| THE PATRIOT RETURNS |
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Vol. 24, No. 1 June 10, 2005
A CONVICTED FELON ATTORNEY AT THE PSC
Barbara Bowen, our PSC President and radical rebel of the 1960s, along with her Marxist/Leninist brothers Stanley Aronowitz and Steven London, and joined by sister Deborah Bell, have continued with the old communist tradition of not telling the truth to the membership. Instead of responding to the serious charges raised in TPR vol. 23, no. 6 (May 2005), Barbara used Executive Director Sister Bell to NOT TELL THE TRUTH when answering questions about the irresponsible recruitment of a felon as the PSC's attorney. On May 27, right after the publication of these charges in the Patriot, Bowen commanded Sister Bell to hoodwink the members of the DA. In her e-mail memo to the DA Bell went to work, dismissing the Patriot's charges as "offensive, inaccurate in many respects, and hypocritical. " She claimed that this was a "political attack" and that Mr. Charny was hired because of his experience in "collective bargaining." She admitted that the legal charges against Mr. Charny were "serious" but dismissed them as "error of omission and judgment". She accepted the simplistic explanation that "He was poorly supervised" and closed by saying she "was satisfied that he will contribute positively to the PSC"... "and should not have to continue to "pay" for a closed chapter in his career." Well, well, well, President Bowen and Ms. Bell. The Patriot is going to provide some excerpts from publicly available sources and respectfully pose a few questions to the PSC's leadership. We hope they will have courage and honesty to come clean on the Charny affair. Source 1: The Washington Post Wednesday, April 2 1997; Page C10 Source 2: http://www.angelfire.com/ga/careywatch/
Source 3: New York Law Journal, Disciplinary proceedings instituted by the Departmental Disciplinary Committee for the First Judicial Department. Respondent was admitted to the Bar at a Term of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court for the Second Judicial Department on Nov. 3, 1993. An order of this Court having been entered on April 15, 1999 (M-56), which, inter alias, suspended respondent from practice as an attorney and counselor-at-law, effective immediately, and until the further order of this Court. … On or about Oct. 1, 1998, respondent pled guilty to an information filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States (via making false statements) in violation of 18 USC @ 371, a felony under the United States Code. The information alleged that respondent, a former associate at Cohen, Weiss & Simon, which represented Ronald Carey in his 1996 bid for re-election as president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, had lied about the legitimacy of several contributions to that campaign to a court-appointed Election Officer who was investigating illegal fund-raising activity. By order and decision dated April 15, 1999 (257 AD2d 18), this Court granted the petition of the Departmental Disciplinary Committee, finding that the crime of which respondent had been convicted was a "serious crime" as defined by Judiciary Law @ 90(4)(d) and 22 NYCRR @ 603.12(b), suspending respondent on an interim basis, and appointing a Referee to conduct a hearing within 90 days from the date of respondent's sentencing in Federal Court... On April 6, 2000, the Honorable Thomas P. Griesa sentenced respondent to time served and imposed a $500 fine and a $100 special assessment ... In early 1997, after Carey was re-elected, a Federal Election Officer began investigating numerous allegations of improprieties with respect to contributions to the Carey campaign, including the seven contributions which the 31-year-old respondent had vetted. In mid-February, respondent drafted and submitted to the election officer a signed declaration from a contributor, stating that she had directed her spouse to sign the contribution check on her behalf. Respondent added a sentence to the effect that she had spoken to him personally, which he knew was not true. Similarly, on Feb. 20th, at the direction of the Election Officer, respondent submitted a signed statement to her, outlining the steps he had taken to investigate the seven contributions. In that statement, respondent falsely stated that he had personally spoken to all seven contributors at the time of their respective contributions when, in fact, he had only talked to five of them and had spoken to the spouses of the other two. On March 20, 1997, respondent confessed his misconduct to his law firm and asked permission to correct his misstatements before they were relied upon by the Election Officer. The next day, respondent was forced to resign from the firm and, within days, he began cooperating with the Federal Election Officer and the United States Attorney's Office in the investigation into campaign irregularities. After 18 months of such cooperation, respondent entered his guilty plea in Federal Court in October 1998. ... the Panel also considered respondent's conviction to be "serious" in that he was fully aware his misstatements would be relied upon yet waited approximately five weeks before admitting to his misconduct. From this, the Panel inferred that respondent's actions "were the result of fear of being caught" as a result of questions raised by the Election Officer. The Panel further found that respondent's conduct was not an isolated incident insofar as he submitted false written statements on separate occasions. In view of the two-year suspension imposed by the Southern District, the Panel rejected respondent's request that he be automatically reinstated by this Court at the conclusion of the suspension. Respondent's request for automatic reinstatement without further proceedings was specifically addressed and rejected by the Hearing Panel. ... Noting that its recommended sanction would be in effect until April 15, 2001, the Panel concluded that respondent must address his misconduct before the issue of reinstatement is even examined, and "any attempt to diminish his misconduct would not result in a favorable recommendation for reinstatement". (EMPHASIS SUPPLIED BY The Patriot Returns.)
