So on what day were the convictions of Di Fore and Amicone handed down?

Were you in the courtroom when the jury returned the verdict?

What was the sentence imposed by the judge after the convictions were handed down?

Or are you engaging in slander when you say “illegal acts the Phil Amicone and Janet Difore engaged in” ?

The Bar Association also should be notified. Zherka’s lawyer is part of this, too.

And I am now restricting my participation in this blog because the Journal News is also at fault for caving in to Ottinger and that local judge. Disgraceful. That case should have gone to the Appellate Division ASAP and all the way to the State Court of Appeals if necesssary.

Not only is the local judge in the Ottinger case, Bellantoni, connected to Zherka—but as the Consultant posted, Bellantoni also reached across state lines to find some New Jersey ruling to decide both NY State and First Amendment law. That also should be unacceptable.

But I resent what those like Ottinger and Zherka are doing. I think they are abusing the courts and are attempting to trash the First Amendment. I also read the Manhattan DA’s reply to Zherka, which is very revealing. I also know Zherka is a strip club owner, and I am aware his brother is tied to the Albanian mob and is, I think, currently under a Federal indictment in Manhattan for crimes that are allegedly Albanian mob-related.

Mostly, I guess I don’t like any sleazy characters who use their money to abuse the legal system. I am a defender of the Constitution, if you will permit me that somewhat corny phrase. But that doesn’t make me unique by any means. And so I also resent that the Journal News just collapsed on the important First Amendment Ottinger case because of a ruling by a low-level County Court judge.

;>

addendum—
if you do call or email, I don’t want to know your identity. (Not yet, at least—unless we know each other already.)

So. . .use a “blocked” phone number (I have caller id) or a wahoo-only email.

But yeah—this nuisance usage of the courts to reveal identities thought to have been confidential bothers me, too. National security is not at risk.

Want to know more about me, ask “consultant”

I am a HUGE believer in, and defender of, our freedom of expression, and our First Amendment (also, Amendments 2 through 26).

Faithfully,

Tim

Our discussion cannot continue on these open boards.

(914) 478-5110 or tim@haysmedia.net

Completly confidential.

But, there are a bunch of questions raised here which should never be discussed openly. (Before court.)

And yes, I could probably rouse a good first amendment lawyer to help you, maybe pro bono, to thwart the speech/thought nazis. Might not be Marty Garbus, but there are others who would be upset at the consternation present here.

I have no financial interest whatsoever in the outcome.

Tim

The wealthy such as Strip Club Sam can spend freely with little regard for costs.

Those with no intention of getting or keeping a job can often find some Pro Bono attorney to take on a frivolous suit. Certainly in criminal cases they always get free lawyers no questions asked.

Large law firms can take on these civil suits for two reasons. The first is that when they take on such cases they often assigns them to new associates and then writes off the cost at full partner rates which essentially means the taxpayer foots the bill for training new attorneys for multi-million dollar law firms. The second is they might win and if it’s true pro bono and there is no money there is at least a headline to crow about. As for the contingency lawsuits don’t even get me started (my head might explode).

Please don’t think I believe the poor get great legal services (they don’t) but what I am saying is that the immoral poor have a better shot than the decent working class by far. This is the other side of the Slapp Lawsuit blade, if you will.

The problem is that the overwhelming majority of citizens have work for a living and that means they can’t get free legal support and certainly can’t afford to pay for it so they are in no position to prevail without the overwhelming risk of losing all or most of what you have spent a lifetime working to achieve.

This situation is not something that makes for great front page articles and journalists might not win prizes writing about it,but it’s a true injustice in this country.

Most countries have overcome this injustice by enacting “Loser Pays” policies but that is not going to be an agenda pushed in our litigious society.

This would have to be a citizen driven ballot initiative (state by state) because the various state legislators would not support such common sense as it would cost the legal profession billions which they are successfully taking from the middle class.

The City says bull…t. That the guy was fired for a list of other work-related reasons.

Zherka must have a few dozen suits out there, some against Yonkers, some against other communities, and one or more against New York City. Isn’t it time for the Bar Association to look into all this? One crazy suit after another. Zherka looks to be out of control to some extent, at least as I see it. Maybe he is coming apart because he thinks the Manhattan DA is getting closer.

