The Advocate
Richard Blassberg

Call The F.B.I.

The time has come for all of the victims of Jeanine Pirro’s “reign of terror” to lay aside their trepidation and share the unlawful patterns and practices worked against them, and their loved ones, between January 1, 1993 and December 31, 2005, by the District Attorney of Westchester County. Events of the past several days clearly suggest that the Justice Department has finally begun to turn their attention to more than the joint ten-year federal tax fraud that sent Albert J. Pirro, Jr. to prison. In fact, it would now seem that United States Attorney Michael Garcia, unlike an earlier occupant of the office, might be altogether very willing to go ‘toe-to-toe’ with Mrs. Pirro for as far down the road as necessary to uncover, and root out corruption and criminality, wherever that road may lead.

Garcia, to his credit, has already demonstrated a distinct unwillingness to play the game by her rules, a fact which has made Pirro uncomfortable, to say the least. In her public statements, more accurately, proclamations, one gets the clear impression that, much like Dustin Hoffman after Rain Man, she’s having great difficulty coming
down from the role of DA. Imagine her, demanding that the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York discover and reveal who it was that “leaked” the investigation of her attempted wiretapping of her husband and his mistress aboard his 26-foot Loveboat in Rye Harbor?

Despite Mrs. Pirro’s protestations to the contrary we know that the prosecutor handling her investigation is not Eliot Jacobson, the Assistant United States Attorney who developed and prosecuted the Pirros’ tax fraud case nine years ago. In fact, the prosecutor assigned is Perry Carbone, a bright and already very accomplished federal attorney whose work in public integrity cases in New Jersey and elsewhere, we are told, caught the attention of President George W. Bush, who has specifically called upon him to “help deal with the public integrity issues in the suburbs north of New York City.”

Furthermore, Mrs. Pirro’s repeated claim that the current federal investigation, both into her civilian criminal conduct, as well as her conduct in office, is a “witch hunt,” or somehow “politically timed to destroy her election prospects,” is not credible given the fact that she is a Republican and the Administration in Washington is Republican, and has financially supported her campaign. Her screaming and carrying on notwithstanding, there is every reason to believe that United States Attorney Michael Garcia’s Office is conducting a totally above-board, non-politically inspired, investigation into the activities, not only of Jeanine Pirro, and Bernard Kerik, but also
numerous other former, and present public officials, Democrats, Republicans, and Independence Party members in Westchester, and the New York metropolitan area.

If, indeed, as reported, President Bush has called upon Mr. Carbone to go in and investigate, and clean up corruption in Westchester, and elsewhere around New York, he is to be congratulated for recognizing that the War on Terrorism is not the only attention the federal government ought to be paying to this area. No reasonable
observer could accept the notion that there isn’t a great deal of information to be uncovered and dealt with.

Those in the know around the Westchester County Courthouse have understood for years the concept “Pirro Law,” and its implications for an accused individual’s Constitutional Rights. False confessions, police violence, and totally confabulated prosecutions all flourished under Jeanine Pirro.

Her Public Integrity Bureau under Mike Hughes was a total fraud, better yet, an oxymoron. In one case Pirro expressed the opinion to an attorney that it really didn’t matter if she knowingly used false testimony and evidence to convict his brother. Her power was so absolute for so long, that she was arrogant, and virtually imperious.

Under the present circumstances, it is entirely probable that she, herself, leaked information of the federal investigation, preferring to control both the timing and the spin. It is not unlike her to do the unexpected, the outrageous. And, furthermore, she was, and still is, far behind in the polls to be this close to election. Once again,
particularly in light of the Government’s interest in her “steering of criminal cases,” now is the time when victim’s of her abuse of power, and their families should come forward in order that the unlawful patterns and practices of her office for some twelve years may finally be exposed.