Complaint Review: Cyrus Vance Jr. - New York New York

Below as part of this report, I am placing letters sent to Manhattan District Attorney-elect Cyrus Vance, Jr. and to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Vance has not yet acknowledged my e-mail message to him; I must assume he is ignoring it.

My concerns involve his having appointed criminal defense attorney Isabelle A. Kirshner of the Manhattan-based firm Clayman & Rosenberg to his transition team.  I have located records, which may be only partial records, of Clayman & Rosenberg's donations to the Vance for D.A. campaign; the firm donated over $42,000.

I have direct knowledge of attorney Isabelle A. Kirshner successfully freeing a wealthy domestic violence offender from full accountability for his crimes.  She and her firm did not donate so much money to Vance's campaign, and she is not now serving on his transition team, in order to make sure that the Manhattan D.A. brings the most vigorous possible prosecutions against domestic violence offenders.  The money was given, and she is serving, in order to enhance Clayman & Rosenberg's bottom line, not because Clayman & Rosenberg is concerned above all with assuring the safety of the community.

Previously, there was evidence suggesting an improper relationship between Clayman & Rosenberg and the Manhattan D.A.'s Office.  The outgoing D.A. Robert Morgenthau's establishment had Vance as its candidate of choice.  It is inappropriate and completely unacceptable that Isabelle A. Kirshner is now serving on Vance's transition team, while simultaneously continuing on Clayman & Rosenberg's payroll, after Clayman & Rosenberg donated over $42,000 to the Vance campaign.

The letters below contain details pertaining to how Kirshner's presence on Vance's transition team demonstrate that Vance is not serious about fighting domestic violence. 

I am calling on Vance to dismiss Kirshner from his team and to put out a press release explaining the dismissal.  Beyond that, I am calling on the media and others to conduct a close and careful survey of the record of case outcomes in Manhattan Criminal Court when defendants have been represented by Clayman & Rosenberg.  Also in the future, watchdog groups should be vigilant that no improper relationship be permitted between Clayman & Rosenberg and the Manhattan District Attorney's Office.

The People pay for the District Attorney to protect them, and that protection must not be compromised through dubious relationships between high-power criminal defense attorneys and the D.A. and his prosecutors.

While I may not, according to ripoffreport policy, include links to the campaign donation records I mentioned above, they may be located with relative ease through internet search engines.

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

This is to request you insist that Manhattan D.A.-elect Cyrus Vance, Jr. remove from his transition team Isabelle A. Kirshner, Esq. of Clayman & Rosenberg, a Manhattan-based criminal defense firm. Attached, print-outs of some of the contributions Clayman & Rosenberg's attorneys made to Vance's campaign in 2008 and 2009. Whether these are complete records, I don't know, but they total $42,750.00.

Kirshner's presence on Vance's transition team is especially troubling because Vance claims he wants to expand the fight against domestic violence. Yet Kirshner in the past has successfully defended a wealthy abuser against the most vigorous possible prosecution. She most certainly is not now aiming to help Vance carry out the most vigorous possible prosecutions of domestic violence offenders.

Kirshner is a high-profile criminal defense attorney. In the past, she represented Al-Qaeda affiliate Abdel Meskini. She was quoted widely in the media about Madoff. She is now representing Anil Kumar against allegations relative to the Galleon Group matter.

Every defendant deserves a competent defense. Unfortunately though, when Kirshner represents a wealthy domestic violence offender, the Manhattan District Attorney's Office does not do everything it possibly could do to bring that offender to justice. I know of a case in which Kirshner's wealthy client tortured his live-in victim for two years and in the end ruptured the victim's spleen. This victim was subject to regular rapes and beatings.

There was, furthermore, during the criminal justice process in the case, an appearance of an improper relationship between Clayman & Rosenberg and the D.A.'s Office. The offender was convicted of a misdemeanor assault and given a wrist-slap sentence. Kirshner asked the judge to remove from that sentence a psychiatric evaluation. I have sent Vance an e-mail, asking him to explain how Isabelle A. Kirshner will help him to expand the fight against domestic violence. I attach a copy of that message.

Note that in it, I say this: ________________________________________

"Kirshner online states that she fights tirelessly to achieve the best possible outcome for clients. I can not imagine that she will now be adding to that a statement such as "Working on D.A. Vance's transition team, I am doing everything I can to insure that abusers will be held fully accountable for their crimes of domestic violence."

