Thursday, September 10, 2009
Jeff Deskovic
A Case Of Wrongful Execution Emerges
The uncovering of wrongful convictions has become so frequent that no one disputes that they occur. In fact, as I have been writing about for some time, as have many other columnists, their causes are well-known and documented.
Across the country little legislation has been enacted to prevent wrongful convictions. It is a matter of common sense that any system of justice that results in wrongful convictions will inevitably execute innocent people if there is a death penalty as punishment.
There have been many instances of near-wrongful executions, in which people who had been wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death had been cleared, but not before coming within a hair’s breadth from being executed.
Ron Williamson, at one point, came within 3 days; Earl Washington came within 5; Larry Swearingen, whose case is still being litigated, came within a few hours despite exculpatory DNA evidence. Recently Troy Davis came within a few days before the United States Supreme Court ordered
that powerful evidence of his innocence be considered by a lower court.
However, while thankfully those men were not executed, pro-death penalty advocates have often pointed to those cases as examples of the system catching its own mistakes.
In addition, as I wrote about in my three part series, Exposing The Death Penalty, there have been many cases of likely wrongful executions, but there is no one case in which there is a general consensus from people on both sides of the death penalty issue that can be pointed to as a wrongful execution.
In fact, some pro-death penalty advocates, in response to the argument that the death penalty should be discontinued because of the danger of executing innocent people, have used the fact that there is no one consensus case in order to try to “prove” the illogical point that there has never even been one instance of an innocent person who was executed, as a reason why the death penalty should not be discontinued on this basis.
Unfortunately, as of a week ago, that argument can no longer be made: It has come to light through a study commissioned by the State of Texas
by arson expert Beyler that Cameron Willingham was wrongfully executed.
It remains to be seen what Texas will do with this report in terms of whether they will make an official statement owning up to having executed an innocent man. Currently state officials are reviewing Beyler’s report.
This moment is being viewed as both a watershed moment and a horror. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the inevitability of executing an innocent man has now come to pass and is being acknowledged by all except the State of Texas which has not yet publicly commented.
Facts: Cameron Todd Willingham was executed in Texas in 2004 for setting fire to his home and killing his three young daughters. The following
is taken from an Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert in The New York Times: “ The fire broke out on the morning of Dec. 23, 1991. Willingham was awakened by the cries of his 2-year-old daughter, Amber. Also in the house were his year-old twin girls, Karmon and Kameron. The family was poor, and Willingham’s wife, Stacy, had gone out to pick up a Christmas present for the children from the Salvation Army. Willingham said he tried to rescue the kids but was driven back by smoke and flames. At one point his hair caught fire. As the heat intensified, the windows of the children’s room exploded and flames leapt out. Willingham, who was 23 at the time, had to be restrained and eventually handcuffed as he tried again to get into the room.
There was no reason to believe at first that the fire was anything other than a horrible accident. But fire investigators, moving slowly through the ruined house, began seeing things (not unlike someone viewing a Rorschach pattern) that they interpreted as evidence of arson. They noticed deep charring at the base of some of the walls and patterns of soot that made them suspicious. They noticed what they felt were ominous fracture patterns in pieces of broken window glass. They had no motive, but they were convinced the fire had been set. And if it had been set, who else but
Willingham would have set it? With no real motive in sight, the local district attorney, was quoted as saying, “The children were interfering with his beer drinking and dart throwing.”
Willingham was arrested and charged with capital murder. Willingham couldn’t afford to hire lawyers, and was assigned two by the state: a former
state trooper, and a local defense attorney who represented everyone from alleged murderers to spouses in divorce cases—a “Jack-of-all-trades,” as he calls himself. He explained “In a small town, you can’t say ‘I’m a so-and-so lawyer,’ because you’ll starve to death,” When official suspicion fell on Willingham, eyewitness testimony began to change. Whereas initially he was described by neighbors as screaming and hysterical — “My babies are burning up!” — and desperate to have the children saved, he now was described as behaving oddly, and not having made enough of an effort to get to the girls.”
According to an investigative report by David Grann which was published in e New Yorker, “The crux of the state’s case, though, remained the scientific evidence gathered by two ‘experts’. On the stand, one of them detailed what he called more than ‘twenty indicators’ of arson.”
“‘Do you have an opinion as to who started the fire?’ one of the prosecutors asked. ‘Yes, sir,’ the expert said. ‘Mr. Willingham.’ e prosecutor asked the expert what he thought Willingham’s intent was in lighting the fire. ‘To kill the little girls,’ he said.”
According to the Op-Ed by Herbert, “A jailhouse informant also came forward who was a jumpy individual with a lengthy arrest record who would
later admit to being ‘mentally impaired’ and on medication, and who had started taking illegal drugs at the age of 9.”
According to The New Yorker, “The defense had tried to find a fire expert to counter the expert’s testimony, but the one they contacted concurred with the prosecution. Ultimately, the defense presented only one witness to the jury: the Willingham’s’ babysitter, who said she could not believe that Willingham could have killed his children.
The trial ended after two days. During his closing arguments, the prosecutor said that the puddle configurations and pour patterns were Willingham’s inadvertent “confession,” burned into the floor. Showing a Bible that had been salvaged from the fire, the prosecutor paraphrased the words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Whomsoever shall harm one of my children, it’s better for a millstone to be hung around his neck and for him to be cast in the sea.’The jury was out for barely an hour before returning with a unanimous guilty verdict. As one of the experts put it, “The fire does not lie.”
Post Conviction: Lacking money to hire attorneys to handle his appeals, Willingham was forced to proceed with a public defender to file his
appeals. Multiple accounts of this case state that the representation he received was inadequate. In fact, during a later stage of his appeals, when a new attorney entered the litigation, he unsuccessfully challenged the adequacy of both appellate and trial representation.
But even this new attorney was not that effective, because whenever Willingham’s amateur investigator would send the attorney leads, there
was no follow-up work done. A lack of financial resources appears to be the reason that no follow-ups were done. And so, instead of challenges to his conviction being based on new factual information, they were instead based upon points of law.
After his last appeal had been turned down, according to The New York Times Op-Ed by Bob Herbert, “a renowned scientist and arson investigator, Gerald Hurst, educated at Cambridge and widely recognized as a brilliant chemist, reviewed the evidence in the Willingham case on a pro bono basis and began systematically knocking down every indication of arson.”
According to the article in The New Yorker by Grann, “As Hurst looked through the case records, a statement by Manuel Vasquez, the
state deputy fire marshal, jumped out at him. The expert had testified that, of the roughly twelve hundred to fifteen hundred fires he had investigated, ‘most all of them’ were arson. This was an oddly high estimate; the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office typically found arson in only fifty per cent of its cases.
“Hurst was also struck by the expert’s claim that the Willingham blaze had ‘burned fast and hot’ because of a liquid accelerant. The notion that a flammable or combustible liquid caused flames to reach higher temperatures had been repeated in court by arson sleuths for decades. Yet the theory was nonsense: experiments have proved that wood and gasoline-fueled fires burn at essentially the same temperature. The
two experts had cited as proof of arson the fact that the front door’s aluminum threshold had melted. ‘The only thing that can cause that to react is an accelerant,’ one of the experts had said.
Hurst was incredulous. A natural-wood fire can reach temperatures as high as two thousand degrees Fahrenheit— far hotter than the melting point for aluminum alloys, which ranges from a thousand to twelve hundred degrees. And, like many other investigators, both experts mistakenly assumed that wood charring beneath the aluminum threshold was evidence that, as one of the experts put it, ‘a liquid accelerant
flowed underneath and burned.’
“Hurst had conducted myriad experiments showing that such charring was caused simply by the aluminum conducting so much heat. In fact,
when liquid accelerant is poured under a threshold a fire will extinguish, because of a lack of oxygen. ‘Liquid accelerants can no more burn under an aluminum threshold than can grease burn in a skillet even with a loose-fitting lid,’ Hurst declared in his report on the Willingham case. Hurst then examined the two expert’s claim that the ‘brown stains’ on Willingham’s front porch were evidence of ‘liquid accelerant,’
which had not had time to soak into the concrete. Hurst had previously performed a test in his garage, in which he poured charcoal-lighter fluid on the concrete floor, and lit it. When the fire went out, there were no brown stains, only smudges of soot. Hurst had run the same experiment many times, with different kinds of liquid accelerants, and the result was always the same. Brown stains were common in fires; they were usually composed of rust or gunk from charred debris that had mixed with water from fire hoses.
Another crucial piece of evidence implicating Willingham was the ‘crazed glass’ that the expert had attributed to the rapid heating from a
fire fueled with liquid accelerant. Yet, in November of 1991, a team of fire investigators had inspected fifty houses in the hills of Oakland, California, which had been ravaged by brush fires. In a dozen houses, the investigators discovered crazed glass, even though a liquid accelerant had not been used.
“Hurst then confronted some of the most devastating arson evidence against Willingham: the burn trailer, the pour patterns and puddle configurations, the V-shape and other burn marks indicating that the fire had multiple points of origin, the burning underneath the children’s beds. Hurst recalled that both experts had considered it impossible for Willingham to have run down the burning hallway without scorching his bare feet. But if the pour patterns and puddle configurations were a result of a flashover, Hurst reasoned, then they were consonant with Willingham’s explanation of events. When Willingham exited his bedroom, the hallway was not yet on fire; the flames were contained within
the children’s bedroom, where, along the ceiling, he saw the ‘bright lights.’
One of the experts had made a videotape of the fire scene, and Hurst looked at the footage of the burn trailer. Even after repeated viewings, he could not detect three points of origin, as one of the experts had Without having visited the fire scene, Hurst says, it was impossible to pinpoint the cause of the blaze. But, based on the evidence, he had little doubt that it was an accidental fire— one caused most likely by the space heater or faulty electrical wiring.”
This report was hurriedly presented to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles as a basis for granting clemency. Despite this evidence, they denied clemency. Explaining their decision to Grann, one of the members stated, ‘You don’t vote guilt or innocence. You don’t retry the trial. You just make sure everything is in order and there are no glaring errors.’ He noted that although the rules allowed for a hearing to consider
important new evidence, ‘in my time there had never been one called.’ When [Grann] asked him why Hurst’s report didn’t constitute evidence of ‘glaring errors,” he said, “We get all kinds of reports, but we don’t have the mechanisms to vet them.” Although Texas Gov. Rick Perry still had the authority to grant clemency, he did not do so. According to The New Yorker, “The Innocence Project obtained, through the Freedom of Information Act, all the records from the governor’s office and the board pertaining to Hurst’s report. “The documents show that they received the report, but neither office has any record of anyone acknowledging it, taking note of its significance, responding to it, or calling any attention to it within the government,” Barry Scheck said. “The only reasonable conclusion is that the governor’s office and the Board of Pardons and Paroles ignored scientific evidence.” According to Herbert’s op-ed in The New York Times, “Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb. 17, 2004.”
Execution: According to Herbert’s Op-Ed in The New York Times, The following year, Texas created the Forensic Science Commission to investigate charges of scientific mistakes or misconduct, and the panel began looking into the Willingham case. It commissioned Craig Beyler, a nationally recognized fire expert, to examine evidence and review Hurst’s report. Mr. Beyler issued a report last week that painted an ugly picture of what passes for expert scientific investigation and testimony in a capital case in Texas. The report found that the official inquiry
into the Willingham fire did not meet prevailing scientific standards of the time, much less current ones.
“The report is devastating, the kind of disclosure that should send a tremor through one’s conscience. There was absolutely no scientific basis for determining that the fire was arson, said Beyler. No basis at all. He added that the state fire marshal who investigated the case and testified against Willingham ‘seems to be wholly without any realistic understanding of fires.’ He said the marshal’s approach seemed to lack ‘rational reasoning’ and he likened it to the practices ‘of mystics or psychics.’
When the jailhouse snitch was told of the scientific evidence as reviewed by Beyler would show that an innocent man was executed, the snitch seemed taken aback. ‘Nothing can save me now,’ he said.
Reviewing Beyler’s findings, Equal Justice USA, an organization that according to them, “focuses on the injustices perpetrated against the
accused and convicted under our legal system and educates the public,” has summed up the review this way: “It turns out that evidence used to convict Willingham was nothing more than junk science and a wholly inadequate defense team:
• Several scientific investigations since the trial, including the one by the state government's own appointed forensic scientists, have concluded the "scene of the crime" was really just the scene of a horrible accident, and the supposed expert testimony originally presented at trial defied "rational reasoning" and violated "not only the standards of today but even of the time period."
• Even though the fire "experts'" evidence was clearly questionable, Willingham's own court-appointed lawyers were convinced of his guilt and offered no rebuttal expert.
• The jailhouse snitch to whom Willingham allegedly confessed suffered from serious mental impairments and recanted on his testimony more
than once.
• In attempts to assert that Willingham fit the profile of a sociopath, the prosecution used as evidence the fact that Willingham had Iron Maiden and Led Zeppelin posters. In a matter of life and death, what band posters one chooses to decorate one's walls with seems clearly of no consequence.
This report represents the most powerful record to date that an innocent person was executed - an unfathomable reality. Willingham himself could barely comprehend the tragedy of his situation. While on death row, he said, “I just been trying to figure out why after having a wife and 3 beautiful children that I loved my life has to end like this.”
In his op-ed in The New York Times, Herbert said Cameron Todd Willingham, who refused to accept a guilty plea that would have spared his
life, and who insisted until his last painful breath that he was innocent, had in fact been telling the truth all along.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Westchester Guardian/Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Problems Facing Victims Of Autism
On August 5, Andy Spano announced that Westchester County was now “Autism Friendly” following the recommendations of an April 1, 2009 report from the Westchester County Autism Advisory Committee. According to this report, there are currently approximately 4,000 individuals
living with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the County.
The Committee defined autism as a “complex, neurobiological developmental disability”. They went on to indicate that its victims have “poorly
developed verbal and nonverbal communication skills, unusual speech patterns, limited interest in social interactions often leading to social
withdrawal. Individuals with autism often struggle to be flexible or tolerate even small changes in routines, experience sensory sensitivities, exhibit
repetitive or ritualistic behavior and often focus on objects rather than on people. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and social groups and is four times
more likely to impact boys than girls. Symptoms can range from very mild to quite severe”.
The Committee made the following recommendations to the County:
• Declare Westchester County as an “Autism Friendly” County;
• Establish a Westchester County Autism Family Resource Center;
• Establish an Adult Advocacy Department;
• Establish a Special Liaison for Adult Autism Services;
• Develop a “How to” manual for businesses to employ adults who have Problems Facing Victims Of Autism ASD;
• Develop a post-secondary educational program for adults with ASD;
• Broker the establishment of a specialized medical/psychiatric treatment facility;
• Establish a Family and Service Provider Training Institute;
• Establish Autism Sensitivity Awareness Training for first-responders.
