Federal judge hits Yonkers for First Amendment violation
-
- March
- 3
In a decision sharply critical of the city, a federal judge ruled today that the city of Yonkers violated the First Amendment rights of a free weekly newspaper when it swept the Westchester Guardian’s news racks from streets and stopped its employees from handing out the paper.
U.S. District Justice Charles L. Brieant found that the city singled out the Guardian and that the action was taken on the basis of the newspaper’s content: a series of articles that were highly critical of Mayor Phil Amicone. Brieant also ruled that the city unconstitutionally applied regulations governing â€Å“advertising and bill distributionâ€? to the newspaper.
â€Å“After 80 years of First Amendment case precedent, this Court would be astonished to find that Defendants do not believe that in-hand distribution of printed material on public City sidewalks is a Constitutionally protected activity,â€? Brieant wrote.
Read more on this tomorrow in The Journal News and LoHud.com
This entry was posted
on Monday, March 3rd, 2008 at 6:53 pm by Len Maniace.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Share and Enjoy: 
| 
| 
Email This
I can’t wait to hear Edelman’s spin on this.
Amicone should be charged with a criminal act for what he ordered.
Where are you consultant?????
Clown got your tongue?
As a Republican in Yonkers (a district leader) and an attorney, who supported Phil Amicone in both 2003 and 2007, I have had serious concerns about this for a long time.
Phil is not the issue here as others have accused. Yes, he was/is the Mayor but senior staff are often in a position to operate independently within city departments and often are viewed as an extension of the Mayor thereby afforded similar privilege… I don’t think Phil knew about this early on or ordered anything. I do however believe this was ordered by someone in his office. The DPW guys are not going to make select pick-ups of news racks in the city without explicit directions.
So the question is, who sent the directive and what and when did the Phil know about this?
I believe that a thorough investigation will reveal that the Mayor knew nothing about this until it became a public issue and that an individual(s) in the Mayor’s office behaved in an unethical and unbecoming manor as a rogue element. The Mayor will have to take disciplinary action against that person(s) in order to clear himself of even the appearance of impropriety.
Remember, that person(s) , whoever it/they might be, is costing the city taxpayers in lawyers fees and the administration in terms of honesty and credibility… Not good…
as I said on news 12 when the event happened..the boxes
should not have been removed….period…what happened
after that is between the court and the city…but
every newspaper has an absolute right to distribute its
content whether or not we agree…you can go back and
review my statements at the time…
This fiasco is costing Yonkers the lawyers’ fees on both
sides, according to the judge’s ruling.
This was a very dumb move by Yonkers. It was immediately
clear the city shouldn’t have done what it did. There
were other ways to deal with it.
As a result, someone should be held responsible. Whoever
made that knee-jerk decision has to walk the plank in one
way or another. If it was Amicone himself, he has to own up
to it. If it was someone else, they must be dealt with.
What has to be remembered is that Zherka is a “serial
litigant.” He wants money. Period. No reputable
newspaper ever would try to grab damages money from the
very residents, the taxpayers, it wants to read its paper.
But Zherka is a different story. He sues everybody. Not just Yonkers—- everybody.
And the Journal News continues to soft-sell what this guy
is all about. Are they afraid of being sued? Probably.
They won’t write about what Zherka’s “real estate” holdings
actually entail. They avoid publishing any real details
about his brother Ali Zherka, the Albanian mobster.
They ignore or look the other way on a lot of Zherka-
related matters, including who the “plaintiffs” actually
are in the other case or cases vs. Yonkers.
But if Yonkers did its own homework before removing
those boxes, it might not have ended up on the losing
end of this case—which to Zherka is actually all about
money and little about “freedom of the press.”
The Guardian is a rag. But it still has the right to
publish. It’s a tax write-off for Zherka, and a way
for him to delude himself into thinking he’s got influence
on the political front, which he does not have.