Here again is the link to Senior Assistant Manhattan DA Matthew Bogdanos’ reply to that other crazy Zherka suit vs. the Consultant, Bogdanos, Yonkers officials, and now Janet DiFiore, too.

www.yonkerstribune.typepad.com. Go to the right side of the home page. Click on the May archive. It’s right there, from May 31. The Bogdanos official answer to Zherka.

July 2nd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Our government, in its infinite wisdom, sees fit to allow both Princes and peasants to seek-out and retain expensive law firms to defend their rights under the First Amendment. If publishers are disinterested in preserving and defending this noble, necessary bulwark against the tyranny of the devil, we are all lost. As Anatole France wrote, (a pen-name, by the way), “The majestic quality of the law…prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”

Ed nailed it with the SLAPP suits. It’s intimidation, and it’s an attempt to silence critics on the part of Ottinger. Zherka has his own problems. Both Ottinger and Zherka will lose, and they know it. They know that as public persons they can’t prevail in any defamation suits. Zherka also has Bognados’ reply to contend with. That’s a heavy, as the expression goes. And the Consultant posted that he’s filing a strong counterclaim.

You also commented on a prime reason they will lose—absence of malice. It is virtually impossible to prove malice. But winning isn’t the goal. Their goal is to harass and to intimidate and to silence critics.

As I said a few times recently, by doing what it did re: Ottinger, the Journal News has made the blogging atomosphere frigid. It’s not a friendly climate anymore.

That lawsuit was to ensure that the town would not interfere in the illegal immigrant hiring hall and the unlawful hiring that was and is going on

If the courts will protect illegal hiring and ensure that illegal immigration is not halted then they ought to protect the civil rights of American citizens. Of course we have no assurance that this protection is of any interest to judges today as it does not result in rewards at the ballot box.

Again: the Journal News could have pursued this better. THEY could have hired Marty Garbus. But, should you want to know how newspaper lawyers feel about the law in general—as it “may” protect their reader constituents—just go rent Absence of Malice. The lazy fat guy who curtly says, “Absent malice, we can say anything we want!” is typical of newspaper lawyers (other than Floyd Abrams, the one exception) I have known in my life.

you are in fact correct, and I am ashened. I was confusing my Brit Anthonys. Smith was the bright one; Summers was the fun conspiracy theorist who wrote the bios of Marilyn Monroe and J. Edgar Hoover.

Thanks,

That’s Ottinger, and partly Zherka. The rest of Zherka, I believe, is to set himself up as a “victim” in the event he is indicted by Bogdanos in Manhattan. He would then try and play the part of “persecuted crusading publisher.”

Call that the potential laugh of the year. And how all that melds with his strip club and other dubious endeavors is a question that would be decided later.

Anthony Smith, not Anthony Summers

I will take a look at “Goodbye Gutenberg”. I also understand your time limitations in going back and forth and I respect that.

For the record I was referring to intentional omissions by newspapers including the Journal News which are not related to space limitations but by an agenda driven policy.

It’s hard to fight that.

Forget what you think of Mr. Zherka. If he’s afoul of the law, the law will take care of that. But I haven’t seen any convictions yet—or even serious charges. I have seen only victories by Zherka in the courts.

It’s lunchtime, and I’m taking a break from the writing of my fifth book, which is about the decline and fall of the New York Mafia. You’ll get copies when we have lunch after it’s published, next year.

For chrissake, Zherka only wanted influence as he rolled out his newspaper—rag, sheet, whatever—and you have helped him achieve that position by your criticisms, and by our continued discussion on this blog. You could have each pulled a Disraeli (“Never complain, never explain”) and The Guardian might have been ignored.

Perhaps 100 people here in Westchester read The Guardian each week—us.

Mayor Amicone—a man I admire—could have similarly ignored its threats. Remember: he won by 2-1 last year. Holy Nixon! Why try to thwart your enemies when they aren’t going to hurt you?