While the Committee is attempting to address the awareness of autism in our communities, even the experts do not properly address this disability.
School psychologists, counselors, and testing procedures are not geared to diagnosing milder forms of autism such as Asperser’s Syndrome. Parents
of such children are usually forced to initiate testing themselves. However, if a child is not properly diagnosed at an early age, by the time they are
adults they can become bipolar, develop eating and borderline personality disorders, and addictive behaviors. Early intervention is the key to helping victims of autism.
Children with mild forms of autism are often diagnosed as simply having behavioral problems. Early education programs such as day care and preschools do not have the resources to diagnose or address mild forms of ASD. Public elementary schools’ programs to identify and address the needs of an ASD child vary according to the financial resources of the school district.
Financial difficulties are affecting more than just the educational needs of ASD victims. Medical and treatment programs have recently been shut down due to government budget cuts or cutbacks in private funding. Few programs now exist for ASD patients who have developed eating disorder
problems. Private hospitals, such as Four Winds Medical Center in Katonah, have programs that address the problems of the autistic child but such programs are prohibitively expensive.
ASD children are often over medicated or given incorrect medications. Treatment programs to enable such children to develop coping skills are short-term and do not address long-term or future needs. The programs can cost as much as $30,000 for a mere 28 days.
However, there is no guarantee that a facility will accept an ASD patient; programs will refuse acceptance to patients who exhibit violent or extreme anti-social behavior. One parent told the Guardian that St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison mixes victims of all mental disorders together,
so that adult ASD patients exhibiting bipolar disorders will be together with eating disorder victims. According to this parent, St. Vincent’s does not offer separate break-out groups for specialized treatment, and no individual therapy for the patient.
As one parent noted, “The local hospitals only offer crisis intervention for adult patients with ASD. ere is no real therapy going on. The hospitals will only keep the patient for a short period, usually only 7 to 10 days, until the patient is “compliant”. As this parent told the Guardian, “‘Compliance’ is a big word. It means the patient will ‘tow the line’ and obey orders, especially when it comes time to sleep”. In order to make
patients “compliant”, many autism victims are overmedicated into submission.
Parents noted that when their autistic children return home from these “crises centers”, they exhibit withdrawal symptoms from the cocktail of medications they were exposed to while in the treatment facility.
Patients with mental issues are often grouped in many of these treatment programs according to gender, rather than cause. Autistic patients who have multiple hospital and treatment center admissions can become “hospital savvy”, they learn from each other. Autism does not always affect
intellect, especially in milder, higher functioning cases. Many patients are very intelligent and gifted.
There are autistic children who can play concert piano pieces by ear. One autistic child in upstate New York is a star basketball player and has mastered the repetitive motions of the sport like bouncing and dribbling. In environments where all patients with mental issues are grouped together, some autistic patients will learn from, or develop and mimic, the behavioral patterns of the other patients. An autistic adult entering a treatment program to develop social and coping skills can leave with knowledge of how to purge their food after witnessing the eating disorder
patients exhibiting this behavior.
Life with an autistic child is heartbreaking. As one mother told the Guardian, “You watch your child grow up never fitting in. All of the social
cues are missing. ere is no natural conversation banter. They do not laugh at jokes. An Autistic or Aspersers’ child will never comprehend the
banter. Even if the child has developed to the point that they can engage in simple conversations, you constantly have to explain yourself and reassure them that a remark was meant as a joke. They never quite get the social cues in life. As a child this can be hurtful. As an adult this can be devastating”.
This parent called for the County’s program to be expanded to educate the public as well as educators and first responders noting that adult
ASD victims are frequently hospitalized for depression and other problems simply because the public cannot understand them.
Autistic children and adults can exhibit mood swings; they can appear fine one minute and not so fine the next. ASD victims do not have coping
skills. If they develop sufficiently to be able to engage in society they also become aware that they are different and often experience depression.
Autistic victims with mild ASD often do not exhibit visible signs of a disability, which creates unique problems. According to one parent, “For a
disabled child to get sympathy, everything has to be visible, such as the use of a wheelchair, or they display ‘drama’”.
This mother spoke of how her child was never invited to a birthday party or a school event, even among the special education groups, noting that “the schools do not step in because they do not want to offend the other parents. My child has never had a friend in her entire life”.
Some autistic children can display incredible talents such as musical abilities, but those talents may not always be encouraged. One parent told the Guardian of how her child was selected for a highly regarded music revue every year in school due to her talent and how one mother objected that a “mentally retarded” child was selected to showcase the school.
As autistic children develop into adults, they need legal protection and an advocate for their rights and needs when their parents and caregivers die.
Sadly, none of the guardians or attorneys appointed by the courts, or even the judges themselves, are educated in the unique needs of an autistic child. One parent showed the Guardian a court order from the Westchester County Court that referred to her adult child as “mentally retarded”. As that parent informed the Guardian, “There is no sensitivity for these victims”.
A court-appointed guardian for one adult victim asked her parent, “She’s not mentally retarded, is she?” That same guardian dismissed a treatment
program in a legal document as a “class”, to which the parent replied, “Did he think she was getting college credit for this?”
Parents with autistic children are often forced to engage in legal battles to advocate the rights of their child in our schools, communities, and hospitals. But a parent battling a school psychologist or doctor in court will have to prove who has the best interests of the child at heart. The legal system will automatically appoint a legal guardian to represent the child’s interests.
But, as the Guardian has noted in prior articles on this subject, those guardians do not have any specialized training in autism and the unique needs of its victims. A parent fighting a school district over the use of medication to make their child more compliant in class will face handing this
decision over to a court-appointed attorney whose only qualification to analyze the issue is the amount he/she contributed to the judge’s campaign.
Once the parent caring for an autistic child dies, that child may be placed into a group home where patients with all mental disorders, including
criminals with violent personality disorders, are lumped together. Last May, a young staff counselor for Sunset House, a psychiatric group home
in Westchester County, was savagely beaten for hours by a resident convict, David Sanchez. According to the police reports, the victim was beaten so severely she suffered a fractured eye socket, a lost tooth, and a punctured eardrum. Yet it is into this environment that our most vulnerable individuals are placed on a routine basis when they no longer have anyone to advocate on their behalf.
Children who exhibit severe autistic symptoms receive treatment early on since their problems are easily recognized and diagnosed. But for those
children who have mild cases of autism, such as Asperser’s, they can be bounced around from treatment center to doctors to psychologists to counselors trying one treatment and medication after another until the correct diagnosis is finally reached. As one parent noted, “These children are pin cushions for the ‘experts’ to keep probing until something finally hits home”. Children with mild forms of autism may skate through their younger years with their young peers. But once those children reach their teenage years, social issues surface. These teenagers are usually ostracized by their peers and experience depression as a result, often attempting suicide.
When placed in a comfortable, secure environment, where they are surrounded by children like themselves, they do best. But once that security
is removed, and their environment is changed, they can immediately fall apart. One parent spoke of how her mildly autistic child attended a treatment program for several months but “fell to pieces” the first day she returned to school because of something someone said to her on the school bus.
The comment did not necessarily have to be a bullying or teasing remark. Autistic children are very “black and white”. They cannot comprehend
nuances or inflections. All local schools now have a “zero tolerance” for bullying and do not tolerate bullying towards disabled children. But
mildly autistic children who appear to function in school can still react to comments that other students, and even adults, would consider to be innocuous.
A simple question of “do you want to go to the concert?” can be interpreted by the autistic child as implying that they should not attend the event and can send their moods spiraling downwards.
Adult victims of autism may have depleted their families finances and no longer qualify for their medical coverage and will have to transfer to Medicaid to have their health needs handled. However, Medicaid is not equipped to handle the medical and treatment needs of the autistic adult.
As one local parent noted, “In order to qualify for Medicaid, you have to be living in the gutter. If the patient makes even $50 too much a month,
they will lose their Medicaid insurance”.
This parent’s child had thirteen hospitalizations in three years because Medicaid does not pay for any long-term treatment plan for the symptoms
that appear in adulthood. Medicaid will only cover short-term crisis intervention programs. Those programs do little to help an autistic adult develop the coping skills they will need to deal with society, let alone develop the skills they will need to adjust when their parents and guardians eventually die. “My daughter only got 15 minutes of therapy, twice a week, in the Medicaid programs. She was given up to fifteen pills a day instead to treat her problems” one parent said.
Adults with mental disorders such as autism face a stigma in our society. Many people still believe that someone with a mental disorder must be dangerous and violent. But as one sibling of a mentally-challenged individual noted, “There are far more dangerous people walking around in corporate offices and courtrooms who are far more capable of hurting huge numbers of people”.
To date, there is little understanding of what causes autism. All that is really known of this disorder is its symptoms which include:
• Extreme difficulty in learning language;
• Avoids eye contact, resists touch, and seems to tune out the world;
• Poor ability to play cooperatively with other children or to make friends;
• Inability to understand other people's feelings;
• Need for a rigid, highly structured routine and distressed by any changes;
• Extreme hyperactivity or unusual passivity;
• Repetitive body movements including pacing, rocking, or hitting oneself;
• Insensitivity to pain or lack of response to cold or heat;
• Impulsive behavior and no real fear of dangers;
• Unusual attachment to inanimate objects such as strings, or spinning toys;
• Frequent crying and tantrums for no apparent reason;
• Peculiar speech, using words without understanding the meanings;
• Abnormal responses to light, sound, and touch and may appear deaf;
• May be extremely distressed by everyday noises;
• Symptoms can change as the child grows older.
According to their report, the Westchester County Autism Advisory Committee members are the parents of children with ASD and all represent
a vast number of individuals and organizations that offer treatment, education, training advocacy and funding opportunities to the autism community.
The goal of this Committee is for ASD patients to “live as independent a life as possible” and they hope their recommendations will eliminate the
“missed opportunities of a fulfilling life for our citizens”.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Problems Facing Victims Of Autism
On August 5, Andy Spano announced that Westchester County was now “Autism Friendly” following the recommendations of an April 1, 2009 report from the Westchester County Autism Advisory Committee. According to this report, there are currently approximately 4,000 individuals
living with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in the County.
The Committee defined autism as a “complex, neurobiological developmental disability”. They went on to indicate that its victims have “poorly
developed verbal and nonverbal communication skills, unusual speech patterns, limited interest in social interactions often leading to social
withdrawal. Individuals with autism often struggle to be flexible or tolerate even small changes in routines, experience sensory sensitivities, exhibit
repetitive or ritualistic behavior and often focus on objects rather than on people. It occurs in all racial, ethnic, and social groups and is four times
more likely to impact boys than girls. Symptoms can range from very mild to quite severe”.
The Committee made the following recommendations to the County:
• Declare Westchester County as an “Autism Friendly” County;
• Establish a Westchester County Autism Family Resource Center;
• Establish an Adult Advocacy Department;
• Establish a Special Liaison for Adult Autism Services;
• Develop a “How to” manual for businesses to employ adults who have Problems Facing Victims Of Autism ASD;
• Develop a post-secondary educational program for adults with ASD;
• Broker the establishment of a specialized medical/psychiatric treatment facility;
• Establish a Family and Service Provider Training Institute;
• Establish Autism Sensitivity Awareness Training for first-responders.
While the Committee is attempting to address the awareness of autism in our communities, even the experts do not properly address this disability.
School psychologists, counselors, and testing procedures are not geared to diagnosing milder forms of autism such as Asperser’s Syndrome. Parents
of such children are usually forced to initiate testing themselves. However, if a child is not properly diagnosed at an early age, by the time they are
adults they can become bipolar, develop eating and borderline personality disorders, and addictive behaviors. Early intervention is the key to helping victims of autism.
Children with mild forms of autism are often diagnosed as simply having behavioral problems. Early education programs such as day care and preschools do not have the resources to diagnose or address mild forms of ASD. Public elementary schools’ programs to identify and address the needs of an ASD child vary according to the financial resources of the school district.
Financial difficulties are affecting more than just the educational needs of ASD victims. Medical and treatment programs have recently been shut down due to government budget cuts or cutbacks in private funding. Few programs now exist for ASD patients who have developed eating disorder
problems. Private hospitals, such as Four Winds Medical Center in Katonah, have programs that address the problems of the autistic child but such programs are prohibitively expensive.
ASD children are often over medicated or given incorrect medications. Treatment programs to enable such children to develop coping skills are short-term and do not address long-term or future needs. The programs can cost as much as $30,000 for a mere 28 days.
However, there is no guarantee that a facility will accept an ASD patient; programs will refuse acceptance to patients who exhibit violent or extreme anti-social behavior. One parent told the Guardian that St. Vincent’s Hospital in Harrison mixes victims of all mental disorders together,
so that adult ASD patients exhibiting bipolar disorders will be together with eating disorder victims. According to this parent, St. Vincent’s does not offer separate break-out groups for specialized treatment, and no individual therapy for the patient.
As one parent noted, “The local hospitals only offer crisis intervention for adult patients with ASD. ere is no real therapy going on. The hospitals will only keep the patient for a short period, usually only 7 to 10 days, until the patient is “compliant”. As this parent told the Guardian, “‘Compliance’ is a big word. It means the patient will ‘tow the line’ and obey orders, especially when it comes time to sleep”. In order to make
patients “compliant”, many autism victims are overmedicated into submission.
Parents noted that when their autistic children return home from these “crises centers”, they exhibit withdrawal symptoms from the cocktail of medications they were exposed to while in the treatment facility.
Patients with mental issues are often grouped in many of these treatment programs according to gender, rather than cause. Autistic patients who have multiple hospital and treatment center admissions can become “hospital savvy”, they learn from each other. Autism does not always affect
intellect, especially in milder, higher functioning cases. Many patients are very intelligent and gifted.
There are autistic children who can play concert piano pieces by ear. One autistic child in upstate New York is a star basketball player and has mastered the repetitive motions of the sport like bouncing and dribbling. In environments where all patients with mental issues are grouped together, some autistic patients will learn from, or develop and mimic, the behavioral patterns of the other patients. An autistic adult entering a treatment program to develop social and coping skills can leave with knowledge of how to purge their food after witnessing the eating disorder
patients exhibiting this behavior.
