NORMAN WELCOMES PROBE Assemblyman Clarence Norman, chairman of the Kings County Democratic organization, said last week that he welcomes the ongoing "judgeships for sale" investigation by Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes because it will put the rumors to rest. "Mr. Hynes is a public servant doing his job," Norman told the New York Sun. "It's good that he is doing this, because when all is said and done he will show how ridiculous some of these charges really are." So far, it's doing the opposite. Hardly a day passes without Hynes airing Norman's dirty laundry in the press. We counted six articles in daily newspapers on June 17 alone, most of them about how a judge said she was compelled to hire Norman's friends for her reelection campaign.

Immediately after Norman essentially told investigators to "bring it on," Hynes's people leaked that Karen Yellen, then a Brooklyn Civil Court judge, was shaken down by Norman and his front man Jeff Feldman in her failed reelection bid last year. Yellen reportedly told probers what others have: that to get the county organization's support, she had to hired the organization's favorite consultants, including Brooklyn Heights resident Ernie Lendler and another Brooklyn buddy of Norman, William Boone. Boone got $9,000 for a laughable effort to generate votes for Yellen in black neighborhoods. The judge thought her money would be better spent in Jewish areas. But that would have meant hiring someone else, not Boone. And Norman apparently wanted Boone to get paid more than he wanted Yellen to win.

On primary day, Yellen was trounced in minority communities by Margarita Lopez Torres and Dolores Thomas and lost her seat on the bench after 10 years. Lendler got $7,685.05 to do literature for Yellen.

Norman doesn't deny directing candidates to Lendler, but insists they were free to hire someone else. "I use him, and I tell people that. I tell them if they want the best, then they should go to Ernie," Norman told the Sun. "Why should I want any candidate I support to use anything less than the best?" Yellen and other candidates apparently took that to mean, "Why should I support any candidate who doesn't use Ernie Lendler?" Hynes's inquiry is certainly making for great copy and perhaps salvaging his reputation, since folks were beginning to see him as a political hack in Norman's stable. But whether it will produce a slew of convictions is very questionable.

As unseemly as Norman's alleged pressure tactics may be, they wouldn't be illegal unless Norman got kickbacks. Norman says Lendler doesn't even give him a discount. And if Yellen, as a sitting judge, suspected laws were being broken, shouldn't she have reported it last year? Why would she wait 10 or 12 months until investigators came calling? The case that launched Hynes's sweeping inquiry seems more likely to bear fruit: the prosecution of Supreme Court Judge Gerald Garson.

Garson's attorney revealed last week that if his client accepted $1,000 cash from a lawyer who appeared in his courtroom, it was a referral fee, not a bribe to fix a case. We can't see a jury buying that explanation, but Garson had no better one since the payoff was reportedly captured on videotape. Another Hynes probe is looking into the six-figure amount that Gerald Garson and his cousin Mike Garson, also a Supreme Court judge, managed to pocket from their elderly, infirm aunt. Published reports said the cousins were able to justify about half of that money in the name of legal fees for estate planning and the like.

That still leaves at least $100,000, and possibly several times that, unaccounted for. But regardless, what kind of person charges his elderly aunt six figures to plan her estate? Would the Garsons have done the work pro bono if Auntie had the political pull to hand out judgeships? News reports have suggested Mike Garson needed the money to cover stock-market losses. Neither Garson has commented to the media on the matter.

Another tentacle of Hynes's probe is examining whether a Brooklyn judge gave a biased ruling in favor of the lawsuit against term limits legislation, brought in part by Ravi Batra, one of Norman's inner circle of judge-makers. That the suit was filed in Brooklyn is itself an indication that the plaintiffs sensed an advantageous venue here. Unfortunately for Batra, the appeal had to be argued elsewhere, and the Brooklyn ruling in his favor was overturned.

Hynes is also looking to see whether under-the-table money might explain the making of two Supreme Court justices in 2001, Howard Ruditzky and Allen Hurkin-Torres, the New York Post reported. Ruditzky, vying for reelection after what the Village Voice called a "spotty" 10-year term, finished last in a four-way Civil Court primary but was surprisingly nominated for Supreme Court by Democratic insiders, i.e., Assemblyman Norman. Hynes got a tip that Judge Hurkin-Torres's father bragged of paying $50,000 to secure his son's judgeship, according to the Post.

Yellen lobbied hard to be likewise elevated to Supreme after losing her Civil Court race, but reportedly balked at coughing up $100,000. So the Democratic machine bypassed her. On the subject of money, the $245,000 transferred to Norman's Thurgood Marshall Democratic Club by Mark Green's 2001 mayoral campaign is also being probed by Hynes. According to the Sun, Green is supposed to document to the Campaign Finance Board how the money was spent, but has yet to do so.

That was one question from the newspaper Norman did duck, calling it Green's issue. Glad to hear it! We're certainly relieved to know that the quarter-million-dollar payoff had nothing to do with Norman suddenly backing Green and ditching Freddie Ferrer, whom he'd endorsed in 1997.

We suppose it's also up to Green to explain why Norman's half-sister Jackie Ward got $95,120 in consulting fees for just over a month's worth of helping Green win his runoff with Ferrer. Ward also got tens of thousands more from Norman's own campaign and $38,491 from failed borough president candidate Jeannette Gadson, who was endorsed by, you guessed it, Clarence Norman.