If anyone reads today’s article, they will see Zherka
and his lawyer Lovett are pushing for big bucks. I’d
say that plan again demonstrates what Zherka is all about.
Yonkers already screwed up by not doing its homework on
this one before taking the boxes. They better start doing
it now. But the idea of wanting millions of dollars
in alleged damages for “readers” of a weekly hand-out
paper is absurd. And, the boxes were back within days.
Many of the original “plaintiffs” in the other suit
apparently are friends and relatives of Zherka, and some
likely were employees of Zherka. (There even could be a
stripper or two on that original list of “plaintiffs.”)
While not a stripper, Zherka’s sister was on that list.
She and her Albanian mobster brother Ali sued a NYC
nightclub in about ‘97 after an alleged altercation with
a then-player on the Knicks. Sue, sue, sue. Just like
Sammy Zherka is doing everywhere.
That nightclub incident was before Ali Zherka was enmeshed
in a double-hit at the strip bar Scores in Manhattan. Albanian hoods were responsible.
A legitimate paper would have made its point by
winning yesterday’s round—or even before that, when
the boxes were returned. A legitimate publisher
would have stopped at one of those two points.
Where does that leave Sammy Zherka?
HEY ETHAN…HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE ZHERKA LAWSUIT
NAMING YOU FOR DEFAMATION AND CIVIL RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
IT HASNT’ BEEN FILED YET..BUT COPIES HAVE BEEN DELIVERED
TO NEWS 12 AND GANNETT..AND APPARENTLY THEY ARE SEEKING
TO DISCOVER THE TRUE NAMES OF SEVERAL BLOGGERS NAMING
THEM AS JOHN DOES IN THE COMPLAINT…
THIS SHOULD BE FUN…BECAUSE WHAT MR ZHERKA DOESNT
GET IS THAT STARTING A LAWSUIT BASED ON MISINFORMATION
RESULTS IN COUNTERCLAIMS AND SANCTIONS MANY TIMES
AND THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES
Mr. Edelman, you are obviously an educated and intelligent person. Can you please learn to use the “Shift” key on your computer keyboard? After that, we can work on punctuation.
Now it will be intersting to see who continues to post.
no one should be intimidated by the lawsuit…in fact
if you read the lawsuit you will find on page 11 paragraph
27 that the lawsuit states that mr Bogdanos agreed…
to engage in investigative activities..etc etc…too long
to print but that he Bogdanos was (investigating)Mr
Zherka by issueing subpoenas …how interesting that there
own lawsuit admits to an investigation by an assistant
da in new york county and attempts to enjoin that law
enforcement officer from conducting the investigation
For an accurate and further explanation see paragraphs
27 and 28 on patges 11 and 12..in which the Plaintiff
claims the investigation is a deliberate attempt to
injure him.and draw your own conclusions
is there an investigation> if so what is the basis,
who is conducting it, and what are they looking for
sorry about the caps…
Ironically, I agreed with Zherka about the boxes.
Anything I have posted is either protected opinion or
is based on verifiable facts. That’s all there is to it.
For instance, the info about Ali Zherka is widely available
in credible articles on the internet and elsewhere.
Look it up. Including the Scores strip club incident.
Ali Zherka also was under Federal indictment for activities
involving the Albanian mob and a crooked NYC cop, as of
last summer. That info is on the internet.
So is the info about Zherka’s sister and Ali suing
after an alleged altercation with then-Knicks player
Anthony Mason at the China Club in Manhattan in about ‘97.
That Zherka himself has invested in slum properties
is not a secret, either.
That Zherka underwrote a large percentage of Robertson’s
mayoral campaign in Yonkers is a fact. That Zherka is
a strip club owner is a fact.
The Journal News or whoever has every right to resist
and fight any subpoeanas of anyone—based on the very
free speech Zherka hollers about, and other legal factors.
And I am sure they will do so.
