who he called before his Senate Internal Security Subcommittee.

And, he had collaborators, such as columnist Jack Anderson, a journalist, who, if for no other reason than the First Amendment, should have known better, nevertheless supplied the names of other writers and numerous
individuals in communication and government to him for harassment and defamation. His essential target
was the Liberal Establishment associated with Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal Administration,” and, even the
United States Army was not immune from his attack.

A true demagogue, McCarthy played upon the fears and malleability of the masses, whipping up emotions
with respect to Communism. Few possessed the courage to stand up to his attack. Fewer still, the courage
to identify him, and challenge what he stood for. More than fifty years later I still remember, and admire, those who did, most notably United States Army Attorney Joseph Welch, best remembered for his declaration, “Have you no sense of decency Sir?” And, of course, my personal hero, Edward R. Murrow, whose commentary on McCarthy and his methods gave impetus to the Senator’s ultimate fall from power.

Here in Westchester we, too, experienced such a demagogue, someone in a position of virtually unlimited power to destroy the lives of innocent persons, if for no other purpose than self-promotion, and self-perpetuation.

That person was former District Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Under her tyrannical, twelve-year regime, the egregious operations of which are just now coming to public awareness as the result of Appellate Court decisions in cases
such as Anthony DiSimone, scores of innocent individuals were maliciously and knowingly prosecuted and imprisoned.

Silence Of The Lambs During those twelve years one individual consistently stood up to her tyranny, her prosecutorial misconduct. Pace University Law Professor Bennett Gershman, highly respected former prosecutor, and author of Prosecutorial Misconduct, the ‘bible’ of the profession went so far as to issue a complaint to the Grievance Committee regarding her actions in the Eddie Cordero, Jr. case, after she publicly revealed the defendant’s HIV status. And, perhaps as fate may have intended, a student of Gershman, authored the book, The Jeanine Machine, in 2002, revealing in detail the horrific truth about Mrs. Pirro’s political and professional conspiracies and lies, separating the image from the reality.

Save for those two critics, and former Bronx Assistant District Attorney Tony Castro, who possessed the courage and the moral conviction to join the effort by leaving the comfort, and security of his fourteen-year position to challenge, and nearly overthrow her in 2001, where the Hell were those who should have been there on behalf of us all?

Where, indeed, was the Westchester Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union? Where were they as Mrs.
Pirro trampled every one of the Constitutional Rights of countless innocent, often defenseless, individuals; persons
such as Jing and Tristram Kelly? Where are they, even now? When asked why they have never spoken out,
not even in the face of unprecedented Civil Rights violations, and prosecutorial misconduct of criminal proportions, the nauseating excuse offered by the Director was that “policy decisions are made in New York.”

Where, too, was the Westchester Criminal Defense Bar? They, more than anyone else, going toe-to-toe with
Pirro’s Office, experiencing first-hand the lies, the suborned perjury, the concealed Brady material, the turned
witnesses, the missing, and tampered with, evidence, had an obligation, not only to their clients, but to all of us, to
expose, and to inform the Grievance Committee of the Appellate Division, State Supreme Court, of the abuses of power, and the extreme violations of Constitutional Rights that were the very essence of Pirro’s operations.

Sure, now that she is likely the subject of a sealed federal indictment, now that her “Reign of Terror” is over, and furthermore she has embarrassed and humiliated herself in the political arena, __however, not without leaving the
lives of perhaps hundreds of innocent defendant-victims, locked away in prison, and their families and friends grieving,__now those who should have stood up on their hind legs long ago, instead of criticizing those who did, saying they were “over the top,” now they will slowly crawl out of the woodwork to assure everyone they were really working against her all along. To those who stood silent as some of us stood firm, I now say BAH.
Better yet, BAA!