The Court Report

By Richard Blassberg


Jing Kelly Returns To Westchester
Supreme Court Of The State Of New York
Appellate Division, Second Department
White Plains, New York
Justices: Miller, J.P., Spolzino, Ritter, and Dillon, JJ.


Tuesday morning, February 20th Jing Kelly, who has been separated from her son, Tristram, for more than four years because of a
kidnapping and false imprisonment arranged and set in motion by former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro, and perpetuated
by New York County Family Court Judge Sara P. Schechter, appeared in White Plains with her Attorney Adam Seiden. Seiden,
who is a Mount Vernon City Court Judge, and President of The Westchester Bar Association, was representing her as an Appellant
before the Appellate Division, Second Department, State Supreme Court, in an effort to overturn her conviction of Second Degree Custodial Interference, a misdemeanor, three years ago.

Kelly, who was detained in the Westchester County Jail, without the setting of bail, for thirteen months awaiting trial, because DA Pirro argued, and Judge Barbara Zambelli agreed, she was a flight risk despite the fact that she had no access to her child, had been over-charged with First Degree Custodial Interference, a felony. In point of fact, she had removed her infant son from the home of Gail Hiler, of Larchmont, who had been granted parole custody by New York Family Court Judge Sara P. Schechter, but who violated the terms of that Court’s ruling by allowing her brother, Jing’s husband, Craig Kelly, to move in with her, thus obtaining constant, and full-time, unsupervised contact with the infant.

First Degree Custodial Interference was, by definition, clearly an over-charge because one of the elements of that crime involves
removal with the intention of permanently keeping the child away. Upon learning of her former husband, Craig Kelly’s death from ill-ness, Jing had voluntarily returned with their son Tristram, no longer fearing abuse and harm from his alcoholic father. Over-charging, as members of the Westchester Defense Bar are well aware, was a frequent tactic of DA Jeanine Pirro, whose jurisdiction in the entire matter was arguable, given that nothing done by Jing Kelly on the day she took off with her infant son for China, to protect him from constant physical harm, was not an offense until she boarded a plane with him in Queens County.

Essentially Jing Kelly’s argument before the Appellate Division was that having been acquitted by the jury of First Degree Custodial
Interference as a felony, in her trial before Judge Zambelli, the Judge had a duty to send the jury back into deliberation with respect to the lesser, misdemeanor charge, with an Affirmative Defense Instruction. At trial the jury was not permitted to consider the affirmative defense involving a mother’s actions to prevent harm from coming to her infant child.

Analysis


Jing Kelly, a loving mother, and her son Tristram, who will soon be seven years old, have been forcibly kept 3,000 miles apart for more
than four years. This mother has never so much as been accused of abusing or harming her child, at any time, As with so many malicious
and cruel actions taken by Jeanine Pirro against innocent, decent, individuals, the horrific consequences continue to be years in rectifying.
No amount of money, no eventual adjudicated financial compensation will ever make up for the critical years of love and association
stolen from Jing Kelly and her only child, Tristram.