Life with an autistic child is heartbreaking. As one mother told the Guardian, “You watch your child grow up never fitting in. All of the social
cues are missing. ere is no natural conversation banter. They do not laugh at jokes. An Autistic or Aspersers’ child will never comprehend the
banter. Even if the child has developed to the point that they can engage in simple conversations, you constantly have to explain yourself and reassure them that a remark was meant as a joke. They never quite get the social cues in life. As a child this can be hurtful. As an adult this can be devastating”.
This parent called for the County’s program to be expanded to educate the public as well as educators and first responders noting that adult
ASD victims are frequently hospitalized for depression and other problems simply because the public cannot understand them.
Autistic children and adults can exhibit mood swings; they can appear fine one minute and not so fine the next. ASD victims do not have coping
skills. If they develop sufficiently to be able to engage in society they also become aware that they are different and often experience depression.
Autistic victims with mild ASD often do not exhibit visible signs of a disability, which creates unique problems. According to one parent, “For a
disabled child to get sympathy, everything has to be visible, such as the use of a wheelchair, or they display ‘drama’”.
This mother spoke of how her child was never invited to a birthday party or a school event, even among the special education groups, noting that “the schools do not step in because they do not want to offend the other parents. My child has never had a friend in her entire life”.
Some autistic children can display incredible talents such as musical abilities, but those talents may not always be encouraged. One parent told the Guardian of how her child was selected for a highly regarded music revue every year in school due to her talent and how one mother objected that a “mentally retarded” child was selected to showcase the school.
As autistic children develop into adults, they need legal protection and an advocate for their rights and needs when their parents and caregivers die.
Sadly, none of the guardians or attorneys appointed by the courts, or even the judges themselves, are educated in the unique needs of an autistic child. One parent showed the Guardian a court order from the Westchester County Court that referred to her adult child as “mentally retarded”. As that parent informed the Guardian, “There is no sensitivity for these victims”.
A court-appointed guardian for one adult victim asked her parent, “She’s not mentally retarded, is she?” That same guardian dismissed a treatment
program in a legal document as a “class”, to which the parent replied, “Did he think she was getting college credit for this?”
Parents with autistic children are often forced to engage in legal battles to advocate the rights of their child in our schools, communities, and hospitals. But a parent battling a school psychologist or doctor in court will have to prove who has the best interests of the child at heart. The legal system will automatically appoint a legal guardian to represent the child’s interests.
But, as the Guardian has noted in prior articles on this subject, those guardians do not have any specialized training in autism and the unique needs of its victims. A parent fighting a school district over the use of medication to make their child more compliant in class will face handing this
decision over to a court-appointed attorney whose only qualification to analyze the issue is the amount he/she contributed to the judge’s campaign.
Once the parent caring for an autistic child dies, that child may be placed into a group home where patients with all mental disorders, including
criminals with violent personality disorders, are lumped together. Last May, a young staff counselor for Sunset House, a psychiatric group home
in Westchester County, was savagely beaten for hours by a resident convict, David Sanchez. According to the police reports, the victim was beaten so severely she suffered a fractured eye socket, a lost tooth, and a punctured eardrum. Yet it is into this environment that our most vulnerable individuals are placed on a routine basis when they no longer have anyone to advocate on their behalf.
Children who exhibit severe autistic symptoms receive treatment early on since their problems are easily recognized and diagnosed. But for those
children who have mild cases of autism, such as Asperser’s, they can be bounced around from treatment center to doctors to psychologists to counselors trying one treatment and medication after another until the correct diagnosis is finally reached. As one parent noted, “These children are pin cushions for the ‘experts’ to keep probing until something finally hits home”. Children with mild forms of autism may skate through their younger years with their young peers. But once those children reach their teenage years, social issues surface. These teenagers are usually ostracized by their peers and experience depression as a result, often attempting suicide.
When placed in a comfortable, secure environment, where they are surrounded by children like themselves, they do best. But once that security
is removed, and their environment is changed, they can immediately fall apart. One parent spoke of how her mildly autistic child attended a treatment program for several months but “fell to pieces” the first day she returned to school because of something someone said to her on the school bus.
The comment did not necessarily have to be a bullying or teasing remark. Autistic children are very “black and white”. They cannot comprehend
nuances or inflections. All local schools now have a “zero tolerance” for bullying and do not tolerate bullying towards disabled children. But
mildly autistic children who appear to function in school can still react to comments that other students, and even adults, would consider to be innocuous.
A simple question of “do you want to go to the concert?” can be interpreted by the autistic child as implying that they should not attend the event and can send their moods spiraling downwards.
Adult victims of autism may have depleted their families finances and no longer qualify for their medical coverage and will have to transfer to Medicaid to have their health needs handled. However, Medicaid is not equipped to handle the medical and treatment needs of the autistic adult.
As one local parent noted, “In order to qualify for Medicaid, you have to be living in the gutter. If the patient makes even $50 too much a month,
they will lose their Medicaid insurance”.
This parent’s child had thirteen hospitalizations in three years because Medicaid does not pay for any long-term treatment plan for the symptoms
that appear in adulthood. Medicaid will only cover short-term crisis intervention programs. Those programs do little to help an autistic adult develop the coping skills they will need to deal with society, let alone develop the skills they will need to adjust when their parents and guardians eventually die. “My daughter only got 15 minutes of therapy, twice a week, in the Medicaid programs. She was given up to fifteen pills a day instead to treat her problems” one parent said.
Adults with mental disorders such as autism face a stigma in our society. Many people still believe that someone with a mental disorder must be dangerous and violent. But as one sibling of a mentally-challenged individual noted, “There are far more dangerous people walking around in corporate offices and courtrooms who are far more capable of hurting huge numbers of people”.
To date, there is little understanding of what causes autism. All that is really known of this disorder is its symptoms which include:
• Extreme difficulty in learning language;
• Avoids eye contact, resists touch, and seems to tune out the world;
• Poor ability to play cooperatively with other children or to make friends;
• Inability to understand other people's feelings;
• Need for a rigid, highly structured routine and distressed by any changes;
• Extreme hyperactivity or unusual passivity;
• Repetitive body movements including pacing, rocking, or hitting oneself;
• Insensitivity to pain or lack of response to cold or heat;
• Impulsive behavior and no real fear of dangers;
• Unusual attachment to inanimate objects such as strings, or spinning toys;
• Frequent crying and tantrums for no apparent reason;
• Peculiar speech, using words without understanding the meanings;
• Abnormal responses to light, sound, and touch and may appear deaf;
• May be extremely distressed by everyday noises;
• Symptoms can change as the child grows older.
According to their report, the Westchester County Autism Advisory Committee members are the parents of children with ASD and all represent
a vast number of individuals and organizations that offer treatment, education, training advocacy and funding opportunities to the autism community.
The goal of this Committee is for ASD patients to “live as independent a life as possible” and they hope their recommendations will eliminate the
“missed opportunities of a fulfilling life for our citizens”.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Westchester Guardian Special Report/Janet Difiore.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Life-Long Republican Janet DiFiore Grabs Huge
Campaign Contribution From Gabelli Fund
Sued By S.E.C. & F.C.C. For Public Ripoffs
At this time in our nation’s history, when we have become too painfully aware of the unlawful antics
and schemes that so-called hedge funds and investment advisors and managers have engaged in over
the past several years, raking in enormous personal profits at the expense of honest, trusting clients, it
is appalling to discover that Janet DiFiore has accepted an enormous campaign contribution, in May
of this year, from Gabelli Funds, headquartered at One Corporate Center, Rye, New York.
According to a BusinessWeek report dated August 13, 2009, “Gabelli Funds, LLC is an asset management arm of Gamco Investors,
Inc. with approximately $29 billion in assets under management.
The firm provides its services to investment companies. It manages a family of equity, fixed-income, money-market and balanced mutual funds for its clients.”
BusinessWeek reported, in April of last year, that, “Gabelli Funds, LLC reached a settlement with the SEC.”The BusinessWeek report
stated, “SEC Sues Former Portfolio Manager Of Gamco Global Growth Fund And Chief Operating Officer Of Gabelli Funds.”
The report detailed, “The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Marc J. Gabelli, the former portfolio manager of Gabelli Global Growth Fund, currently known as Gamco Global Growth Fund, and Bruce Alpert, Chief Operating Officer of Gabelli Funds, LLC in connection with an undisclosed market timing arrangement with Folkes Asset Management, currently known as Head Start Advisors, Ltd.
The report further states, “The complaint charges Marc Gabelli and Alpert with fraud for aiding and abetting violations of Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisors Act of 1940.” It goes on to state, “It charges Alpert with violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Secton 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Exchange Act Rule 10-5.”
The report explains, “In a related administrative proceeding, the Commission simultaneously instituted and settled Administrative Cease And Desist proceedings against Gabelli Funds, a registered investment advisor.” Gabelli Funds, Janet DiFiore’s second-biggest contributor, from
who she saw fit, three months ago, to accept $16,000, last year:
• was censured;
• ordered to Cease And Desist its violations of federal laws;
• ordered to pay $9.7 million in disengorgement;
• ordered to pay $1.3 million in pre-judgment interest, and;
• ordered to pay $5 million penalty, for a total of $16 million in 2008.
Under the court order, the monies paid by Gabelli Funds were to be distributed to shareholders who were harmed by the market timing activity Gabelli had engaged in.
Two years earlier, in 2006, according to www.lawyersandsettlements.com, “Mario Gabelli and Companies agree to pay $130 million to settle fraud allegations brought by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)” who charged that he “allegedly created fake companies to gain an illegal advantage in the auction of cell phone spectrum, and in so doing, sought to benefit from public resources.”
Most people recognize that Janet DiFiore, despite her ridiculous attempt to convince voters that she is a Democrat, is, in fact, a very wealthy, heavily-connected Republican accustomed to doing business with the Gabellis, and other high rollers like them. Having very wealthy friends certainly isn’t a crime.
However, accepting a huge campaign contribution from their company just three months ago, knowing full well that that company, over the last couple of years, was compelled to pay nearly $150 million to settle suits brought by both the SEC and the FCC because of unlawful activities harmful to American citizens and investors, is totally unacceptable and speaks volumes about who Janet DiFiore really is.
SPECIAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
Life-Long Republican Janet DiFiore Grabs Huge
Campaign Contribution From Gabelli Fund
Sued By S.E.C. & F.C.C. For Public Ripoffs
At this time in our nation’s history, when we have become too painfully aware of the unlawful antics
and schemes that so-called hedge funds and investment advisors and managers have engaged in over
the past several years, raking in enormous personal profits at the expense of honest, trusting clients, it
is appalling to discover that Janet DiFiore has accepted an enormous campaign contribution, in May
of this year, from Gabelli Funds, headquartered at One Corporate Center, Rye, New York.
According to a BusinessWeek report dated August 13, 2009, “Gabelli Funds, LLC is an asset management arm of Gamco Investors,
Inc. with approximately $29 billion in assets under management.
The firm provides its services to investment companies. It manages a family of equity, fixed-income, money-market and balanced mutual funds for its clients.”
BusinessWeek reported, in April of last year, that, “Gabelli Funds, LLC reached a settlement with the SEC.”The BusinessWeek report
stated, “SEC Sues Former Portfolio Manager Of Gamco Global Growth Fund And Chief Operating Officer Of Gabelli Funds.”
The report detailed, “The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a civil fraud action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Marc J. Gabelli, the former portfolio manager of Gabelli Global Growth Fund, currently known as Gamco Global Growth Fund, and Bruce Alpert, Chief Operating Officer of Gabelli Funds, LLC in connection with an undisclosed market timing arrangement with Folkes Asset Management, currently known as Head Start Advisors, Ltd.
The report further states, “The complaint charges Marc Gabelli and Alpert with fraud for aiding and abetting violations of Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisors Act of 1940.” It goes on to state, “It charges Alpert with violations of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, and Secton 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Exchange Act Rule 10-5.”
The report explains, “In a related administrative proceeding, the Commission simultaneously instituted and settled Administrative Cease And Desist proceedings against Gabelli Funds, a registered investment advisor.” Gabelli Funds, Janet DiFiore’s second-biggest contributor, from
who she saw fit, three months ago, to accept $16,000, last year:
• was censured;
• ordered to Cease And Desist its violations of federal laws;
• ordered to pay $9.7 million in disengorgement;
• ordered to pay $1.3 million in pre-judgment interest, and;
• ordered to pay $5 million penalty, for a total of $16 million in 2008.
Under the court order, the monies paid by Gabelli Funds were to be distributed to shareholders who were harmed by the market timing activity Gabelli had engaged in.
Two years earlier, in 2006, according to www.lawyersandsettlements.com, “Mario Gabelli and Companies agree to pay $130 million to settle fraud allegations brought by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)” who charged that he “allegedly created fake companies to gain an illegal advantage in the auction of cell phone spectrum, and in so doing, sought to benefit from public resources.”
Most people recognize that Janet DiFiore, despite her ridiculous attempt to convince voters that she is a Democrat, is, in fact, a very wealthy, heavily-connected Republican accustomed to doing business with the Gabellis, and other high rollers like them. Having very wealthy friends certainly isn’t a crime.
However, accepting a huge campaign contribution from their company just three months ago, knowing full well that that company, over the last couple of years, was compelled to pay nearly $150 million to settle suits brought by both the SEC and the FCC because of unlawful activities harmful to American citizens and investors, is totally unacceptable and speaks volumes about who Janet DiFiore really is.
Westchester Guardian/The Advocate.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Andrew Spano And David Paterson Each
Pull The Race Card To Cover Their Blunders
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Andrew Spano And David Paterson Each
Pull The Race Card To Cover Their Blunders
About a week and a half ago, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano and Governor David Paterson, each very low in public opinion polls, each having been cited for major blunders, each individually pulled the race card in their desperation to bolster their position.
David Paterson, during an interview on a talk radio show, told Daily News columnist Errol Louis, “We’re not in the post-racial period. My feeling is it’s being orchestrated, it’s a game, and people who pay attention know that.” He went on to say, “The next victim on the list, and you see it
coming, is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than try to reform a healthcare system only because he’s trying to make change.”
Paterson was attempting to explain away his poor performance and numerous blunders since assuming the Governor’s Office, as nothing more than a “media-driven racial attack.” However, his remarks were quickly rebuked, as reported by New York Post Albany Bureau Chief Fred U. Dicker, who exclusively informed his readers, “President Obama’s aides were so furious that Governor Paterson dragged him into a rant about racism
that they sent a message sharply criticizing the Governor’s comments just hours a er he made them.” Columns in the New York Times and Daily News were very critical of the Governor’s comments for several days thereafter.
