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June 11, 2004
For Immediate Release
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Contact: Albert O'Leary
212-298-9190
or (DEA) Christina DeRespiris
212-587-1000
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PATROLMEN’S BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION
DETECTIVES’ ENDOWMENT ASSOCIATION
DEA AND PBA CALL FOR JUDGE’S REMOVAL AND
CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION
Detectives’ Endowment Association (DEA) president Michael J. Palladino
and Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association president Patrick J. Lynch called
for the immediate removal of Queens Supreme Court Justice Laura Blackburne from
the bench and for a criminal investigation into her facilitation of the escape
from her courtroom of a suspected violent felon being sought by detectives.
DEA president Michael Palladino said: “Judge Blackburne’s actions
were shocking but not surprising given her long history of anti-police behavior.
NYC detectives had the opportunity to arrest an individual accused of a violent
felony in a relatively risk free, controlled environment. Judge Blackburne turned
the controlled situation into a potentially dangerous one to the public, the police
and the suspect himself by tipping off the individual about the impending arrest
and allowing him to elude the police by directing the perpetrator out of the courthouse
through a non-public back exit. Her actions allowed the suspect back out on the
street and afforded him the opportunity to arm himself and further escape justice.
“Judge Blackburne’s anti-police bias has tipped the scales of
justice. She has proven herself to be incapable of administering justice in a
fair and unbiased manner. We are filing a complaint with the New York State Commission
on Judicial Conduct seeking her immediate removal form the bench and we are calling
upon the Office of Court Administration for a criminal investigation into her
actions which constitute the obstruction of governmental administration in the
penal law.”
PBA president Lynch said “Judge Blackburne’s long career has been
one of misjudgments which continued yesterday with an act that is clearly criminal
obstruction of governmental administration. From her extravagant pink leather
sofa to her wasteful spending of taxpayers’ dollars for her own comfort
and pleasure, she has consistently demonstrated, in an embarrassingly public way,
that the only judgment she posses is bad judgment. She is responsible for putting
a cop shooter back on the streets only to be arrested again for assaulting a police
officer and driving while intoxicated. Yesterday she endangered the people of
New York by allowing a suspected violent felon to evade detectives who there to
arrest him. This is one judge who should not be sitting in judgment of anything.”
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