Battle of B’klyn judges
Full disclosure question pits one against the other
A Brooklyn federal judge did not disclose she was colleagues with a lawyer in a politically charged civil lawsuit over which she presided — raising potential ethics concerns.
Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall handled a suit filed by former Brooklyn Civil Court Judge Laura Jacobson against the Brooklyn Democratic Party, its leader Frank Seddio and its judicial screening committee.
Jacobson (photo) alleges she was railroaded out of her judicial seat and defamed by the party and its screening committee — in part because she ruled against the Kings County Democratic Committee’s chief lawyer Frank Carone in a 2014 case.
Hall and Carone served together on the city Taxi and Limousine Commission beginning in 2011, their online bios show. Hall did not disclose that connection during the Jacobson legal proceedings, which began in 2016. Carone was not a defendant in Jacobson’s lawsuit.
“They would normally at least raise the issue,” Ronald Minkoff, a legal ethics professor at Columbia Law School, said of judges in such situations. “Is it something in a perfect world you would disclose? Yes. Is it something that matters? I don’t know.”
Minkoff said situations where relatives or close friends show up in lawsuits would be clear grounds for disclosure or recusal. A situation like Hall’s is more of a gray area, but Minkoff said judges often leave such situations for lawyers to decide.
Jacobson’s attorney Ravi Batra said it’s “too early to say” whether he would pursue an ethics complaint through the federal court system.
“While I’m more comfortable with it, my client is not,” Batra said of Hall presiding over the case. “I just wish there had been fuller disclosure so this would not even be an issue.”
Hall dismissed Jacobson’s lawsuit last September. Batra filed a notice of appeal the following month.
The complaint alleges that the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s judicial screening committee found Jacobson “not qualified” in order to push her from the bench over court decisions she made, including the one involving Carone.
Batra noted that this is not the first time ethics issues have arisen around Carone, a Brooklyn lawyer and a donor and friend to Mayor de Blasio.
Carone represented two shady landlords, Jay and Stuart Podolsky, in a controversial real estate deal that culminated with them selling 17 properties to the city for $173 million. De Blasio has defended the deal as a key step in converting buildings used as “cluster site” homeless shelters to permanent affordable housing.
“Reading about that stuff in the papers that’s currently going on — it doesn’t give me indigestion, but it’s unpleasant,” Batra said.
Hall did not return a message left with her clerks. Carone’s spokesman Bob Liff suggested a disclosure wouldn’t have been necessary.
“Frank Carone had nothing to do with Judge Jacobson’s case, nor did he have any role in the decision of the independent judicial screening panel that found her not qualified when she sought the support of Democratic leaders for her reelection,” Liff said.
Political consultant Gary Tilzer said the Jacobson case is an illustration of what’s wrong with the Brooklyn Democratic organization and said the judicial screening panel is far from independent. Tilzer works for Elena Baron, who’s running for Brooklyn Surrogate Court judge against party-backed incumbent Judge Margarita Lopez Torres.
He called the judicial screening panel “an arm of Brooklyn Democratic Party.”
“I advise my candidates to skip them,” he added.