Zherka is trying to intimidate and silence any discussions
he doesn’t agree with. That, in my protected opinion, makes him at best a hypocrite.
PS: There was a poster on here a few months ago who
asserted he had a lot of damaging information about Zherka. I simply referred him to the Yonkers Police
Commissioner, and I have no idea what, if anything,
became of that.
The courts have already established there is a very,
very, high hill to climb when it comes to data that
could possibly lead to the identities of bloggers.
Also, any media organization knows it has to protect its
own “blogosphere,” or else no one will comment or
participate. Evidently, that would please Zherka. But,
what would then essentially be censorship by intimidation
is a disturbing notion.
Zherka also is a public figure. So, he has his own much
higher hill to climb in any suit. He also would have to
prove a reckless disregard for the truth, a very difficult
task, even if he is able somehow to climb that first high
hill, which is not at all likely.
And, as the Consultant pointed out, he would also be
opening himself for discovery, counter-suits and a
host of other things which might not be to his liking.
GO ETHAN..you hit the nail right on the head..but answer
me this riddle…why on earth would Zherka put in the body
of his complaint, the fact that a manhattan county assistant
da is investigating him for alleged criminal activity involving the “mob” when that is exactly what he is complaining that bloggers have alleged about him..ie
why has he chosen to advertise to the world that subpoenas
have been dropped on his businesses and that all of this
comes from blog entries when every one knows that assistant
da’s do not and can not initiate an investigation with out
the following. 1.k evidence that a crime was committed
2. some indication that criminal liability attaches to
the individual under investigation 3. permission from his
immediate superior….4. knowledge of the boss in this
case Robert Morganthau…and remember in this case the
manhattan county da can only investigate crimes in NY
county…so why put that in a complaint about first amendment or civil rights…when in fact that same
person has recently and publicly participated in a political campaign both by using his newspaper to hurl
charges against an incumbant mayor and by contributing
large amounts of money, thereby making him the subject
of news reports and therefore a public figure, which virtually eliminates the possiblity of suing for defamation
answer that for me please
In my opinion, any comments from anyone at all suggesting
Zherka might be, could be, may be tied to the Albanian mob in some way or another probably were based on his brother, his own status as a Manhattan strip club owner, his large investments in slum and other properties, and so on. That’s my protected opinion.
Also, and of importance, information like that in the Manhattan DA’s own probe or other possible investigations past or present in whatever jurisdictions might have been known by some. I said “possible” and “might.”
Why Zherka included an acknowledgement of the official Manhattan probe is not known by me. But he revealed it, and right there it shows that any comments which raised questions about his activities were not unreasonable or
“a reckless disregard for the truth.” That’s just one hill
Zherka would have to climb.
Zherka also is very much a public figure. As the publisher of the very controversial Guardian, as a campaign financier and someone who airs attack TV ads against those he doesn’t like, as a strip club owner whose brother is connected to the Albanian mob, and as a guy with many corporations under his control, he is very, very much a public figure.
Zherka attacks anyone he wants to with little evident concern for facts. His idea of “free speech” and a “free press” apparently means only for him. But those principles
apply to others, too. Zherka is a bully who wants to
inflict censorship by intimidation.
I fully expect the Journal News, Cablevision, and any and all service providers to resist Zherka’s ill-considered fishing expedition. He has a very high burden to meet, and all media organizations will fight him, as they should do for legal and other reasons already laid out in comments on this blog today.
The contention that the Manhattan D.A. would officially
investigate Zherka, and get subpoenas and all that entails because of anonymous blog comments is laughable.
Maybe Sammy should wonder about what the real sources of that investigation are. Who or what really triggered it? Not this blog site. Sammy better fish around elsewhere.
He should try Manhattan. That’s where the strip club and whatever else are, and it is the Manhattan D.A. we are talking about here. Or is that too complicated for Sammy?
For the record, until reading this blog today, I had no idea Zherka was under investigation in Manhattan.
But it is nice to know.