But yes, a person who finances a “newspaper” of any kind is referred to as a “publisher,” whether you think he’s worthy of stature with W R Hearst, Harry Chandler (or his grandson Otis, for whom I worked), Philip Graham, Col. McCormack, Punch Sulzberger, Al Neuharth, or anybody else.

As to the comment about The Journal News’ veracity in printing “truth” or any other articles, go get “Goodbye Gutenberg” by Anthony Summers, published in 1981. There are space limitations.

Guys: lunch discussion needed to fully get through this.

Faithfully,

Tim
tim@haysmedia.net

Libel Suits are so hard to win for the everyday citizen that lawyers don’t take them for money usually. If there is some “hook” then perhaps you could find a pro bono attorney but the very idea of finding one is an overwhelming task for the average citizen.

When a Strip Club Owner uses his ill-gotten gains to start up a rag and attack people there is really little the average citizen can do about it.

It recalls the foundation of this country when a group of citizens had to hide behind trees and shoot at British Soldiers in order to maintain their freedom. At the time the Europeans were aghast that soldiers would hide behind trees and rocks rather than come out in an open field and get slaughtered. However that would not have been a fair fight.

So the anonymous poster is doing what they need to do to fight power and that is something the Journal News should support. They did no such thing and no one should be surprised by that act of cowardice. Nonetheless that is what Gannett should have done.

Remember that the Gannett Group regularly prints the percentage of truth that they select. Nobody can force them to print the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so they join Strip Club Sam in supporting the manner of business that they have practiced for so long. This is why the anonymous poster is practicing another form of news. Sometimes it gets ugly and sometimes it’s wrong but as we all know retractions in the newspaper never make the headlines that the original story made one and that is wrong as well.

1. The County Judge, Bellantoni, who ruled in the Ottinger case, was very heavily backed by Zherka and the Guardian in a failed run for a State Supreme Court judgeship last year.

2. You put Zherka into a grouping hardly anyone but you would say he belongs in.

3. Zherka is suing Westchester DA Janet DiFiore, the Consultant, Yonkers officials and a senior Manhattan District Attorney, Matthew Bogdanos, claiming “defamation” and a crazy conspiracy to “get him.” Bogdanos’ official reply, which is linked above, reveals a lot about Zherka. None of it is good. I am now almost positive you didn’t read it. Regardless, Bogdanos’ official reply makes it evident that Zherka is under criminal investigation for what would be servious offenses, if indicted and convicted.

To my mind, Zherka is trying to use the courts to sue and to create a “victim” defense in case he is indicted.

You call him a publisher. Most would call him something else.

I don’t understand what this has to do with The Guardian. If it has done something actionable to you, respond accordingly.

Whether you like him or not, Sam Zherka is, in fact, a “publisher of a newspaper.” Call it a scandal sheet, trash, whatever you wish. It is in fact a “newspaper.” Go to library archives and read the Chicago Tribune of the late 19th Century (through the mid-20th) for comparison. There is no less opinion on the news pages of the old Trib than in today’s Guardian.

I am not defending The Guardian: I am defending the profession. And our right as Americans to publish. If you disagree with The Guardian, write them a letter and see if they publish it. If they pub something you deem actionable, there are First Amendment lawyers who work pro bono, if you can’t afford Garbus, who will seek remedy.

Okay, all best.

I don’t know exactly what those Forum posters said about Ottinger. My point was, and remains, that no newspaper should shout “No Mas!” on the ruling of a low-level County judge on such an important First Amendment matter. The case should have been appealed immediately. The fallout from that ruling, if it remains unchallenged, can adversely impact every newspaper, magazine, and TV and radio station blog in the state. That’s not a minor issue.

Maybe you can quote libel and other laws, etc. But they certainly didn’t seem to concern you in your posts. If you have a publishing background, I would think you would be a big supporter of the First Amendment. If you are, it doesn’t show very much. But legally, I think the points have been made about what the Journal News did.

Sorry if you took my comments personally. Maybe I was a bit too strident, but I was annoyed. And thanks but no thanks, I’ll pass on the refresher about Zenger.

Finally, about 99 percent of the people who comment on these blogs don’t use their real names. You are disparaging all of them, too. If you want to share your real name with us, fine. That’s your business. But it’s wrong to take your own shots at the 99 percent who don’t.