Andy Spano, on the other hand, already smarting from exposure of his Administration’s violations under the False Claims Act, and more than $13 million in fines and legal expenses, in a rare appearance before the County Legislature, and then on News12’s Newsmakers program, repeatedly pulled the race card in a desperate attempt to draw attention away from the $65 million debacle his misuse of federal funds and his misrepresentations to HUD since 2000 will now cost taxpayers.
There are too many unanswered questions, one of the most obvious of which is, “Where was the $52 million spent that Spano repeatedly assured the federal government was being used for the creation of affordable housing as required under the block grants from which Spano accepted the money?”
Westchester taxpayers have a right to know which developers and which brokers and property owners, tightly connected to Spano and his clique, were beneficiaries of his misappropriation. Never mind Andy’s attempt to distract taxpayers and voters with references to racism, and the notion that, as he told the County Legislators with his voice cracking, “It’s all about African-Americans and Hispanics. If you vote ‘no’, that must weigh heavily. We would become, as the City of Yonkers became the most racist city in the United States, the most racist county in the United States.”
In the course of his self-serving interview with News12’s Brian Conybeare, Spano strained to put a favorable spin where none was possible. He began one sentence, “We weren’t accused... [quickly inserting] convicted of anything.” Of course, he and his Administration stand accused, and plainly culpable of misappropriating, and misrepresenting the use of some $52 million; and, having spent another $5 million in legal fees, theirs and their non-profit opponent’s, over the last three years, they would now have County Taxpayers bail them out.
Spano had the chutzpah to tell Conybeare, “There’s minimal ongoing impact on County taxes.” Of course, there would seem to be “minimal impact” from the standpoint of a County Executive who has pushed the County’s budget up to practically $2 billion and who gives taxpayers’ money away like candy to his friends and political contributors. Making up for the $65 million called for in the settlement he’s trying to ram
through will cost each and every household in Westchester at least $200.
Andy Spano would like the People of Westchester to forget about the deal he, and Larry Schwartz, pushed through the County Legislature last
year to buy a “white elephant” of an old and moldy building at 450 Saw Mill River Road, Ardsley; a building that one of his big campaign contributors couldn’t unload on anybody else; a building that will likely cost $20 million between purchase, repair, and renovation before any County agency ever occupies it.
The simple truth is that the federal government has learned that Andy Spano & Company cannot be trusted to do the right thing with their money, much less truthfully report it; and, Westchester taxpayers, the nation’s highest taxed, have learned the same. As for David Paterson’s and Andrew Spano’s individual pathetic use of the race card to distract voters’ attention from their blunders and low poll standings, readers are reminded that the chief advisor to each of them is Larry Schwartz, a political schemer and dealer whose deck is filled with nothing but jokers and marked cards.
Confirming our beliefs, with respect to Larry Schwartz’ role, the New York Post, in its Monday, Aug. 24 edition, reported, on page 13, “Obama aide Patrick Gaspard called Paterson’s First Deputy Secretary, Larry Schwartz, to air the President’s frustrations over being dragged into Paterson’s rant about racism.”
Westchester Guardian/In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
In Our Opinion...
Imposed Affordable Housing Settlement Brings County Legislators’ Moment Of Truth
We believe the Westchester County Legislature, a body of 17 individuals, 13 of whom, whose One thousand Dollars A Week For Life lottery tickets have been validated by Andy Spano, with the advice and consent of Larry Schwartz, must now face their constituents.
They have shown us in the recent past, just last year, in fact, that the super-majority of them, the Democrats, are willing to do just about anything Andy asks of them, without hesitation and without scrutiny, no matter how unanimously their constituents may protest against it. Deciding, whether or not, to approve of the punitive over-reaching $65 million settlement that Andy’s misappropriation of $52 million, and his untruthfulness to the federal government, has put on Westchester families’ shoulders, may now very well turn out to be their moment
of truth.
There are so many unanswered questions and so little time to get things straight; less than a month. One thing is certain, however, taxpayers will be watching very closely and, taxpayers are also voters.
It will be most interesting to see just how thoroughly legislators are willing to scrutinize Spano, and whether or not they have
courage enough to bring Larry Schwartz before them, by subpoena, if necessary, to reveal the strategies and thinking that resulted in our present dilemma. And, what about the Spano Administration’s all-too-ready willingness to accept the settlement?
The taxpayers and families of Westchester have every right to know more about, and to express themselves at public hearings with respect to, every aspect of the ultimatum now before “their legislators”.
We believe the moment is fast approaching when most everyone will be proclaiming, “Emperor Spano is wearing no clothes.” How sad it will be for the Board, and for us all, if they are too late in recognizing that fact.
Simply because neither Jeanine Pirro nor Janet DiFiore were willing to discharge their responsibility to the People of Westchester, by investigating official misconduct in the County Executive’s Office, does not mean there hasn’t been any. Quite the contrary. Given the track record of the current DA, who prefers to prosecute the innocent and protect the guilty, her failure to look into the matter raises our suspicion all the more.
Our Readers Respond...
Paul Feiner Endorses Tony Castro For DA
Dear Editor:
On Tuesday, September 15, I will be voting for Tony Castro for District Attorney. This is not the first time I will be supporting his candidacy. Tony was the Democratic Party nominee for DA four years ago, and eight years ago when he was our party’s enthusiastic choice for DA against Jeanine Pirro. Some people think that Jeanine did not seek re-election four years ago because she was concerned about facing Tony again.
I was impressed with Tony since the day I first met him and learned about his life. He is an immigrant of Portugal. His father was a sherman; his mother a seamstress. He appreciates working class people; one of the many reasons why he received the Working Families Party line.
Tony is uniquely qualified for the post. He graduated from Harvard with a scholarship, and went to Boston College Law School. He worked his way through both. He joined the Bronx District Attorney’s Office and rose through the ranks to become Deputy Bureau Chief.
Tony has a big agenda planned if he is successful in winning election. He will take the lead role in pursuing internet issues such as pedophiles and predators who target both minors and seniors, through the immediate restoration of previously effective programs. He will eliminate the duplication of services and competition with local law enforcement.
As District Attorney, Tony will provide leadership by aggressively investigating and prosecuting criminals involved in elder abuse and other related areas such as money scams where our senior citizens are most vulnerable. The DA’s Office will become more efficient in pursuing financial swindling that has affected taxpayer dollars under Tony’s leadership.
Tony Castro will provide a pro-active platform for addressing ongoing gang-related issues, and implementing a Safe Streets Program involving the collaboration of citizens, police and probation officers that will focus on violence, assaults, and juvenile delinquency and criminal activity.
Finally, Tony introduced me to two individuals who served time in prison for crimes they did not commit. Tony will aggressively fight to keep innocent people out of jail; and, if they’re in jail, he’ll work to get their rights restored.
Over the years I have many attorneys and former colleagues of Tony who think the world of him. I know that he will be a fantastic public
official, and I urge the support of all citizens.
Paul Feiner, Greenburgh Town Supervisor
Reader Wants To “Throw The Bums Out!”
Dear Editor:
I read your article, “Throw The Bums Out!”. You are so right. We, the People, have the power in our fingertips on Election Day to do this. How long do we, the tax over-paying public, have to put up with this totally incompetent Westchester County government?
I say the answer is to vote out of office every single incumbent holding office. If a Republican is the incompetent, vote them out. If a Democrat is the incumbent, vote them out. Change everybody holding public office with your vote this year. Start with every New York State Senator. ank them for all the fun they had at our expense this summer.
Then, the County Executive of Westchester; even his own son is voting against him. We should be that smart to do the same. We cry about taxes and we vote back in office the ones who raised our taxes. The County Legislature is a blank check for the County Executive.
They rubber-stamp every commissioner, director, and incompetent Spano put in office for the last three terms, thank you!
I would say it’s about time the politicians go on the unemployment lines and we go back to being the enlightened voters I believe Westchester citizens are. I would also say to the new office-holders I hope we have this fall, “You have two, three or four years in office to get it right. You are the new incumbents and, if you do not get it right, bye!”
Respectfully submitted by a 53-year resident of Westchester County.
Stephen Celestino, Tuckahoe
The Thugacracy Comes To Yorktown
Dear Editor:
I thought this was a great place to live, and I am sure that is the reason most of us moved to Yorktown. Therefore, I would not believe what was going on behind the scenes unless it personally happened to me.
I have had my run-in with the Highway Superintendent Eric DiBartolo. He has great PR as he is a real media hound and leaves the impression that he is doing a great job. But at what cost? On the surface everything is fine until you cross him or question his “authority”.
The town did some work near my property and left some debris. They said they would be back to pick it up. When they did not come back, I called
the Highway Department. A few days later I happened to see one of the Town Councilmen and told him the problem.
The next thing I know I have a finger in my face and am being told by the Highway Super to “never go over his head again.” I told the story to someone else and they said they had a similar experience. They were intimidated by the threat and never told anyone.
Apparently this was not just a “bad day”, but is a pattern. I am a taxpayer and I pay the salary of every public servant in this town. There is no need for me, or any citizen, to be treated in this manner.
Ross Campbell, Jefferson Valley
In Our Opinion...
Imposed Affordable Housing Settlement Brings County Legislators’ Moment Of Truth
We believe the Westchester County Legislature, a body of 17 individuals, 13 of whom, whose One thousand Dollars A Week For Life lottery tickets have been validated by Andy Spano, with the advice and consent of Larry Schwartz, must now face their constituents.
They have shown us in the recent past, just last year, in fact, that the super-majority of them, the Democrats, are willing to do just about anything Andy asks of them, without hesitation and without scrutiny, no matter how unanimously their constituents may protest against it. Deciding, whether or not, to approve of the punitive over-reaching $65 million settlement that Andy’s misappropriation of $52 million, and his untruthfulness to the federal government, has put on Westchester families’ shoulders, may now very well turn out to be their moment
of truth.
There are so many unanswered questions and so little time to get things straight; less than a month. One thing is certain, however, taxpayers will be watching very closely and, taxpayers are also voters.
It will be most interesting to see just how thoroughly legislators are willing to scrutinize Spano, and whether or not they have
courage enough to bring Larry Schwartz before them, by subpoena, if necessary, to reveal the strategies and thinking that resulted in our present dilemma. And, what about the Spano Administration’s all-too-ready willingness to accept the settlement?
The taxpayers and families of Westchester have every right to know more about, and to express themselves at public hearings with respect to, every aspect of the ultimatum now before “their legislators”.
We believe the moment is fast approaching when most everyone will be proclaiming, “Emperor Spano is wearing no clothes.” How sad it will be for the Board, and for us all, if they are too late in recognizing that fact.
Simply because neither Jeanine Pirro nor Janet DiFiore were willing to discharge their responsibility to the People of Westchester, by investigating official misconduct in the County Executive’s Office, does not mean there hasn’t been any. Quite the contrary. Given the track record of the current DA, who prefers to prosecute the innocent and protect the guilty, her failure to look into the matter raises our suspicion all the more.
Our Readers Respond...
Paul Feiner Endorses Tony Castro For DA
Dear Editor:
On Tuesday, September 15, I will be voting for Tony Castro for District Attorney. This is not the first time I will be supporting his candidacy. Tony was the Democratic Party nominee for DA four years ago, and eight years ago when he was our party’s enthusiastic choice for DA against Jeanine Pirro. Some people think that Jeanine did not seek re-election four years ago because she was concerned about facing Tony again.
I was impressed with Tony since the day I first met him and learned about his life. He is an immigrant of Portugal. His father was a sherman; his mother a seamstress. He appreciates working class people; one of the many reasons why he received the Working Families Party line.
Tony is uniquely qualified for the post. He graduated from Harvard with a scholarship, and went to Boston College Law School. He worked his way through both. He joined the Bronx District Attorney’s Office and rose through the ranks to become Deputy Bureau Chief.
Tony has a big agenda planned if he is successful in winning election. He will take the lead role in pursuing internet issues such as pedophiles and predators who target both minors and seniors, through the immediate restoration of previously effective programs. He will eliminate the duplication of services and competition with local law enforcement.
As District Attorney, Tony will provide leadership by aggressively investigating and prosecuting criminals involved in elder abuse and other related areas such as money scams where our senior citizens are most vulnerable. The DA’s Office will become more efficient in pursuing financial swindling that has affected taxpayer dollars under Tony’s leadership.
Tony Castro will provide a pro-active platform for addressing ongoing gang-related issues, and implementing a Safe Streets Program involving the collaboration of citizens, police and probation officers that will focus on violence, assaults, and juvenile delinquency and criminal activity.
Finally, Tony introduced me to two individuals who served time in prison for crimes they did not commit. Tony will aggressively fight to keep innocent people out of jail; and, if they’re in jail, he’ll work to get their rights restored.
Over the years I have many attorneys and former colleagues of Tony who think the world of him. I know that he will be a fantastic public
official, and I urge the support of all citizens.
Paul Feiner, Greenburgh Town Supervisor
Reader Wants To “Throw The Bums Out!”
Dear Editor:
I read your article, “Throw The Bums Out!”. You are so right. We, the People, have the power in our fingertips on Election Day to do this. How long do we, the tax over-paying public, have to put up with this totally incompetent Westchester County government?
I say the answer is to vote out of office every single incumbent holding office. If a Republican is the incompetent, vote them out. If a Democrat is the incumbent, vote them out. Change everybody holding public office with your vote this year. Start with every New York State Senator. ank them for all the fun they had at our expense this summer.
Then, the County Executive of Westchester; even his own son is voting against him. We should be that smart to do the same. We cry about taxes and we vote back in office the ones who raised our taxes. The County Legislature is a blank check for the County Executive.
They rubber-stamp every commissioner, director, and incompetent Spano put in office for the last three terms, thank you!
I would say it’s about time the politicians go on the unemployment lines and we go back to being the enlightened voters I believe Westchester citizens are. I would also say to the new office-holders I hope we have this fall, “You have two, three or four years in office to get it right. You are the new incumbents and, if you do not get it right, bye!”
Respectfully submitted by a 53-year resident of Westchester County.
Stephen Celestino, Tuckahoe
The Thugacracy Comes To Yorktown
Dear Editor:
I thought this was a great place to live, and I am sure that is the reason most of us moved to Yorktown. Therefore, I would not believe what was going on behind the scenes unless it personally happened to me.
I have had my run-in with the Highway Superintendent Eric DiBartolo. He has great PR as he is a real media hound and leaves the impression that he is doing a great job. But at what cost? On the surface everything is fine until you cross him or question his “authority”.
The town did some work near my property and left some debris. They said they would be back to pick it up. When they did not come back, I called
the Highway Department. A few days later I happened to see one of the Town Councilmen and told him the problem.
