The February 11th, 2009 Village Voice cover illustration for Wayne Barrett's article; Paterson
Duped Again: Shelly Silver Gets Childhood Pal Jonathan Lippman State's Top
Courts Job, shows Lippman's
champion NY Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver tying a blindfold over the eyes of
then Governor David Paterson. It is meant to illustrate how Jonathan Lippman
was nominated for Chief Judge through unethical manipulation.
Excerpts
from Wayne Barrett's Village Voice
2/11/09 expose of Lippman : Paterson
Duped Again: Shelly Silver Gets Childhood Pal Jonathan Lippman State's Top
Courts Job:
"The story of how Lippman reached
this pinnacle has its shabby side. He exudes an above-politics reform aura, but
he did not climb to the top of the state's judiciary without making some stops
in the dark along the way. His ally, Silver, helped clear that path to power,
working a system whose anti-democratic ways have been rebuked by two federal
courts."
"Jonathan Lippman will soon preside over the most complicated and significant cases in New York, even though he's never practiced as a private attorney…. "
"Jonathan Lippman will soon preside over the most complicated and significant cases in New York, even though he's never practiced as a private attorney…. "
"…he was the only candidate in the state running for Supreme
Court who couldn't be voted against. Lippman was on all five ballot lines:
Democratic, Republican, Working Families, Conservative, and Independent. In
fact, he had refused to allow his name to be put in the nomination unless every
party backed him for the seat, which is the top trial court of the unified
court system."
"[County judge Joseph] Alessandro, had been found "not qualified" by the
Bar Association and was dogged by tawdry tax and lawsuit charges. The New York State
Commission on Judicial Conduct is still investigating those charges,
and Alessandro, who did become a Supreme Court judge, is now facing possible
severe sanctions. Yet it was Lippman's demands that would put Alessandro on the
bench."
Expose Corrupt Courts' article on the Ramos/ Weissman Scandal: Evidence
of Lippman's involvement in a 40 million dollar estate scam.
On March 1, 2011, The anti-corruption blog Exposecorruptcourts.blogspot.com ran an article entitled Chief Judge Lippman Must Step Aside Pending FBI Probe alleging that Lippman was complicit in a massive estate probate scam involving $40 million dollars. The gist of the story is that as Administrative Judge Lippman gave an illegal waiver to a fellow judge in order to allow him to become the co-executor of an estate worth over 40 million dollars:
On March 1, 2011, The anti-corruption blog Exposecorruptcourts.blogspot.com ran an article entitled Chief Judge Lippman Must Step Aside Pending FBI Probe alleging that Lippman was complicit in a massive estate probate scam involving $40 million dollars. The gist of the story is that as Administrative Judge Lippman gave an illegal waiver to a fellow judge in order to allow him to become the co-executor of an estate worth over 40 million dollars:
The Assistant
Director in Charge of the FBI in Manhattan, Janice K. Fedarcyk, has been asked
for a "follow-up meeting" in the alleged $40 Million Dollar Fraud
involving New York's top judge, Jonathan Lippman. Appellate Division Associate
Justice, Charles Ramos, and Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau are also named
in the allegations that highlight the widespread illegal "money-grab"
in and around New York's legal system.
The correspondence
also formally requests that New York Governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, appoint a
Special Counsel to investigate Judge Lippman's involvement in the $40 Million
Dollar Scam, along with "other criminal acts [involving Judge Lippman] to
be supposedly presented... before March 10, 2011..." The heavily redacted
correspondence also brings to the top FBI official in Manhattan, Ms. Fedarcyk,
the well-known, and sadly accepted, fact that New York State's "'ethics'
oversight structure is itself corrupt" and in desperate need of a massive
cleansing.
One
former New York State Court employee who read the correspondence, and who asked
not to be named, said that, "The entire New York State Court system needs
an overhaul- an enema, if you will. I would conservatively estimate financial
fraud and mismanagement at about $250 Million in the OCA $3 Billion enterprise.
When I was around courthouse budget talks, we actually had trouble coming up
with things to waste money on because if you didn't act like you needed more
money, your courthouse budget might actually NOT get an increase- and that's a
no-no..."
The New York Times on Judge Lippman's powers of intimidation
Willam Glaberson, (not to be confused with Willam Galison, co-author of this report) has been covering the courts for the New York Times for decades, and knows the courts and their officials as well as anyone.
The New York Times on Judge Lippman's powers of intimidation
Willam Glaberson, (not to be confused with Willam Galison, co-author of this report) has been covering the courts for the New York Times for decades, and knows the courts and their officials as well as anyone.
In his May 6, 2012 article The
Power Players of New York: New York Courts Glaberson writes: "Some judges and lawyers fear Judge Lippman because
he knows the administrative machinery that court officials can use to punish
and reward."
What could Glaberson possibly mean by this statement?
The only legitimate machinery that exists to "punish" lawyers is the DDC, and the only legitimate machinery that exists to "punish" judges is the CJC and under law "court officials" should have no more access to these agencies than the general public.
So what does Judge Lippman "know" about these agencies that the general public doesn't know? The record shows that that what Lippman knows is that he can illegally influence them to harass, sanction and fire lawyers and judges he does not like and to protect lawyers and judges that he does like. Lippman's personal protection of Leon Friedman and the CJC's persecution of Judge Hart demonstrate that he does precisely that.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-11/news/paterson-duped-again-shelly-silver-gets- childhood-pal-jonathan-lippman-state-s-top-courts-job/
The only legitimate machinery that exists to "punish" lawyers is the DDC, and the only legitimate machinery that exists to "punish" judges is the CJC and under law "court officials" should have no more access to these agencies than the general public.
So what does Judge Lippman "know" about these agencies that the general public doesn't know? The record shows that that what Lippman knows is that he can illegally influence them to harass, sanction and fire lawyers and judges he does not like and to protect lawyers and judges that he does like. Lippman's personal protection of Leon Friedman and the CJC's persecution of Judge Hart demonstrate that he does precisely that.
http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-02-11/news/paterson-duped-again-shelly-silver-gets- childhood-pal-jonathan-lippman-state-s-top-courts-job/
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