The Court Report.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg

Dr. Sherry Bobrowsky Returns
To Federal Court
United States District Court, White Plains
Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith Presiding

Last Tuesday morning, May 12, Dr. Sherry Bobrowsky, a podiatric surgeon whose medical practice was brought to an abrupt halt by a severe auto accident from which she is left with bouts of intolerable pain and the need to often wear a corrective collar, appeared in United States District Court, White Plains, before Magistrate Judge Lisa Margaret Smith. Bobrowsky, the Plaintiff, appearing pro se, had hauled the City of Yonkers represented by Assistant Corporate Counsel Neal E. Kumar, Judicial Title Company, represented by Attorney Angelo Delli Carpini, and Attorney Herbert N. Posner, not admitted to Federal Court, acting pro se, into Smith’s Court.

Judge Smith opened the session declaring, “Judge Robinson referred this case to this Court for either motion, trial, or settlement. There’s been
a Motion to Dismiss by the City of Yonkers; another Motion to Dismiss by Judicial; and the request by Mr. Posner for permission to make a Motion to Dismiss.”

Posner told the Court, “The complaint rambles; there is a complaint in State Court.” He went on to briefly review his role and representation
with respect to Lillian and Jacques Bobrowsky, the doctor’s mother and brother, respectively, currently residing in Florida, telling
the Judge that although they had discharged him, he still had an obligation to keep their address confidential.

Bobrowky began by telling Judge Smith, “The City of Yonkers has refused to send me my tax bills. This is my home that I was removed
from. This is a travesty of justice to not even get a copy of my tax bill.” She went on to tell Smith, “Mr. Posner’s notary license was revoked
for mortgage fraud. He was disbarred for fraud in 1987. The case in State Court is finished, because Mr. Posner failed to show up.”

Bobrowsky went on to inform the Court that the following day, last Wednesday, her house was scheduled to be sold by the City of Yonkers
at auction for back taxes, and that she desperately needed a stay of that tax sale. She began to lay out, in detail, the manner by which Attorney Posner, in concert with the Yonkers Police Department, the Tax Assessor’s Office, and Yonkers Corporate Counsel had conspired
over a three-year period to put her out of her home on Fanshaw Avenue, to isolate her from her mother and brother, and to cause her to be
vulnerable to loss of her rightfully-owned house.

Judge Smith, who at points seemed somewhat impatient with yet another pro se litigant, and, at the same time, appeared quite empathetic
to her plight, broke into an ‘echo’ of, “I do not have the power. I do not have the power. I do not have the power.” She went further, “You’ve made an application to Judge Robinson.”

Posner now said, “Alot of things have been said about me.” He went on to discuss his relationship with Dr. Bobrowsky’s mother and brother, and the obligation he believed he had to each of them to keep their address in Florida secret.

Analysis:


Of course, having been involved in the coverage of Dr. Bobrowsky’s struggles with the City of Yonkers as well as with Attorney Posner for a few years, and having been at various city, state, and federal courts in the presence of her mother Lillian and brother Jacques, accompanied by
Posner on numerous occasions, this reporter believes their personal vulnerability and their manipulation as portrayed by Plaintiff Bobrowsky to the Court, to be quite accurate and on-the-mark as opposed to the benevolent spin offered by Posner.

Magistrate Judge Smith, attempting to keep the proceedings on course and consistent with her assignment from District Court Judge Stephen C. Robinson, told the parties, “The question is, what motions I should permit.”

Dr. Bobrowsky, under the imminent threat of wrongfully losing her home in a tax lien sale the next day, the home that was declared rightfully hers in State Supreme Court by Judge Richard Liebowitz many months earlier, now launched a counter-attack against the portrayal laid out by Attorney Posner.

She informed the Court of a “pattern of interference” in the conduct of her life, not only involving receipt of her mail, and continuation of her
disability insurance payments but, more importantly, her relationship with her mother and brother.

She spoke of the actions taken by the New York State Department of State in revoking the notary license of Attorney Posner for fraudulent
acts in connection with her home and property. She repeated a quote from Westchester County Clerk Tim Idoni about that County agency’s
dependence upon the honesty of filers of documents, intending to show the Court how little protection she, and others similarly situated, have from those who would fraudulently seize, or financially encumber, their homes and other property.

The doctor’s presentation was sufficiently effective that it motivated Assistant Corporate Counsel Kumar to offer to remove her home
from the tax sale. Again, Magistrate Smith was compelled to bring the proceedings back on course, back within the limited scope of her jurisdiction and assignment in the matter, despite the anguish and urgency being justifiably felt by Plaintiff Bobrowsky, and the emotional thread that ran through an otherwise well-stated pro se presentation. Smith declared, “I’m not the fact-finder. You’ve gotten the
immediate remedy that you wanted from the City of Yonkers.”

The Judge then set up a series of deadlines for receipt of motions and responses from the parties between mid-June and early August, with a
next conference scheduled before her to occur on October 2.