Then Ward was given an $80,000-a-year job by Comptroller Billy Thompson, a politically ally of-and this will shock you-Clarence Norman. Hynes should certainly be familiar with the phenomenon of Norman-endorsed candidates hiring Norman's friends. When Hynes ran for governor, endorsed by Norman, the D.A. hired a field coordinator recommended to him by the county leader-because she "had a lot of experience," according to campaign manager Dennis Quirk. Her name was Jackie Ward.

IT'S DEAR SEASON AGAIN Despite a law that appears to deny him the right to run for his old seat until 2005, former City Councilman Noach Dear is circulating petitions for the September 9 Democratic primary, the New York Sun and New York Post reported.

Dear and his attorney, Jerry Goldfeder, insist that the term-limits law does not prohibit him from running this year in the 44th Council District, which runs from Borough Park to Midwood. But the council's top lawyer told the two papers that the law clearly forbids members who were term-limited in 2001 from running for their old seats just yet. The law says they must sit out one full term, and it defines a full term as one four-year term or two two-year terms.

However, the intent of that definition was to allow members to serve for eight years, not to keep former members from running for four years. Goldfeder intimated that Dear will go to court to settle the matter. He could argue that the law is vague, unconstitutional, or both.

Dear's target is Simcha Felder, the former chief of staff for Assemblyman Dov Hikind who won the seat with Hikind's blessing two years ago. Felder told the Post of Dear, "If he's circulating petitions, then he's deceiving people." But Felder has let Hikind do most of the talking. Hikind previously told us that Dear would embarrass himself by running, so badly would he lose.

Now the assemblyman is calling Dear's actions "one of the most bizarre things I have heard in my 21 years in public office" and suggesting that Dear is misleading contributors to his campaign by telling them he's running this year. "I think he should be honest with people. He's going around saying I can run as if there's no issue at all, it's a done deal," Hikind said.

But the assemblyman noted, "From every conversation that I've had with the professionals, legally he cannot run. Can you collect petitions? Yes. My dog can collect petitions. His name is Charlie. But ultimately, he won't be able to [run]." Hikind told us that "Dear shouldn't spend all that money" he's raising so that if he's not allowed to run, "he could return it." (While that would be the honorable thing to do, there is no legal obligation to return campaign donations.)

We're not prepared to say contributors are being misled until we can understand why they're contributing to Dear's war chest in the first place. Dear blew a combined $2 million or so on failed Congressional races in 1998 and 2000 and a State Senate race in 2002, and would figure to be a heavy underdog versus Felder, so it's possible donors don't really expect him to win anyway. Why, then, do they contribute in such large amounts? It's a question we often ask of observers of Brooklyn politics. We're still waiting for a good answer.

But indications are he might have more trouble than usual generating cash. Hikind said a Sephardic organization, which he declined to name, has written to Sephardic leaders who had previously contributed to Dear and asked that they not donate this year because Felder has done a fine job. "I know a lot of people who are not contributing who used to contribute to him," Hikind said. The assemblyman doesn't seem worried that Felder would lose to Dear, and even said a part of him hopes there will be a race because "it would be fun."

It appears Hikind is already having some fun with it. He invited Dear to appear on his June 14 radio show (11 p.m. every Saturday on 570 AM) to discuss the police's fatal shooting of emotionally disturbed, hammer-wielding Gideon Busch in Borough Park in 1999. Hikind said Dear called the police response "justified"-a pronouncement that Hikind said was an attempt to win favor with Rudy Giuliani. "While the blood was still fresh on the street, he didn't care to find out the facts of the case," Hikind said. "All Dear had to do was talk to the witnesses," who told Hikind that the police overreacted.

A day after the shooting Dear said the police had fired "way too many" shots (at least 12) at Busch, an Orthodox Jew. But after meeting with the mayor and police commissioner, Dear and several other Orthodox leaders held a news conference supporting the police. A federal prosecutor has now suggested that police might have concocted a story to try to justify the shooting. That development prompted Hikind's radio show invitation, an obvious effort to embarrass Dear at the inception of his latest campaign. "We would like to know where Dear stands on this," Hikind said.

Of course, Dear declined. Hikind's people were told that the former councilman was "not available this week." No matter, said Hikind. "We will re-invite him next week, and every week," he said. Won't Dear see the invitation as an attempt to sandbag him on the air? "We have a reputation for being very, very fair," Hikind said. "Secondly, he was a public official for 19 years. He doesn't have to be intimidated by me. There's no reason for it." Dear didn't return our call. Note to Noach: You don't have to be intimidated by us. There's no reason for it!

MAD ABOUT MADISON We got a cute note from a Madison High School grad who caught our item questioning the veracity of a quote from fellow alumnus Sandy Feldman, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who said her union had been spotless until a recent scandal in Miami. "You of all people should know that Madison graduates can be trusted 110 percent of the time," the reader commented, referring to the Madison lineage of this columnist's mom. "The next thing you'll be saying may be that Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Norm Coleman, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and even Judge Judy may sometimes utter a semi-untruth. This is certainly inconceivable to me."

Borough Politics Archive

2003
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2002
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2001
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2000
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1999
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