Taxi suit flagged as a nonstarter
AW, HAIL.
A judge has tossed a cabbie’s suit seeking to force the city to stabilize the taxi medallion market in the face of competition from e-hail apps like Uber and Lyft.
Justice Arlene Bluth wrote in a decision this week that the regulatory scheme for taxis is at the city’s discretion and the court cannot ride roughshod over it.
The court “cannot compel (the city) to take actions to obtain a result that is not clearly defined,” Bluth wrote in the case that cabbie Marcelino Hervias and Queens medallion owner William Guerra filed.
The men called the system unfair and wanted to force the city and Taxi & Limousine Commission to follow a rule ensuring medallion owners “remain financially stable.”
“The city, in creating a medallion structure, guaranteed the value of the medallion,” said David Schwartz, an attorney for Hervias and Guerra. “They really created a false investment.”
Bluth said the men failed to provide important information, including how much they paid for their medallions or an assessment of how much the medallions are currently worth due to ehail competition.
She did hint at future litigation over competition between taxis and e-hail apps.
“There may be legal options available to petitioners to ensure that taxis and ridesharing apps are treated equally, and perhaps taxis would become more profitable,” Bluth said. BROOKLYN FEDERAL prosecutors say they’re no longer trying to prove an aging gangster was planning a hit on a federal agent — but they still want the judge to throw the book at the wiseguy.
Lawyers acknowledged they’re having doubts about the reliability of a jailhouse snitch, and that’s made them ditch efforts to show Vincent Asaro was plotting to rub out a federal prosecutor.
They didn’t elaborate Monday on what they’ve learned about the confidential source, but noted the tipster’s information “was corroborated in significant part.” CHRISTINE KEELER, the central figure in the sexand-espionage Profumo scandal that rocked Cold War Britain, died Monday at 75.
Keeler was a model and nightclub dancer in 1963 when she had an affair with British War Secretary John Profumo.
When it emerged that Keeler had also slept with a Soviet naval attaché, the collision of sex, wealth and national security issues caused a sensation and helped topple the Conservative government.
Still, prosecutors continued to insist Asaro, an 82-year-old capo in the Bonanno crime family, deserves at least 15 years in prison.
In May, prosecutors accused Asaro of the chilling execution scheme. They pointed to his alleged comments, relayed by a Metropolitan Detention Center snitch with prior convictions for lying.
Asaro denied the plot and was never charged for it. Asaro is awaiting sentencing by Judge Allyne Ross for ordering the 2012 torching of a car that cut him off. He pleaded guilty in June.