Safe at home
A tenant at Sumner Houses in Bushwick was allowed to stay in her home recently after a judge decided that there was no evidence to support police claims that her boyfriend had turned the city-owned apartment into a drug den.
In a decision rendered on June 2, Judge Richard Velazquez said that tenant Sharon Lipscomb-Arroyo apparently did not know that her boyfriend was allegedly dealing drugs out of her apartment, and therefore should not be booted out of her home by the New York City Housing Authority.
According to court papers, officials said that the woman shared her home with her boyfriend, Lawrence Jackson, who was arrested on gun charges back in 2005.
Police alleged that they executed a search warrant inside the couple’s home and discovered the gun along with 46 vials of crack and over $2,000 in cash in Jackson’s jacket.
But while the police admitted that Jackson was a target of an investigation, they admitted that he was only arrested on the gun charge, not the drugs.
Still, the New York City Housing Authority used the arrest to bring eviction proceedings against Lipscomb-Arroyo, claiming that her apartment was being used in a criminal enterprise.
Judge Velasquez denied their attempt, claiming that they neither proved that drugs were being sold in the apartment nor that Lipscomb-Arroyo knew that her boyfriend was in the drug trade.
“The court is well aware that often times public housing projects become areas where drug trade is rampant and tenants are placed in fear of their safety and the safety of their families,” Velasquez wrote. “Residents of public housing deserve to live in a drug-free environment and should not have to fear walking out of their apartments into harm’s way.”
“At the same time, mere allegations, unsubstantiated by actual evidence of illegal drug activity, cannot and should not be used to evict tenants,” he continued. “Speculation cannot replace admissible evidence to deprive someone of her/his home.”
Schack attack
Judge Arthur Schack once again thumbed his nose at state officials by recusing himself from another civil court case, claiming that he couldn’t be fair and impartial in an action against Starbucks Coffee because one of the attorneys in the case is connected to the state legislator he’s suing.
At the same time, he used his decision to describe state judges as the Rodney Dangerfields of government.
In an announcement recently handed down, Schack said that he could not adjudicate over the negligence action because one of the defendants in the case is represented by Bernan Henoch, Peterson & Peddy, where Assemblymember Mark Weprin is employed as an attorney.
He said that he should not rule on the issue because he and several other jurists have filed an Article 78 hearing against the State Legislature for their “continued violation of the New York State Constitution” when it comes to regular pay raises for judges.
“New York State judges have not had a pay increase for more than nine years,” he explained in his announcement that he was recusing himself from the case. “Assemblymember Weprin, unlike myself and my fellow New York State judges, is not precluded from earning additional income.”
“As the Legislature is still in session, I can hope that Mr. Weprin would allow the judges of the state to receive their first pay raise in a decade,” Schack wrote. “Thanks to our legislators like Assemblyman Weprin, it appears that our judges are the ‘Rodney Dangerfields’ of government. A pay raise would help to give judges a little respect, instead of, as said by Chief Judge [Judith] Kaye in [a recent] a New York Law Journal article, “the disdain with which we are treated.”
Over the past year or so jurists like Brooklyn Judge Arthur Schack have recused themselves from a number of lawsuits because the law firms involved in the suits had state legislators on their payrolls.
In papers filed in Manhattan last month, Kaye’s attorneys at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz allege that “New York State judges have only received one increase in pay” in the last 14 years.
That raise, which brought them to their current $108,000 to $156,000 salary, depending on the different benches they adjudicate from, as well as their seniority, hasn’t been changed since 1999, they claim.
With no raise in sight, New York judges have been asked to bear “staggering caseloads” that are far heavier than their counterparts in federal court, Kaye’s attorneys said.
After she filed, Kaye, who is leaving the judiciary this year once she receives the mandatory retirement age of 70, sent a message to judges in Brooklyn as well as throughout the state – a total of 1,300 – that the lawsuit was their last best chance for reconciliation.
“At this point, we are left with no choice but to take legal action to address this intolerable situation,” she said.
The state’s Unified Court System is listed as a co-plaintiff in the suit.
State officials do not comment on pending legislation.