It would be interesting to know, actually, if you would request for her to put such a statement on her Clayman & Rosenberg profile, and whether she would then do so." ________________________________________

Mayor Bloomberg, if Isabelle A. Kirshner will not add such a statement to her Clayman & Rosenberg profile, she is not the right person to serve on Vance's transition team towards expanding the fight against domestic violence. To leave Kirshner on Vance's transition team while claiming to stand strongly against domestic violence is an unconscionable hypocrisy. Kirshner gave to the Vance campaign and is now serving on his transition team in order to enhance Clayman & Rosenberg's bottom line, not to protect the safety of the community.

Sincerely,

Scott R Dear Manhattan District Attorney-elect Vance:

I wish to know as soon as possible and with the greatest of urgency how criminal defense attorney Isabelle A. Kirshner, now serving on your transition team, will contribute to your stated goal of expanding the fight against domestic violence. In Manhattan Criminal Court domestic violence case number 2007NY070791, Kirshner and her colleagues at the Manhattan-based law firm Clayman & Rosenberg represented defendant Bradley Ingalls, aka Brad Ingalls, initially arraigned on a felony assault charge. The assault left the domestic violence victim involved in the case in a surgical intensive care unit, with a ruptured spleen. I believe that in this case, the DA did not develop a full array of evidence leads. Please note that while I was visiting the victim in the surgical intensive care unit of St. Vincent's Hospital, a nurse took me aside and told me something I already knew: "If that victim returns to living with the abuser, the next time, you'll get a call that they're dead. We see it all the time; it's very sad."

That is going on in Manhattan, New York. Though the D.A. did not develop a full array of evidence leads in the case, the victim had to hear assistant district attorney Joanna Berlin say that had the case gone to trial, Kirshner and her Clayman & Rosenberg colleagues could successfully have claimed that the victim was injured by somebody other than Ingalls, during consensual rough sex.

Ingalls then pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge. He received a wrist-slap sentence. At sentencing, Kirshner asked the judge to remove a psychiatric evaluation from the sentence. It is understood that a defense attorney tries for the most lenient sentence for a client. However, the victim in this case says that during the two years of living with Ingalls, they were controlled by death threats. When the victim would say "If you kill me, the police will find out," Ingalls would reply "They won't find out, because I'm going to cut your body into little pieces."

Does that sound like a convicted offender who should not have a psychiatric evaluation?

The hospital record of this victim's ruptured spleen is not hearsay. Ingalls' plea of guilty to the assault that caused the ruptured spleen is not hearsay. One presumes that when your transition to District Attorney is complete, Isabelle Kirshner, who is still with Clayman & Rosenberg, would use her formidable lawyering skills to help wealthy domestic violence offenders such as Ingalls evade full accountability for their crimes.

Kirshner online states that she fights tirelessly to achieve the best possible outcome for clients. I can not imagine that she will now be adding to that a statement such as "Working on D.A. Vance's transition team, I am doing everything I can to insure that abusers will be held fully accountable for their crimes of domestic violence."

It would be interesting to know, actually, if you would request for her to put such a statement on her Clayman & Rosenberg profile, and whether she would then do so.

Kirshner's professional prowess is not in question here: her suitability to expanding the fight against domestic violence, however, most certainly is. The woman takes money to work at odds with your stated mission. She works at times, counter to the safety of the community. Again, I can't stress enough that I am not questioning the need for capable defense attorneys. I am rather asking why you are in cahoots with Kirshner, when in exercising her profession she is at times at odds with your supposed mission of expanding the fight against domestic violence.

To be frank, it appears there is too cozy a relationship between the Manhattan D.A.'s Office and Clayman & Rosenberg. I have seen the documentation of Clayman & Rosenberg's contributions to your campaign to become District Attorney. Links to that documentation are placed beneath my signature.

And now I, as a decent human being, profoundly concerned for the safety of the most vulnerable, would like an explanation from you of how you think Isabelle A. Kirshner, Esq. will help you to expand the fight against domestic violence.

By taking money from an offender to ask a judge to remove from that offender's sentence a psychiatric evaluation, Ms. Kirshner has demonstrated that she is capable of being more interested in having more money than in protecting the safety of the community. That she is on your payroll is a grotesque joke, and an egregious affront to all domestic violence victims and indeed, all decent members of society.

I am open to a reasonable explanation of how her presence on your transition team helps expand the fight against domestic violence.

I reserve the right to show other members of the community the text of this e-mail message.

Sincerely,

Scott R