The next thing I know I have a finger in my face and am being told by the Highway Super to “never go over his head again.” I told the story to someone else and they said they had a similar experience. They were intimidated by the threat and never told anyone.
Apparently this was not just a “bad day”, but is a pattern. I am a taxpayer and I pay the salary of every public servant in this town. There is no need for me, or any citizen, to be treated in this manner.
Ross Campbell, Jefferson Valley
Westchester Guardian/The Court Report.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Decision By Federal District Judge Kenneth M. Karas
Illustrates Need To Enact Federal Legislation To Curtail
Prosecutorial Misconduct And Wrongful Conviction
Most readers of The Guardian, indeed, most news-conscious Westchester residents, are by now quite familiar with the outrageous and unlawful
treatment of a young, babyfaced, 16-year-old Peekskill schoolboy, Jeffrey Deskovic, received at the hands of the Peekskill Police, the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, and Medical Examiner’s Office, upon the brutal rape and murder of one of his high school classmates, 15-year-old Angela Correa.
Deskovic, who was maliciously and cynically robbed of 17 years of his youth and young adulthood by mindless, wretched individuals masquerading
as public servants, can never be adequately compensated for all that has been taken both from him and from his loved ones, is nevertheless seeking some nancial award which may help ease the pain, and the developmental and experiential gaps in his life with which he will likely continue to struggle so long as he lives.
Toward that end, since emerging from prison, he has been engaged in a civil rights lawsuit, principally a Section 1983 suit against the agencies and individuals whose deliberate and criminal conduct ruthlessly stole so much of his youth and promise. Amazingly, this young man who emerged from State Prison three years ago, did so without a trace of bitterness or anger, but rather an abiding commitment to working hard to prevent others from undergoing the nightmare of prosecutorial misconduct and wrongful conviction. He has been a tireless advocate, writing and speaking out for legislation to prevent the kind of tyrannical and heinous conduct by state actors under the Color of Law that can best be described as “man’s in-
humanity to man.”
The subject of this Court Report is the action taken by Judge Kenneth M. Karas with respect to a Motion to Dismiss the charges against former
Westchester Assistant District Attorney George Bolen, the chief prosecutor of Jeffrey Deskovic some 20 years ago, for a rape and murder he had
every reason to realize the youngster was totally innocent of.
One would hope that the penultimate nature of the horrific assault on justice that was perpetrated under the supervision and self-serving evil of ADA George Bolen might inspire all engaged in its discovery and reconciliation to carefully consider the global implications of their judgments
and actions particularly with respect to those who have gone to their execution under similar, unthinkable circumstances, and, most importantly, those who may still.
The rape and murder of Angela Correa, a girl he hardly knew, except by sight, on November 17, 1989, would prove to be a tragedy of defining
significance for a 16-year-old school-mate who would quickly become the target of a malicious and mindless campaign to produce a believable “monster” to satisfy the calls for a suspect, anyone who, once taken into custody, would calm the fears of a city consisting of fewer than 7,000 households.
Judge Karas would seem early on to be emphasizing the unlawful aspects of the Peekskill Police Department’s conduct with respect to Deskovic in the rst seven pages of his 35-page decision. Within three weeks of the crime, Detectives Tumolo, Levine, and McIntyre, without one concrete piece of evidence, were convinced that Deskovic was a “person of interest.”
Officer David Levine would, as noted by Karas, despite prior notification of the attachment of counsel, coerce the naive youngster into waiving
his right to counsel, whereupon he and his fellow Peekskill Police Officers surely, under the supervision and awareness of ADA Bolen “interrogated Deskovic on numerous other occasions.”
Judge Karas would seem to go out of his way not only to point out the unlawful activities of the Peekskill Police in their dealings with Deskovic,
but signi cantly emphasized that those same police, with respect to Deskovic’s knowing of details, falsely “represented in police reports, in conversations with prosecutors before trial, at pre-trial hearings, and a trial that these public facts were actually the product of Deskovic’s independent knowledge about the crime.”
When making detailed reference to the horrific January 25th, 1990 scenario under which Jeffrey Deskovic was unlawfully kidnapped by Tumolo,
McIntyre, and Levine while on his way to school, and brought to a virtual torture chamber in Brewster to be interrogated for some eight hours; most of that time attached to a polygraph machine, interestingly Karas initially makes no reference to the polygraph nor then-Putnam County Deputy Sheri Daniel Stephens.
Judge Karas does not fail to note Detective McIntyre’s exclusions from his police report, of any mention of threats of violence against Deskovic,
and the promise that he would “go home and receive mental health treatment” if he simply confessed, as well as Deputy Stephens’ reported false
representation that facts conveyed by Deskovic originated with him rather than the Peekskill Police Officers.”
It should be noted that the whole polygraph confession incident took place in Brewster, some 20 miles away from Peekskill, in a place totally unfamiliar to Deskovic.
Karas takes the opportunity to point out, “Plaintiffs also specifically allege that prosecutors were unaware of the bulk of the Peekskill Police
Departments’ officers’ misconduct and of other potentially exculpatory information.” One would be naive to believe that George Bolen could be, or would be, kept in the dark as to the details of how the false confession was extracted from 16-year-old Jeffrey.
There can be no question that Bolen was the engineer aboard the Runaway Train that the investigation into the rape and murder of Angela Correa
turned into.
The notion that a whole raft of exculpatory information known to Officers Tumolo, Levine and McIntyre, including false representations of Deskovic’s “independent knowledge,” the fabrication of evidence, material facts regarding the circumstances surrounding the “confession,” exculpatory statements from Peekskill High School students, etc., could be concealed from George Bolen, is totally incompatible with all that this
reporter knows about the experience and cunning of that prosecutor.
Judge Karas notes “the DNA test results were returned just days after Deskovic’s indictment,” and, further, that, “the tests definitively excluded
Deskovic as the source of semen found in Angela Correa’s body”, and, also that, “microscopic hair analysis of hairs found on Angela Correa’s
body excluded Deskovic as the source of those hairs.”
What was Bolen’s Big Rush to get an indictment, knowing that DNA and hair follicle results would be coming any day, and would be rock-solid
evidence for presentation to a grand jury. The real issue was whether the FBI lab had already tipped Bolen off.
In all fairness, Karas does indicate that once Bolen was officially notified of the DNA and hair results, he thereafter, as alleged, “directed that additional investigation be done by the Peekskill Police Department, and personally conducted and personally directed further investigation to provide an explanation for the presence of another man’s semen inside Angela Correa following her rape and murder.”
Further, after revealing that Plaintiffs alleged that Bolen and Dr. Luis Roh had determined they would provide evidence that the victim
had scarring on her hymen indicating she had been sexually active, the Judge states, “Bolen knew, or should have known, that Roh [Deputy Chief
Medical Examiner for Westchester County] had no scientific basis for this conclusion, and that he had not observed the scarring he had reported
to Bolen,” without question, exposing the most egregious of George Bolen’s feats of engineering.
Nonetheless, despite his illustration of such malicious prosecutorial misconduct, by Bolen’s own design after the obtaining of a “ham sandwich indictment,” the Judge unfortunately expresses the view that all of his relevant prosecutorial misconduct was in the capacity of
The Peoples’ Advocate, and not in his investigative capacity, where only qualified immunity would be available.
In the discussion section of Judge Karas’ decision, he writes, “The Supreme Court has held that while a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)6
Motion To Dismiss, does not need factual allegations, a Plaintiff ’s obligation to provide the grounds of his ‘entitlement to believe’ requires more
than labels and conclusions and a formulaic rescitation of the elements of a Cause Of Action will not do.”
This reporter believes it is more than “mere speculation” that Bolen was aware of the fact that DNA testing had proved the semen and the
hairs found in and on Angela Correa, respectively, were not from Jeffrey Deskovic, fully eight months before he took him to trial with suborned,
perjured testimony.
We firmly believe that at trial Dr. Luis Roh will surely implicate Bolen and very likely tell a jury that the reason he fabricated the scarred hymen
evidence was to help Bolen go forward with his misguided, malicious prosecution of Jeffrey Deskovic. Judge Karas, in discussing absolute
immunity, indicates, “Bolen claims he should be dismissed from Plaintiff ’s actions because he is absolutely immune from Section 1983
liability for his alleged conduct.”
He then cites Burns v. Reed (1991), “Courts recognize absolute immunity for official conduct to the same extent it was recognized at Common Law.” He then informs, quoting from Malley v. Briggs (1986), “Since [Section 1983] on its face does not provide for any immunities [courts would be] going far to read into it an absolute immunity for conduct which was only accorded qualified immunity in 1871, [when the statute was enacted].” Turning to a fairly recent Second Circuit case, Shmueli v. City Of New York (2005), Karas lifts the pronouncement, “It is now well established that a State Prosecuting Attorney who acted within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution, is immune from civil suit for damages under Section 1983.”
Continuing, he borrows from another Second Circuit decision, Hill v. City Of New York (1995), “Extending absolute immunity to such prosecutorial misconduct insures that public prosecutors can zealously perform the prosecutorial duties of the Office [without being] compelled to work under the constant threat of legal reprisals.”
We would ask whether George Bolen was acting within the scope of his duties when he refused to acknowledge the implication of the negative DNA and hair follicle test results? And, we would further ask whether inventing a terribly defaming and demeaning lie about young victim Angela Correa was also within the scope of his duties? Finally, we would inquire whether “zealous performance” includes unlawful scheming and intentionally sending an innocent 16-year-old child to prison for life, or, whether it is really all about collecting two paychecks a month?
Surely there would be no “retaliation” to worry about if prosecutors were doing what they are supposed to be doing, and not sending innocent persons to prison while turning guilty ones free to repeat their crimes.
Analysis:
If absolute immunity attaches when a prosecutor is acting as “an advocate for the State,” how was George Bolen ever an advocate for the State? The People are the State; and, how is he advocating for the People when he knowingly sends one of the People to prison for a crime he knows, or should know, he is innocent of, while permitting the real perpetrator to roam free, and to kill still another innocent person? Does concocting a false story to negate the DNA evidence of an accused person’s innocence come under, “Appropriate preparation for presentation?”
We contend that George Bolen was clearly a rogue prosecutor outside his role as an Advocate For The People; and that the People did not want Bolen to intentionally strive to send an innocent 16-year-old boy, without any criminal record, to prison for a crime Bolen knew he did not commit.
Judge Karas, citing several cases, explains, “For example, absolute immunity is not available when a prosecutor advises the police whether
probable cause exists during their pre-trial investigation.” We ask, how would such advice differ from a conversation by a prosecutor with
a medical examiner, assuming such exchange was in good faith? After all, both the police and the medical examiner perform an evidence-gathering
function, the product of which must reach a particular threshhold.
When the test results came back negative, Bolen knew he had no probable cause. A forced confession from a scared, 16-year-old boy surely
could not trump DNA and hair follicle evidence that did not match him. Twenty-five pages into his decision, Judge Karas declares, “The
Court finds that even taking the Plaintiff’s allegations to be true, Bolen’s allegedly improper actions took place in the judicial phase of
the criminal process. To begin with, it is important to note that the alleged conduct that forms the basis for Plaintiff’s claims against Bolen
occurred after Deskovic’s indictment.
And, from the allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint, it is evident not only that Bolen had no reason to doubt bona fides of the indictment, but also
that he had strong reason to believe that Deskovic was guilty based on his supposed confession.”
With all due respect to the Judge; as to the fact that Bolen’s act followed Deskovic’s indictment, it is very clear that Bolen rushed into the grand jury a day or two before he knew he would have the official results and, that the case was intentionally brought to the grand jury
a few days before the DNA and hair follicle results would be officially released for the following reason:
Bolen already knew the results and knew if he officially had them, he would have to acknowledge and explain them, and likely not get his
indictment, and not be eligible for absolute immunity if caught doing what he was about to do with Dr. Roh.
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
Decision By Federal District Judge Kenneth M. Karas
Illustrates Need To Enact Federal Legislation To Curtail
Prosecutorial Misconduct And Wrongful Conviction
Most readers of The Guardian, indeed, most news-conscious Westchester residents, are by now quite familiar with the outrageous and unlawful
treatment of a young, babyfaced, 16-year-old Peekskill schoolboy, Jeffrey Deskovic, received at the hands of the Peekskill Police, the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, and Medical Examiner’s Office, upon the brutal rape and murder of one of his high school classmates, 15-year-old Angela Correa.
Deskovic, who was maliciously and cynically robbed of 17 years of his youth and young adulthood by mindless, wretched individuals masquerading
as public servants, can never be adequately compensated for all that has been taken both from him and from his loved ones, is nevertheless seeking some nancial award which may help ease the pain, and the developmental and experiential gaps in his life with which he will likely continue to struggle so long as he lives.
Toward that end, since emerging from prison, he has been engaged in a civil rights lawsuit, principally a Section 1983 suit against the agencies and individuals whose deliberate and criminal conduct ruthlessly stole so much of his youth and promise. Amazingly, this young man who emerged from State Prison three years ago, did so without a trace of bitterness or anger, but rather an abiding commitment to working hard to prevent others from undergoing the nightmare of prosecutorial misconduct and wrongful conviction. He has been a tireless advocate, writing and speaking out for legislation to prevent the kind of tyrannical and heinous conduct by state actors under the Color of Law that can best be described as “man’s in-
humanity to man.”
The subject of this Court Report is the action taken by Judge Kenneth M. Karas with respect to a Motion to Dismiss the charges against former
Westchester Assistant District Attorney George Bolen, the chief prosecutor of Jeffrey Deskovic some 20 years ago, for a rape and murder he had
every reason to realize the youngster was totally innocent of.
One would hope that the penultimate nature of the horrific assault on justice that was perpetrated under the supervision and self-serving evil of ADA George Bolen might inspire all engaged in its discovery and reconciliation to carefully consider the global implications of their judgments
and actions particularly with respect to those who have gone to their execution under similar, unthinkable circumstances, and, most importantly, those who may still.
The rape and murder of Angela Correa, a girl he hardly knew, except by sight, on November 17, 1989, would prove to be a tragedy of defining
significance for a 16-year-old school-mate who would quickly become the target of a malicious and mindless campaign to produce a believable “monster” to satisfy the calls for a suspect, anyone who, once taken into custody, would calm the fears of a city consisting of fewer than 7,000 households.
Judge Karas would seem early on to be emphasizing the unlawful aspects of the Peekskill Police Department’s conduct with respect to Deskovic in the rst seven pages of his 35-page decision. Within three weeks of the crime, Detectives Tumolo, Levine, and McIntyre, without one concrete piece of evidence, were convinced that Deskovic was a “person of interest.”