As one of the hundreds of respondents who communicated with The Patriot noted: "Out of all of the labor lawyers in greater New York, why Mr. Charny, a CONVICTED CRIMINAL AND A SUSPENDED ATTORNEY to represent the PSC?" Yet another asked: "Is the current PSC leadership going to use the New York State Sex Offenders List as a hiring pool?" Rather than wondering "What are the consequences of keeping Charny on the PSC payroll?" a better question might be "IS THIS THE BEST THAT THE MEMBERSHIP CAN EXPECT FOR THEIR EVER-INCREASING DUES?" All these are questions that The Patriot would like the membership, not just the closed circle of the DA, to be asking. Perhaps the Clarion could do one of its hard-hitting stories on the Charny affair? Or is the PSC's politburo unwilling to turn the spotlight on its own secretive ways? Counselor Charny once asked, "WHERE'S THE MONEY?" The membership should be asking "WHERE'S OUR MONEY GOING? WHY IS IT GOING TO CHARNY'S SALARY?" BATTLIN' BABS BABBLES ON 'BOUT BROOKLYN COLLEGE
On June 3rd, "Battlin' Babs" Bowen issued an "Open Letter" to the Chancellor in which she announced that academic freedom was under attack at BC. She pointed to the controversies surrounding Timothy Shortell, the newly elected chair of the Sociology Department, and Priya Parmar, of the School of Education. Each of these engagé academics had been the subject of editorials and articles in the New York Sun and the Daily News. Bowen demanded that Goldstein "support...Christoph Kimmich in forwarding without delay his recommendation to the CUNY Board of Trustees...of Shortell as Chair..." and "issue a public statement defending the essential principle of academic freedom and condemning the May 31 article in The New York Sun, 'Disposition' Emerges as Issue at Brooklyn College." So much, it seems, for the PSC's support of freedom of the press. Professor Shortell has suggested that "religious adherents" are an "ugly, violent lot", who are "incapable of moral action". Since many of us at TPR fall into Prof. Shortell's category of "moral retards", we are unable to comment on his capabilities. And since we disagree with the idea that standard English is the language of oppressors--one that Prof. Parmar appears to advocate--we will defer an in-depth reading of her pedagogy and politics. But we are pleased to note that on June 7th---only four days after Bowen's daring open letter--Shortell "declined the election" as chair. Is a public apology by Parmar to her former students far behind? The recently re-emerged "Solidarity Steve" London has characterized the Shortell affair as a "witch hunt". If this is so, we suggest that the PSC's chief sorceress take note. Her spells seem not to be working these days. PS: Sharad
Karkhanis, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus Forthcoming issues of The Patriot may be accessed at the www.patriotreturns.com Archived editions are available at http://www.patriotreturns/archive.htm. |