Who’s missing slices in their loaf?

I don’t need to pay Marty Garbus. Only the fools who expect their anonymity to go unexposed need do so. You must have something to hide.

And to think we started off on the same side.

Read some journalism history: start with Dick Clurman’s “Beyond Malice.”

Friend, I’ve been in this business since 1974, And I can quote you chapter and verse on libel law, fair use, and just about anything else on intellectual property law in the past century. (And about the history of newspaper publishing, dating to John Peter Zenger.)

When you finally get some courage, wahoo, you may use your real name. Until that time, you are only half a man.

You have no response (and don’t bother doing one now) to the facts and legal precedents put in front of you. Like the US Supreme Court on freedom of speech protections and the vitual impossibility under the law of defaming a public person. Oh, well.

Like Zherka under criminal investigation in Manhattan, according to the papers filed by the DA there. Did you read them? I doubt it. And to you, Zherka is “gentle.”

Also according to you, the bloggers in the Ottinger situation should hire someone like Marty Garbus. Are you going to pay Garbus for them?

Ottinger knows he won’t win a defamation case. Zherka knows he won’t win vs. the Consultant, etc. This is about them using their money to shut people up and to intimidate them.

The Consultant is right. Ed is right. And you are somewhere on Cloud Nine and the Journal News is dead wrong. No county judge, let alone one tied to Sam Zherka, should ever be the deciding voice in freedom of speech cases. The JN should have appealed immediately.

Marty Garbus, indeed. Find those bloggers and send Garbus a check on their behalf, Tim.

The climate on these blogs is now FRIGID. That is thanks to the Journal News, and there are a hell of a lot of people who know that. Except you, apparently.

I was addressing the freedom we each enjoy to publish, though freedom of the press belongs to he who owns one.

I think the Journal News could have fought harder. But appellants should hire a top intellectual property lawyer such as Marty Garbus if they want to try and protect their identities. Then again, one reason I use my real name is to avoid situations such as this one, which understandably has citizens concerned about privacy rights.

Lastly, the only comparison to (Harry) Chandler and Pulitzer, et al, is that they, too, were ambitious businessmen who sought to expand their influence by publishing journals disguised as news organs. W R Hearst mastered the art; Orson Welles played him well, with just a bit of exaggeration. Harry Chandler was the model for Noah Cross in Chinatown, amplified just a bit by Robert Towne (and John Huston). Bradlee was always a professional journalist who nonetheless was unafraid to flex his muscles, and Richard Nixon was just one of his targets. (Ask William Tavaloureas, the former chairman of Mobil Oil, if you don’t believe me.)

That influence is the reason any person seeks to publish ANY newspaper, and has been the primary motivation since Ben Franklin. Do you think Rupert Murdoch enjoys losing $10 million a year on The Post so he can subsidize journalists? Hardly.

We have courts for grievances. I hope the anonymous posters are successful in getting the decision reversed.

Times v. Sullivan and McIntyre v. Ohio Board of Elections are two landmark cases about protected free speech.

I don’t think Westchester County Judge Rory Bellantoni figures into that equation to anyone but the Journal News.

With all due respect to Tim, is he a few slices short of a loaf of bread? How can he put the Bellantoni backer and politically and personally motivated Zherka into the same company as those he did in his post above? The Guardian isn’t even a real newspaper. It’s a political and personal attack mechanism, that’s all. It also doesn’t often trouble itself with the word “accurate,” either.

While Tim seems like a nice guy, it’s getting easier to just skip over some of his comments, which apparently can occasionally come from a place most are not familiar with. But his point about all the anonymous letters in the Guardian is a good one.

Why don’t you read Manhattan ADA Bogdanos’ reply to Zherka’s suit, Tim? It is linked several posts above. And then tell us again that Zherka is in the same company as Ben Bradlee and others you listed—only “gentler.”

“The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym ‘Publius,’ and ‘The Federal Farmer’ spoke up in rebuttal. The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized rights to speak anonymously as derived from the First Amendment.”

Pretty good company, that!