Officer David Levine would, as noted by Karas, despite prior notification of the attachment of counsel, coerce the naive youngster into waiving
his right to counsel, whereupon he and his fellow Peekskill Police Officers surely, under the supervision and awareness of ADA Bolen “interrogated Deskovic on numerous other occasions.”
Judge Karas would seem to go out of his way not only to point out the unlawful activities of the Peekskill Police in their dealings with Deskovic,
but signi cantly emphasized that those same police, with respect to Deskovic’s knowing of details, falsely “represented in police reports, in conversations with prosecutors before trial, at pre-trial hearings, and a trial that these public facts were actually the product of Deskovic’s independent knowledge about the crime.”
When making detailed reference to the horrific January 25th, 1990 scenario under which Jeffrey Deskovic was unlawfully kidnapped by Tumolo,
McIntyre, and Levine while on his way to school, and brought to a virtual torture chamber in Brewster to be interrogated for some eight hours; most of that time attached to a polygraph machine, interestingly Karas initially makes no reference to the polygraph nor then-Putnam County Deputy Sheri Daniel Stephens.
Judge Karas does not fail to note Detective McIntyre’s exclusions from his police report, of any mention of threats of violence against Deskovic,
and the promise that he would “go home and receive mental health treatment” if he simply confessed, as well as Deputy Stephens’ reported false
representation that facts conveyed by Deskovic originated with him rather than the Peekskill Police Officers.”
It should be noted that the whole polygraph confession incident took place in Brewster, some 20 miles away from Peekskill, in a place totally unfamiliar to Deskovic.
Karas takes the opportunity to point out, “Plaintiffs also specifically allege that prosecutors were unaware of the bulk of the Peekskill Police
Departments’ officers’ misconduct and of other potentially exculpatory information.” One would be naive to believe that George Bolen could be, or would be, kept in the dark as to the details of how the false confession was extracted from 16-year-old Jeffrey.
There can be no question that Bolen was the engineer aboard the Runaway Train that the investigation into the rape and murder of Angela Correa
turned into.
The notion that a whole raft of exculpatory information known to Officers Tumolo, Levine and McIntyre, including false representations of Deskovic’s “independent knowledge,” the fabrication of evidence, material facts regarding the circumstances surrounding the “confession,” exculpatory statements from Peekskill High School students, etc., could be concealed from George Bolen, is totally incompatible with all that this
reporter knows about the experience and cunning of that prosecutor.
Judge Karas notes “the DNA test results were returned just days after Deskovic’s indictment,” and, further, that, “the tests definitively excluded
Deskovic as the source of semen found in Angela Correa’s body”, and, also that, “microscopic hair analysis of hairs found on Angela Correa’s
body excluded Deskovic as the source of those hairs.”
What was Bolen’s Big Rush to get an indictment, knowing that DNA and hair follicle results would be coming any day, and would be rock-solid
evidence for presentation to a grand jury. The real issue was whether the FBI lab had already tipped Bolen off.
In all fairness, Karas does indicate that once Bolen was officially notified of the DNA and hair results, he thereafter, as alleged, “directed that additional investigation be done by the Peekskill Police Department, and personally conducted and personally directed further investigation to provide an explanation for the presence of another man’s semen inside Angela Correa following her rape and murder.”
Further, after revealing that Plaintiffs alleged that Bolen and Dr. Luis Roh had determined they would provide evidence that the victim
had scarring on her hymen indicating she had been sexually active, the Judge states, “Bolen knew, or should have known, that Roh [Deputy Chief
Medical Examiner for Westchester County] had no scientific basis for this conclusion, and that he had not observed the scarring he had reported
to Bolen,” without question, exposing the most egregious of George Bolen’s feats of engineering.
Nonetheless, despite his illustration of such malicious prosecutorial misconduct, by Bolen’s own design after the obtaining of a “ham sandwich indictment,” the Judge unfortunately expresses the view that all of his relevant prosecutorial misconduct was in the capacity of
The Peoples’ Advocate, and not in his investigative capacity, where only qualified immunity would be available.
In the discussion section of Judge Karas’ decision, he writes, “The Supreme Court has held that while a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)6
Motion To Dismiss, does not need factual allegations, a Plaintiff ’s obligation to provide the grounds of his ‘entitlement to believe’ requires more
than labels and conclusions and a formulaic rescitation of the elements of a Cause Of Action will not do.”
This reporter believes it is more than “mere speculation” that Bolen was aware of the fact that DNA testing had proved the semen and the
hairs found in and on Angela Correa, respectively, were not from Jeffrey Deskovic, fully eight months before he took him to trial with suborned,
perjured testimony.
We firmly believe that at trial Dr. Luis Roh will surely implicate Bolen and very likely tell a jury that the reason he fabricated the scarred hymen
evidence was to help Bolen go forward with his misguided, malicious prosecution of Jeffrey Deskovic. Judge Karas, in discussing absolute
immunity, indicates, “Bolen claims he should be dismissed from Plaintiff ’s actions because he is absolutely immune from Section 1983
liability for his alleged conduct.”
He then cites Burns v. Reed (1991), “Courts recognize absolute immunity for official conduct to the same extent it was recognized at Common Law.” He then informs, quoting from Malley v. Briggs (1986), “Since [Section 1983] on its face does not provide for any immunities [courts would be] going far to read into it an absolute immunity for conduct which was only accorded qualified immunity in 1871, [when the statute was enacted].” Turning to a fairly recent Second Circuit case, Shmueli v. City Of New York (2005), Karas lifts the pronouncement, “It is now well established that a State Prosecuting Attorney who acted within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution, is immune from civil suit for damages under Section 1983.”
Continuing, he borrows from another Second Circuit decision, Hill v. City Of New York (1995), “Extending absolute immunity to such prosecutorial misconduct insures that public prosecutors can zealously perform the prosecutorial duties of the Office [without being] compelled to work under the constant threat of legal reprisals.”
We would ask whether George Bolen was acting within the scope of his duties when he refused to acknowledge the implication of the negative DNA and hair follicle test results? And, we would further ask whether inventing a terribly defaming and demeaning lie about young victim Angela Correa was also within the scope of his duties? Finally, we would inquire whether “zealous performance” includes unlawful scheming and intentionally sending an innocent 16-year-old child to prison for life, or, whether it is really all about collecting two paychecks a month?
Surely there would be no “retaliation” to worry about if prosecutors were doing what they are supposed to be doing, and not sending innocent persons to prison while turning guilty ones free to repeat their crimes.
Analysis:
If absolute immunity attaches when a prosecutor is acting as “an advocate for the State,” how was George Bolen ever an advocate for the State? The People are the State; and, how is he advocating for the People when he knowingly sends one of the People to prison for a crime he knows, or should know, he is innocent of, while permitting the real perpetrator to roam free, and to kill still another innocent person? Does concocting a false story to negate the DNA evidence of an accused person’s innocence come under, “Appropriate preparation for presentation?”
We contend that George Bolen was clearly a rogue prosecutor outside his role as an Advocate For The People; and that the People did not want Bolen to intentionally strive to send an innocent 16-year-old boy, without any criminal record, to prison for a crime Bolen knew he did not commit.
Judge Karas, citing several cases, explains, “For example, absolute immunity is not available when a prosecutor advises the police whether
probable cause exists during their pre-trial investigation.” We ask, how would such advice differ from a conversation by a prosecutor with
a medical examiner, assuming such exchange was in good faith? After all, both the police and the medical examiner perform an evidence-gathering
function, the product of which must reach a particular threshhold.
When the test results came back negative, Bolen knew he had no probable cause. A forced confession from a scared, 16-year-old boy surely
could not trump DNA and hair follicle evidence that did not match him. Twenty-five pages into his decision, Judge Karas declares, “The
Court finds that even taking the Plaintiff’s allegations to be true, Bolen’s allegedly improper actions took place in the judicial phase of
the criminal process. To begin with, it is important to note that the alleged conduct that forms the basis for Plaintiff’s claims against Bolen
occurred after Deskovic’s indictment.
And, from the allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint, it is evident not only that Bolen had no reason to doubt bona fides of the indictment, but also
that he had strong reason to believe that Deskovic was guilty based on his supposed confession.”
With all due respect to the Judge; as to the fact that Bolen’s act followed Deskovic’s indictment, it is very clear that Bolen rushed into the grand jury a day or two before he knew he would have the official results and, that the case was intentionally brought to the grand jury
a few days before the DNA and hair follicle results would be officially released for the following reason:
Bolen already knew the results and knew if he officially had them, he would have to acknowledge and explain them, and likely not get his
indictment, and not be eligible for absolute immunity if caught doing what he was about to do with Dr. Roh.
Westchester Guardian Article/Virginia Perez.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Virginia Perez Fundraiser At Yonkers Polish Center.
Last Tuesday night, a bright and optimistic Virginia Perez, Democratic candidate for Yonkers City Council from the Second District, held a fundraiser at the City’s Polish Center.
Virginia is running against three male opponents in the Democratic Primary on September 15th for the seat that will be vacated by two-term
councilwoman, Democratic Majority Leader Sandy Annabi.
In addition to many friends and supporters, several union leaders, and Working Families Party Chair Pat Welsh, were in attendance. Virginia has the support of the Yonkers PBA, the Firefighters Union, the AFL-CIO, as well as Local 32BJ. She has the endorsement of the Working Families Party, the Independence Party, and the Conservative Party.
Virginia told The Guardian that following the petition-gathering drive, she has been very energized and has continued meeting constituents
to explain her plan for Yonkers, house-to-house, door-to-door, throughout the City’s Second District, and feels very confident that she will prevail in the Primary.
Virginia Perez Fundraiser At Yonkers Polish Center.
Last Tuesday night, a bright and optimistic Virginia Perez, Democratic candidate for Yonkers City Council from the Second District, held a fundraiser at the City’s Polish Center.
Virginia is running against three male opponents in the Democratic Primary on September 15th for the seat that will be vacated by two-term
councilwoman, Democratic Majority Leader Sandy Annabi.
In addition to many friends and supporters, several union leaders, and Working Families Party Chair Pat Welsh, were in attendance. Virginia has the support of the Yonkers PBA, the Firefighters Union, the AFL-CIO, as well as Local 32BJ. She has the endorsement of the Working Families Party, the Independence Party, and the Conservative Party.
Virginia told The Guardian that following the petition-gathering drive, she has been very energized and has continued meeting constituents
to explain her plan for Yonkers, house-to-house, door-to-door, throughout the City’s Second District, and feels very confident that she will prevail in the Primary.
Westchester Guardian/Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Lessons To Be Learned From The
Decline Of A Business Icon
For decades it was the largest-selling magazine in the world. It was found in every doctor’s waiting room, and on the coffee table in every senior citizen’s home. It was Reader’s Digest, a name that needed no further introduction anywhere in the world.
It represented knowledge, opportunity, and everyday life. An immigrant or poorly-educated individual could improve his language skills by using the Digest’s monthly Word Power section. Workers could relate to the anecdotes in the All in a Day’s Work columns and pursue their dreams by entering the sweepstakes.
Home owners could get helpful hints and expert knowledge on how to do basic repairs and improvements. Parents could get critical information
on their children’s health and education issues. And, commuters could fit it all on their lap on the subway, tossing it into their pocket afterwards.
The Digest became the butt of jokes by comedians in recent years; it was viewed as too stodgy and un-hip. Few of those comedians remembered
that it was Reader’s Digest who first drew attention to the link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950’s in a groundbreaking series of articles
entitled Cancer by the Carton.
It was Reader’s Digest that financed Alex Haley’s research for Roots, an extraordinary novel and revolutionary television series that inspired all Americans to explore and honor their ancestry.
The international versions of the magazine allowed millions of people around the globe to learn about our country and about themselves. Millions
of individuals throughout the United States and the world saw the Digest for what it was, a magazine that acknowledged ordinary individuals and honored their achievements.
In an era of celebrity mania, Reader’s Digest celebrated the life of the ordinary person. But the magazine also served a strong conservative political agenda, often fronting ideas and platforms for Republican candidates to American voters. In 1988, Robert Bidinotto, a staff writer for the Digest, wrote an article entitled Getting Away with Murder about a prison furlough program in Massachusetts that released a murderer, William “Willie” Horton. That article was released during the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis effectively ending his race for the Presidency.
The Digest also published segments of Senator Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America several months before it was unveiled in Congress by the Republicans. The Digest, and the Republicans, had several months to “test the waters” and the reaction of the American population to this contract before its official release, six weeks prior to the 1988 Presidential elections.
At the time of this article, Reader’s Digest had a subscription base of over 18 million in the United States, with a readership of more than twice that amount, making it the largest read magazine in the nation. Its impact in America’s heartland was unequalled.
The Wall Street Journal once reported that “only the Bible had a higher circulation than the Reader’s Digest”. That is, until Reader’s Digest condensed the Bible in 1982, an act that brought death threats from the religious right to Digest executives who installed bullet-proof glass in
their corporate offices as protection.
It was not the first time that the conservative magazine encountered the wrath of a religious community. In 1980 the Digest reported on the growth of Scientology, publishing an article entitled Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult. The Digest revealed that Scientology “agents”
were breaking into Justice Department offices and working in CIA and defense areas, drawing ire from that group in the process.
Shortly after George W. Bush was elected President, the Digest appointed the new Vice-President’s wife, Lynne Cheney, to a paid position on their Board of Directors. For decades, reporters and writers, have been reporting on a possible connection between the Digest and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Local Pleasantville writer Benjamin Cheever, skewered the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Digest in his thinly-disguised book, The Plagiarist. But the ultimate irony came when the major target of the conservative right, Bill Clinton, selected a house down the block from the Digest thereby placing the Cheney-Bush-CIA-conservative camp literally on one side of the street, Route 117 in Chappaqua, and the Kennedy-
Clinton-Obama-liberal camp on the other. The struggle for the votes of the American populace was being played out right in Westchester’s own
backyard within feet of each other.
But while the Digest never lost its conservative bent, it did fall out of touch with the ordinary populace. After its peak circulation of 18 million
in the early 1990’s, the Digest followed the lead of the new darling of the magazine world, People magazine, and started putting celebrities instead of ordinary individuals on its covers. Words were replaced by images and graphics on the cover and the number of articles inside were reduced. In an effort to stay relevant in a changing media world, the Digest hired a team of consultants from now-defunct Arthur Anderson Consulting, the same consulting group that “advised” ENRON and handled their audits and financials, to advise them as to how to adapt to the changing environment.
