See the filed complaint to the right "DDC Ethics Cover-Up Complaint:
Also, see our Wednesday, October 31, 2007, posting.
Here's the November 1, 207, New York Times article:
Suit Accuses Court Panel of Cover-Up
The New York Times
By PAUL VITELLO - November 1, 2007 – paged B5
A former lawyer for the state court system, fired in June from her job investigating lawyers charged with misconduct, has charged in a federal lawsuit that supervisors “whitewashed” some cases for “personal or political reasons.”
The lawyer, Christine C. Anderson, who was a staff attorney for six years in a Departmental Disciplinary Committee of the State Supreme Court’s Appellate Division in Manhattan, did not name the lawyers who she said received such protection. But she said her supervisors, who were named, intervened on behalf of lawyers against whom she had found “overwhelming concrete evidence of misconduct.”
The lawsuit, filed last week in the United States District Court for the Southern District, charges that Ms. Anderson was fired because she openly voiced her concerns about “a pattern and practice of whitewashing and routinely dismissing complaints leveled against certain select attorneys.” Ms. Anderson, 62, who is black, also said she was a victim of age and race discrimination.
Disciplinary committees operate in each of the state’s four Appellate Division departments to investigate lawyers accused of misconduct. Charges can vary from unresponsiveness toward clients, to the theft of money from escrow accounts, to failure to disclose conflicts of interest. Based on investigations by staff attorneys like Ms. Anderson, committees can admonish lawyers, suspend or revoke their licenses or recommend criminal prosecution.
In the suit, Ms. Anderson, who worked in the First Department, covering most of New York City and Westchester, named as defendants Thomas J. Cahill, chief counsel of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee; his first deputy, Sherry K. Cohen; Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, the court clerk; David Spokiny, her deputy; and John Buckley, the presiding justice of the Office of Court Administration.
None could be reached for comment. David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state court system, said it would be “inappropriate to comment.”
Fred K. Brewington, the Long Island lawyer representing Ms. Anderson, said she had been harassed on the job continuously, beginning in 2005, after she raised questions about Ms. Cohen’s relationship with a lawyer representing another lawyer who was under review. Despite strong evidence of misconduct by the lawyer in that case, he said, the complaint was dismissed and a file containing Ms. Anderson’s investigation disappeared.
Ms. Anderson is seeking $10 million in damages, as well as punitive damages and lawyer’s fees for what her suit described as the “irreparable injury,” “mental anguish and humiliation” of being fired without cause.
The termination of Ms. Anderson utilizing the usual uncreative term of 'MISCONDUCT" IS HOW oca OPERATES when an ehtical and honest employee questions their lack of complete ethics. I know first hand..i was fired after 30 yrs in 2005, after i asked their own OIG'S to investigate their actions of retaliation and most of the same forms of discrimination! OCA is very quick to fire female and minority employees who question their integrety, and as we all know lack of! I have almost the same case filed in upstate ny's federal court...where OCA has been playing hide and seek games since it was filed 2 yrs ago! I am patient...THE TRUTH ALWAYS PREVAILS AND THE LONGER THEY PLAY, the worse things can get with this new case filed and others in the waiting!
ReplyDeleteRecalled after reading this article that these were the same people (Cahill, Cohen et al.) that also had the sex scandal. Now its whitewash and cover-up on ethics matters. Had spoken to a friend at the 1st Dept. and was told that sometime ago both Cahill and Cohen were summoned to be questioned and grilled for a full day each. What no charges, Cahill gets a gold watch, what does Cohen get, yet another cover-up?
ReplyDeleteNow I know where my complaint against a "white shoe" firm went. The circular file must be full. The whole process is a fraud, a sham.
ReplyDeleteThese bums here in NY will never clean-up the corruption. When is the cavalry coming?
ReplyDeletenow that this has been in the Law Journal and the New York Times someone may pay attention
ReplyDeleteThey don't have much whitewash left,then what are they going to do?
ReplyDeleteMs Anderson has guts to take these creeps on. She is doing the right thing.
ReplyDeletethis ethics suit on the cover-ups has the powers that be in the duck and cover mode, go girl
ReplyDeletethe buzz is about a federal grand jury on the cover-up
ReplyDeleteI think OCA is awfully ballsy and arrogant for firing another female for misconduct, after she had filed a complaint of discrimination, within her rights, with her union, which by the way was the same as my union! OCA never allows the investigating union or other ( OIG) agencies to complete their work, before they toss the employee out. I am also very, very concerned by CSEA and their role with OCA, because i found them both to be in collusion. CSEA HAS A GREAT WORKING AGREEMENT WITH OCA, that shuns individual representation of employees charging discrimination legally, per their negotiated contract with OCA demanding an un-biased and non-discriminatory environment for all employees. This collusion with OCA BY CSEA, will have to be defended in federal court, while CSEA CONTINUES to extract mandatory dues while ....REFUSING TO HELP these individual claims...major fact! If CSEA and OCA knew the extent of any of my personal sources and intensive investigation, i am sure this female atty's job would have been saved, but probably she would have suffered extreme hostility! The final comment about both groups is this...WHAT A NASTY BUNCH OF UNIFORMED LOSERS PRETENDING TO REPRESENT! DANNY DONAHUE AND JUDY KAYE CAN TOAST TO THEIR STUPIDITY, something they enjoy, in their federal court dormitory.
ReplyDeleteI was told that Cahill was destroying files before he left. BRING IN THE FEDS !!!!!
ReplyDeleteTell me where is that fat bitch Judge Judy Kaye? Why hasn't she spoken out about this? She may not read the Law Journal but I know she reads or has someone read the New York Times to her, so where is she? Someone wake her up, tell her she and her gang of corrupt Judges are not, are not going to get any pay increase, so they are limited to what they can shake from the tree.
ReplyDeleteHere IS ONE law firm that certainly had a corrupt relationship with Cahill and Cohen.
ReplyDeleteBELDOCK, LEVINE AND HOFFMAN
Cohen took my case away from Kevin O'Sullivan who had already vetted the complaint, and prohibited me from speaking to him. Then Cahill dismissed the case based on a "sealed" defense that even he had not read! No coincedence that Hal Leiberman, who preceded Cahill became a partner at Beldock when he left the DDC.
see article on this site. will galison
So when is the New York Times going to do a real indepth story on this?!
ReplyDeleteIt's not cover up. It's a crime.
ReplyDelete