The Immunity Doctrine: Bank Fraudsters Go Free as a Matter of Policy
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BLACK: There Was “Massive Illegality” In Mortgage Lending
Posted on21 April 2011.
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One of the elite judges at the First Dept of the New York Appellate Division:
Gonzalez’s Lawyers Rebut Claims of Fraud in Brooklyn Mortgage
New York Law Journal
April 22, 2011
The presiding justice of the Appellate Division, First Department, who is facing accusations of mortgage fraud and nepotism after an article was published in the New York Post, has hired two prominent attorneys to represent him.
Presiding Justice Luis A. Gonzalez (See Profile) has retained Paul Shechtman of Stillman, Friedman & Shechtman, a former chief of the criminal division of the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office; and Ben R. Rubinowitz, a partner at Gair, Gair, Conason, Steigman, Bloom & Rubinowitz, a plaintiff’s personal injury firm, both lawyers confirmed.
The lawyers also confirmed that the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct has opened a preliminary inquiry by asking Justice Gonzalez to answer questions about all aspects of the March 27 Post article.
As to the prospects of a criminal probe, Mr. Shechtman said, “It is unimaginable to me that any prosecutor’s office, after reviewing the relevant documents, would not close an investigation within days of opening it.”
The Post article also reported that Justice Gonzalez authorized the hiring of relatives of several First Department employees, including his ex-wife, Vivian Gonzalez, as a clerk. The Office of Court Administration has confirmed that a Vivian Gonzalez was hired in December as an associate appellate clerk at an annual salary of $65,000 (NYLJ, April 13).
The hiring of relatives of court employees, as claimed in the Post article, is not a crime and would not be the subject of a criminal inquiry, Mr. Shechtman said.
“Time will show that everyone who was hired was qualified for their post,” Mr. Rubinowitz said.
Though Mr. Rubinowitz is known as a plaintiff’s lawyer, he has developed a sub-specialty representing close to “a dozen” judges in matters before the conduct commission. Many of the judges who retained him, he said, knew him through his trial work before them.
http://www.law.com/jsp/nylj/PubArticleNY.jsp?id=1202491090709&Gonzalezs_Lawyers_Rebut_Claims_of_Fraud_in_Brooklyn_Mortgage&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1