Sadly, the Digest failed at the most basic rule of management, know your business. At the time, the consultants and Digest executives defined their
business as publishing. But there was little evidence to support this claim, there were no Pulitzers or editorial awards lining the halls, or accolades from fellow writers. Indeed, most writers in the media dismissed the Digest as not worthy of their craft. What the Digest failed to realize is that their business was unique. They recognized important and often ground-breaking materials from experts around the globe and condensed it into simple, ordinary language to be understood by the masses.
Rather than presenting a challenge for the Digest, the new electronic media presented an opportunity. Every American in the early 1990’s suddenly needed to know how to use a computer or a cell phone or access the internet. What they needed were simple guides showing them
how. Two other publishing groups saw this opportunity and seized it – the Dummy’s Guides and the Idiot’s Guides. During the 1990’s, these
two publishing groups were among the most successful titles ever published, taking over the niche created, and ignored, by the Digest.
In the mid-1990’s Digest’s executives and consultants determined that their best path for growth was to expand into new media forays and
to fund this expansion by increasing prices from their magazine base.
Unfortunately, the predominately privileged and young Anderson consultants failed to comprehend the economic constraints of a mostly retired
subscriber base whose income would not increase in tandem with the 15% annual subscription price hikes they recommended. The executives at the Digest increasingly relied on these outside consultants, failing to listen to advice from long-term employees who saw the opportunity for growth by condensing materials from new sources.
Life-long employees who started working for the Digest straight from high school or local colleges and worked their way up the ranks found
their jobs in jeopardy as the Digest increasingly hired from Ivy League and upper-echelon schools for management positions. The Digest management saw the glitz of the frenetic dot-com stock era and aimed for it, losing touch with their strong supportive base in the process.
That extent of the Digest’s subscriber base, and their access to the heart of hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide, rivaled the capability
of many small governments. At the beginning of the 1990’s, the Digest computers had a data bank of names, addresses, and customer information
that was second only to the United States Government. The Digest alone accounted for approximately 1 percent of all mail in the United States,
again only rivaled by the government and American Express. In many countries, local postal carriers would conveniently “call in sick” on days that
major Digest mailings or books were due to be distributed. The company’s income and net worth placed it solidly in the Fortune 100 listing during
this era. The infamous art collection that graced the halls of the Chappaqua building and the offices of every employee; a collection that included works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Modigliani, were worth several billion dollars. So how did such a giant in the publishing industry, with so much wealth and so many customers fizzle out so rapidly?
While the current recession might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back here, Reader’s Digest’s problems started long before
now. Bad management and poor decisions led to its ultimate downfall. A coup in the late 1980’s for control of the company resulted in the new management team, led by George Grune, to take the company public. The Digest was founded by De- Witt and Lila Wallace in 1922 and was held as a private company until the coup shortly after Lila’s death. For the first 50 years of its existence, both DeWitt and Lila ran the company with a familial touch. Local employees were bused to work, Fridays in May were declared “too nice to work” by Lila so employees had these days off resulting in Reader’s Digest sales by local merchants on May Fridays.
Until the late 1980’s, the Digest deliberately withheld 15% of each employees’ salary, distributing this amount in annual checks every January.
The result was a forced savings scheme for prudent employees and a bonanza for local merchants who increased their inventory of cars, refrigerators, and televisions in mid-January to accommodate the rush of purchasing by Digest employees flush with bonus funds and eager to
spend them.
Cafeteria food was subsidized, everyone received a copy of the magazine and the Condensed Books, and key employees, including editors, were rewarded with private stock shares of the company. Those stocks were valued with a formula that linked them to the overall stock market, and their value to the employees was adjusted once at the end of each fiscal quarter.
When Grune and his associates decided to take the company public, they made a fatal error, they announced the public offering at the time of the stock market crash of October, 1989. Any long-term employee knew their stock would lose a majority of its worth at the next valuation date of December 31, 1989. For those employees over 50, the decision was easy, cash in the stocks at the higher value and retire, or wait it out and lose over half of what they’d accumulated over decades of work. The senior staff left in droves, taking with them the top four editors and anyone with a wealth of knowledge of the company. Grune and his team made an estimated $10 million each in their public offering but the damage to the company was set in place.
There were few seniors staff left with enough experience to run the ship. A new round of managers were brought in, on the advice of the Anderson
consultants, mainly individuals from major corporate publishing conglomerates. These new managers sought to take the Digest into unknown territory such as television producing, forsaking their company base of loyal subscribers.
However, thanks to the billions in cash in the company’s coffers to fund these exploits, the impact on the company was not immediately noted by most of the Wall Street analysts. In 1990, only one analyst correctly determined that the growth in the company’s bottom line in prior years was due to favorable currency fluctuations and not from growth in subscribers or product sales, all of the other analysts attending the public offering meetings voted the Digest stock a “buy”.
In 1993, at the height of the Digest’s success, their stock was trading at a high of 51½. It fell to a low of 16 in 2007, taking with it the value
in the 401K accounts of Digest employees. The company has since been bought by an investment firm, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC and is now a privately-held company once again.The lessons to be learned from Reader’s Digest’s downfall can be applied to any business; know what your core business really is. Respect your customer base because once you lose them, they’re gone, possibly forever. Listen to your staff and respect their knowledge and ideas.
Don’t fall for glitz whether it’s in the form of a “hot” new idea, venture, or business, or walks through the door in an Armani suit armed with an Ivy League degree. Sometimes simpler really is better.
Reader’s Digest through the years was a major impact in the Westchester economic and cultural scene. Their support of local nonprofit groups was invaluable. The Digest poured hundreds of millions into their Foundation alone to assist non-profits in education and the arts. The modern art wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art would not exist if not for Lila Acheson Wallace.
And every local resident knew someone who worked there at one point. The Digest may be down, but it is not yet out for the count. On August
17, 2009, the Digest announced it was declaring bankruptcy, a move that will allow it to renegotiate with its creditors and reorganize the company.
Hopefully this move will be successful and allow another generation of readers to test their wits at Word Power or laugh at the Humor in Uniform or be there at the birth of a new Roots. But hopefully the Digest will endure if only to remind us of the power of the individual, and, that everyone should have Fridays off in May. Just because it’s such a pretty month.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Lessons To Be Learned From The
Decline Of A Business Icon
For decades it was the largest-selling magazine in the world. It was found in every doctor’s waiting room, and on the coffee table in every senior citizen’s home. It was Reader’s Digest, a name that needed no further introduction anywhere in the world.
It represented knowledge, opportunity, and everyday life. An immigrant or poorly-educated individual could improve his language skills by using the Digest’s monthly Word Power section. Workers could relate to the anecdotes in the All in a Day’s Work columns and pursue their dreams by entering the sweepstakes.
Home owners could get helpful hints and expert knowledge on how to do basic repairs and improvements. Parents could get critical information
on their children’s health and education issues. And, commuters could fit it all on their lap on the subway, tossing it into their pocket afterwards.
The Digest became the butt of jokes by comedians in recent years; it was viewed as too stodgy and un-hip. Few of those comedians remembered
that it was Reader’s Digest who first drew attention to the link between smoking and lung cancer in the 1950’s in a groundbreaking series of articles
entitled Cancer by the Carton.
It was Reader’s Digest that financed Alex Haley’s research for Roots, an extraordinary novel and revolutionary television series that inspired all Americans to explore and honor their ancestry.
The international versions of the magazine allowed millions of people around the globe to learn about our country and about themselves. Millions
of individuals throughout the United States and the world saw the Digest for what it was, a magazine that acknowledged ordinary individuals and honored their achievements.
In an era of celebrity mania, Reader’s Digest celebrated the life of the ordinary person. But the magazine also served a strong conservative political agenda, often fronting ideas and platforms for Republican candidates to American voters. In 1988, Robert Bidinotto, a staff writer for the Digest, wrote an article entitled Getting Away with Murder about a prison furlough program in Massachusetts that released a murderer, William “Willie” Horton. That article was released during the presidential campaign of Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis effectively ending his race for the Presidency.
The Digest also published segments of Senator Newt Gingrich’s Contract With America several months before it was unveiled in Congress by the Republicans. The Digest, and the Republicans, had several months to “test the waters” and the reaction of the American population to this contract before its official release, six weeks prior to the 1988 Presidential elections.
At the time of this article, Reader’s Digest had a subscription base of over 18 million in the United States, with a readership of more than twice that amount, making it the largest read magazine in the nation. Its impact in America’s heartland was unequalled.
The Wall Street Journal once reported that “only the Bible had a higher circulation than the Reader’s Digest”. That is, until Reader’s Digest condensed the Bible in 1982, an act that brought death threats from the religious right to Digest executives who installed bullet-proof glass in
their corporate offices as protection.
It was not the first time that the conservative magazine encountered the wrath of a religious community. In 1980 the Digest reported on the growth of Scientology, publishing an article entitled Scientology: Anatomy of a Frightening Cult. The Digest revealed that Scientology “agents”
were breaking into Justice Department offices and working in CIA and defense areas, drawing ire from that group in the process.
Shortly after George W. Bush was elected President, the Digest appointed the new Vice-President’s wife, Lynne Cheney, to a paid position on their Board of Directors. For decades, reporters and writers, have been reporting on a possible connection between the Digest and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Local Pleasantville writer Benjamin Cheever, skewered the behind-the-scenes machinations of the Digest in his thinly-disguised book, The Plagiarist. But the ultimate irony came when the major target of the conservative right, Bill Clinton, selected a house down the block from the Digest thereby placing the Cheney-Bush-CIA-conservative camp literally on one side of the street, Route 117 in Chappaqua, and the Kennedy-
Clinton-Obama-liberal camp on the other. The struggle for the votes of the American populace was being played out right in Westchester’s own
backyard within feet of each other.
But while the Digest never lost its conservative bent, it did fall out of touch with the ordinary populace. After its peak circulation of 18 million
in the early 1990’s, the Digest followed the lead of the new darling of the magazine world, People magazine, and started putting celebrities instead of ordinary individuals on its covers. Words were replaced by images and graphics on the cover and the number of articles inside were reduced. In an effort to stay relevant in a changing media world, the Digest hired a team of consultants from now-defunct Arthur Anderson Consulting, the same consulting group that “advised” ENRON and handled their audits and financials, to advise them as to how to adapt to the changing environment.
Sadly, the Digest failed at the most basic rule of management, know your business. At the time, the consultants and Digest executives defined their
business as publishing. But there was little evidence to support this claim, there were no Pulitzers or editorial awards lining the halls, or accolades from fellow writers. Indeed, most writers in the media dismissed the Digest as not worthy of their craft. What the Digest failed to realize is that their business was unique. They recognized important and often ground-breaking materials from experts around the globe and condensed it into simple, ordinary language to be understood by the masses.
Rather than presenting a challenge for the Digest, the new electronic media presented an opportunity. Every American in the early 1990’s suddenly needed to know how to use a computer or a cell phone or access the internet. What they needed were simple guides showing them
how. Two other publishing groups saw this opportunity and seized it – the Dummy’s Guides and the Idiot’s Guides. During the 1990’s, these
two publishing groups were among the most successful titles ever published, taking over the niche created, and ignored, by the Digest.
In the mid-1990’s Digest’s executives and consultants determined that their best path for growth was to expand into new media forays and
to fund this expansion by increasing prices from their magazine base.
Unfortunately, the predominately privileged and young Anderson consultants failed to comprehend the economic constraints of a mostly retired
subscriber base whose income would not increase in tandem with the 15% annual subscription price hikes they recommended. The executives at the Digest increasingly relied on these outside consultants, failing to listen to advice from long-term employees who saw the opportunity for growth by condensing materials from new sources.
Life-long employees who started working for the Digest straight from high school or local colleges and worked their way up the ranks found
their jobs in jeopardy as the Digest increasingly hired from Ivy League and upper-echelon schools for management positions. The Digest management saw the glitz of the frenetic dot-com stock era and aimed for it, losing touch with their strong supportive base in the process.
That extent of the Digest’s subscriber base, and their access to the heart of hundreds of millions of individuals worldwide, rivaled the capability
of many small governments. At the beginning of the 1990’s, the Digest computers had a data bank of names, addresses, and customer information
that was second only to the United States Government. The Digest alone accounted for approximately 1 percent of all mail in the United States,
again only rivaled by the government and American Express. In many countries, local postal carriers would conveniently “call in sick” on days that
major Digest mailings or books were due to be distributed. The company’s income and net worth placed it solidly in the Fortune 100 listing during
this era. The infamous art collection that graced the halls of the Chappaqua building and the offices of every employee; a collection that included works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Modigliani, were worth several billion dollars. So how did such a giant in the publishing industry, with so much wealth and so many customers fizzle out so rapidly?
While the current recession might have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back here, Reader’s Digest’s problems started long before
now. Bad management and poor decisions led to its ultimate downfall. A coup in the late 1980’s for control of the company resulted in the new management team, led by George Grune, to take the company public. The Digest was founded by De- Witt and Lila Wallace in 1922 and was held as a private company until the coup shortly after Lila’s death. For the first 50 years of its existence, both DeWitt and Lila ran the company with a familial touch. Local employees were bused to work, Fridays in May were declared “too nice to work” by Lila so employees had these days off resulting in Reader’s Digest sales by local merchants on May Fridays.
Until the late 1980’s, the Digest deliberately withheld 15% of each employees’ salary, distributing this amount in annual checks every January.
The result was a forced savings scheme for prudent employees and a bonanza for local merchants who increased their inventory of cars, refrigerators, and televisions in mid-January to accommodate the rush of purchasing by Digest employees flush with bonus funds and eager to
spend them.
Cafeteria food was subsidized, everyone received a copy of the magazine and the Condensed Books, and key employees, including editors, were rewarded with private stock shares of the company. Those stocks were valued with a formula that linked them to the overall stock market, and their value to the employees was adjusted once at the end of each fiscal quarter.
When Grune and his associates decided to take the company public, they made a fatal error, they announced the public offering at the time of the stock market crash of October, 1989. Any long-term employee knew their stock would lose a majority of its worth at the next valuation date of December 31, 1989. For those employees over 50, the decision was easy, cash in the stocks at the higher value and retire, or wait it out and lose over half of what they’d accumulated over decades of work. The senior staff left in droves, taking with them the top four editors and anyone with a wealth of knowledge of the company. Grune and his team made an estimated $10 million each in their public offering but the damage to the company was set in place.
There were few seniors staff left with enough experience to run the ship. A new round of managers were brought in, on the advice of the Anderson
consultants, mainly individuals from major corporate publishing conglomerates. These new managers sought to take the Digest into unknown territory such as television producing, forsaking their company base of loyal subscribers.
However, thanks to the billions in cash in the company’s coffers to fund these exploits, the impact on the company was not immediately noted by most of the Wall Street analysts. In 1990, only one analyst correctly determined that the growth in the company’s bottom line in prior years was due to favorable currency fluctuations and not from growth in subscribers or product sales, all of the other analysts attending the public offering meetings voted the Digest stock a “buy”.
In 1993, at the height of the Digest’s success, their stock was trading at a high of 51½. It fell to a low of 16 in 2007, taking with it the value
in the 401K accounts of Digest employees. The company has since been bought by an investment firm, Ripplewood Holdings, LLC and is now a privately-held company once again.The lessons to be learned from Reader’s Digest’s downfall can be applied to any business; know what your core business really is. Respect your customer base because once you lose them, they’re gone, possibly forever. Listen to your staff and respect their knowledge and ideas.
Don’t fall for glitz whether it’s in the form of a “hot” new idea, venture, or business, or walks through the door in an Armani suit armed with an Ivy League degree. Sometimes simpler really is better.
Reader’s Digest through the years was a major impact in the Westchester economic and cultural scene. Their support of local nonprofit groups was invaluable. The Digest poured hundreds of millions into their Foundation alone to assist non-profits in education and the arts. The modern art wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art would not exist if not for Lila Acheson Wallace.
And every local resident knew someone who worked there at one point. The Digest may be down, but it is not yet out for the count. On August
17, 2009, the Digest announced it was declaring bankruptcy, a move that will allow it to renegotiate with its creditors and reorganize the company.
Hopefully this move will be successful and allow another generation of readers to test their wits at Word Power or laugh at the Humor in Uniform or be there at the birth of a new Roots. But hopefully the Digest will endure if only to remind us of the power of the individual, and, that everyone should have Fridays off in May. Just because it’s such a pretty month.
Westchester Guardian/Jeff Deskovic.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Jeff Deskovic
Some Ideas On Prison Reform
As readers are well aware, I served 16 years in prison before I was proven innocent. That experience, horrific as it was, gave mean in-depth and intimate understanding of the prison system.
As such, having both witnessed and experienced many things as well as reflect upon the senselessness of many things, I naturally have some ideas on prison reform.
Prisons need not be the inhumane horror houses that they are, where abuse, lack of human and civil rights, and violence are everyday realities. If people are abused in many different ways on a regular basis for years, how do we expect such people to turn out?
It goes without saying that such an environment is counter productive and not conducive to rehabilitation. There are a variety of reforms that are needed in order to make our prisons more humane and therefore more conducive to rehabilitation. Although by no means an exhaustative list, this article contains a few thoughts on the subject.
It is well known that maintaining contact with friends and family is important to inmates because it has been linked with rehabilitation and making a successful transition back into society. Therefore, to the extent possible, prisoners who are from the city should be housed in facilities near the city, and those who are from upstate New York should be housed in facilities upstate, as close to their home town as possible, rather than the current practice of housing prisoners far from their hometowns while making them earn a transfer closer to home.
I would further point out that some prisoners go most of their sentences, and in some instances their entire prison term, never getting transferred close to home. That situation needs to be changed. By making proximity to one’s family and friends an element of reward, the Department of Corrections ultimately punishes society, much more than the prisoner, by having the former prisoner returned to society far less rehabilitated.
As anyone who has visited a prisoner knows, the Correction Officers often take a long time processing visitors, ranging from 45 minutes to several hours. There is a very simple form that visitors need to fill out. There is no reason why the guards can’t process visitors as quickly as possible.
Similarly, it is not unusual that once a visitor has been processed that it takes several hours before the prisoner arrives in the visiting room. Often the reason is that the prisoner has not been told promptly. These aspects have the cumulative effect of discouraging visitors from returning.
As mentioned above, beyond this harming the prisoner and the visitor, society is harmed as well. Often after visits, although not exclusively, prisoners are strip searched, in order to check for illegal items, drugs, or weapons.
This procedure involves not just disrobing, but also bending over and spreading one’s buttocks. The goal of checking for illegal items could be accomplished while also maintaining human dignity by utilizing an x-ray machine similar to the one utilized at airports.
Shifting gears, prison food is notorious for not being prepared correctly and barely being edible. For example, at times fish squares were still partially frozen, pasta and sauce were sometimes cooked together in one big pot completely drying out the sauce.
Pizza that is severely burned has been served, and leftovers were often served three times in the course of one week. There should be more oversight to ensure that food is prepared correctly.
Inmates do not need to be punished with bad food. Additionally, the directive that instructs that prisoners who have broken a facility rule and who have been restricted to their cells as punishment should be served smaller portions, should be changed for the same reason.
I would also like to point out that prisoners on such status are more vulnerable because they can’t purchase certain limited food items at the commissary.
As a separate but related issue, the proceedings within prisons for adjudicating whether a prisoner is guilty or innocent of having broken a rule is generally rigged, and I have personally witnessed situations in which officers have lied in their reports.
When correction officers conduct cell searches, it is easy to tell if the search has been conducted by abusive guards or those who conduct themselves
professionally. The abusive ones often leave the cell a mess, with photos, clothing items, books, etc. left in such disarray on the floor, or even on the bed, that it requires hours to put everything back together. There is no reason why things could not be put back as they were before, as the non-abusive guards leave it. I believe that a cell search should be videotaped, beginning with how the cell looked just before the search was commenced.
Often the price of hygienic items, stationery materials for keeping in contact with the outside world, and limited food items are raised due to inflation while the prisoner pay grades remain the same, at 22 cents, 25 cents, 32 cents, 38 cents an hour, with a few limited slots of 42 cents, and even fewer 48 cents slots, thus rendering the prisoners less and less able to afford things.
Considering that the commissary is supplied with food items from an outside vendor by contract, the contract should place limitations on the raising of prices. There should be an inquiry made into which guards are abusive, and also which literally look the other way when violence is occurring so as to avoid having to break things up and having to do paperwork afterwards. Such correction officers should be disciplined or, if necessary, removed.
Turning to another vital subject, prison health care is notoriously bad. It often takes between a week to several months to see a doctor. Nurses frequently dispense Tylenol as the answer to virtually every problem. It is not unusual for serious health conditions to worsen, and sometimes result in death. Health care workers who work in the prison who don’t follow the Hippocratic Oath and don’t properly care for and treat their patients should be removed The influence of God and religion inside prisons, through the practice of various religions has, to some extent, lowered violence
among its practitioners, and provide some measure of comfort.
Those who practice Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, are generally given the opportunity to attend religious services in the prison as well as to attend classes to learn more about their faith. However, most often those who practice other faiths, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Indian faith traditions,
and other forms of faith, are not given religious services or classes. I believe that prisoners should be equally treated and allowed both services and classes in simple fairness, as well as in the interests of rehabilitation.
Shawangunk Prison, where I was incarcerated for a year and a half, had cameras all over the facility. That fact had the impact of reducing violence to negligible levels because prisoners knew that they would almost certainly get caught. To my way of thinking, cameras should be installed similarly in every prison.
When prisoners are placed in what the movie industry typically calls “the hole”, regulations require that mental health workers periodically make their rounds to check on them. This is important given the fact that prisoners under such conditions are kept in their cells 23 hours a day, and often refuse the one hour recreation because they don’t want to go to recreation in handcuffs. The problem is that instead of according confidentiality, such as by having the workers conduct interviews in a room, the counselors instead talk to prisoners through the cell bars, so that everyone who is on the unit can overhear everything that is said.
In the state of Indiana, if prisoners complete their GED, they are eligible to apply to courts for a time reduction from their sentence. This serves as incentive and motivation for prisoners to take education seriously. I think we should consider instituting such a measure in New York. As I see it,
rehabilitation needs to be encouraged, rather than being something that is accomplished despite prison.
I believe that such programs offering incentives for good behavior and completion of various educational levels should be expanded. There is a population within prison that has mental health issues, such that they really belong in a mental hospital rather than prison. I remember people who used to talk to themselves, others who were delusional, and still others who obviously had the mentality of a child. Often those who had such conditions and ailments would get worse over the years, rather than better. Sometimes the goal of dispensing medication was not so much the treatment of a sick prisoner, but the smoother running of the prison. Unfortunately, that population was also more vulnerable to abuse by other prisoners.
Jeff Deskovic
Some Ideas On Prison Reform
As readers are well aware, I served 16 years in prison before I was proven innocent. That experience, horrific as it was, gave mean in-depth and intimate understanding of the prison system.
As such, having both witnessed and experienced many things as well as reflect upon the senselessness of many things, I naturally have some ideas on prison reform.
Prisons need not be the inhumane horror houses that they are, where abuse, lack of human and civil rights, and violence are everyday realities. If people are abused in many different ways on a regular basis for years, how do we expect such people to turn out?
It goes without saying that such an environment is counter productive and not conducive to rehabilitation. There are a variety of reforms that are needed in order to make our prisons more humane and therefore more conducive to rehabilitation. Although by no means an exhaustative list, this article contains a few thoughts on the subject.
It is well known that maintaining contact with friends and family is important to inmates because it has been linked with rehabilitation and making a successful transition back into society. Therefore, to the extent possible, prisoners who are from the city should be housed in facilities near the city, and those who are from upstate New York should be housed in facilities upstate, as close to their home town as possible, rather than the current practice of housing prisoners far from their hometowns while making them earn a transfer closer to home.
I would further point out that some prisoners go most of their sentences, and in some instances their entire prison term, never getting transferred close to home. That situation needs to be changed. By making proximity to one’s family and friends an element of reward, the Department of Corrections ultimately punishes society, much more than the prisoner, by having the former prisoner returned to society far less rehabilitated.
As anyone who has visited a prisoner knows, the Correction Officers often take a long time processing visitors, ranging from 45 minutes to several hours. There is a very simple form that visitors need to fill out. There is no reason why the guards can’t process visitors as quickly as possible.
Similarly, it is not unusual that once a visitor has been processed that it takes several hours before the prisoner arrives in the visiting room. Often the reason is that the prisoner has not been told promptly. These aspects have the cumulative effect of discouraging visitors from returning.
As mentioned above, beyond this harming the prisoner and the visitor, society is harmed as well. Often after visits, although not exclusively, prisoners are strip searched, in order to check for illegal items, drugs, or weapons.
This procedure involves not just disrobing, but also bending over and spreading one’s buttocks. The goal of checking for illegal items could be accomplished while also maintaining human dignity by utilizing an x-ray machine similar to the one utilized at airports.
Shifting gears, prison food is notorious for not being prepared correctly and barely being edible. For example, at times fish squares were still partially frozen, pasta and sauce were sometimes cooked together in one big pot completely drying out the sauce.
Pizza that is severely burned has been served, and leftovers were often served three times in the course of one week. There should be more oversight to ensure that food is prepared correctly.
Inmates do not need to be punished with bad food. Additionally, the directive that instructs that prisoners who have broken a facility rule and who have been restricted to their cells as punishment should be served smaller portions, should be changed for the same reason.
I would also like to point out that prisoners on such status are more vulnerable because they can’t purchase certain limited food items at the commissary.
As a separate but related issue, the proceedings within prisons for adjudicating whether a prisoner is guilty or innocent of having broken a rule is generally rigged, and I have personally witnessed situations in which officers have lied in their reports.
When correction officers conduct cell searches, it is easy to tell if the search has been conducted by abusive guards or those who conduct themselves
professionally. The abusive ones often leave the cell a mess, with photos, clothing items, books, etc. left in such disarray on the floor, or even on the bed, that it requires hours to put everything back together. There is no reason why things could not be put back as they were before, as the non-abusive guards leave it. I believe that a cell search should be videotaped, beginning with how the cell looked just before the search was commenced.
Often the price of hygienic items, stationery materials for keeping in contact with the outside world, and limited food items are raised due to inflation while the prisoner pay grades remain the same, at 22 cents, 25 cents, 32 cents, 38 cents an hour, with a few limited slots of 42 cents, and even fewer 48 cents slots, thus rendering the prisoners less and less able to afford things.
Considering that the commissary is supplied with food items from an outside vendor by contract, the contract should place limitations on the raising of prices. There should be an inquiry made into which guards are abusive, and also which literally look the other way when violence is occurring so as to avoid having to break things up and having to do paperwork afterwards. Such correction officers should be disciplined or, if necessary, removed.
Turning to another vital subject, prison health care is notoriously bad. It often takes between a week to several months to see a doctor. Nurses frequently dispense Tylenol as the answer to virtually every problem. It is not unusual for serious health conditions to worsen, and sometimes result in death. Health care workers who work in the prison who don’t follow the Hippocratic Oath and don’t properly care for and treat their patients should be removed The influence of God and religion inside prisons, through the practice of various religions has, to some extent, lowered violence
among its practitioners, and provide some measure of comfort.
Those who practice Christianity, Judaism, or Islam, are generally given the opportunity to attend religious services in the prison as well as to attend classes to learn more about their faith. However, most often those who practice other faiths, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Indian faith traditions,
and other forms of faith, are not given religious services or classes. I believe that prisoners should be equally treated and allowed both services and classes in simple fairness, as well as in the interests of rehabilitation.
Shawangunk Prison, where I was incarcerated for a year and a half, had cameras all over the facility. That fact had the impact of reducing violence to negligible levels because prisoners knew that they would almost certainly get caught. To my way of thinking, cameras should be installed similarly in every prison.
When prisoners are placed in what the movie industry typically calls “the hole”, regulations require that mental health workers periodically make their rounds to check on them. This is important given the fact that prisoners under such conditions are kept in their cells 23 hours a day, and often refuse the one hour recreation because they don’t want to go to recreation in handcuffs. The problem is that instead of according confidentiality, such as by having the workers conduct interviews in a room, the counselors instead talk to prisoners through the cell bars, so that everyone who is on the unit can overhear everything that is said.
In the state of Indiana, if prisoners complete their GED, they are eligible to apply to courts for a time reduction from their sentence. This serves as incentive and motivation for prisoners to take education seriously. I think we should consider instituting such a measure in New York. As I see it,
rehabilitation needs to be encouraged, rather than being something that is accomplished despite prison.
I believe that such programs offering incentives for good behavior and completion of various educational levels should be expanded. There is a population within prison that has mental health issues, such that they really belong in a mental hospital rather than prison. I remember people who used to talk to themselves, others who were delusional, and still others who obviously had the mentality of a child. Often those who had such conditions and ailments would get worse over the years, rather than better. Sometimes the goal of dispensing medication was not so much the treatment of a sick prisoner, but the smoother running of the prison. Unfortunately, that population was also more vulnerable to abuse by other prisoners.
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