SILENCE IS AGONY
Slay-victim’s daughter : Family crushed by judge who nixed our impact statements
His impatient rush to judgment robbed a grieving family of its only chance to be heard.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge William Harrington refused to wait for the sister of 2016 stabbing victim Liza Millet before sentencing the killer, Dorothy Curry, on Friday – a decision that shocked the family, Millet’s daughter, Crystal Jackson, 44, told the Daily News on Saturday.
Jackson said her aunt, Orchid Warren, was on her way to face Curry before final sentencing, and to read a statement for the court record. But when she didn’t arrive in time, Harrington pressed on with the sentencing anyway, refusing the plea of Assistant District Attorney Leila Rosini to wait. Curry was quickly sentenced to 20 years in jail.
Harrington didn’t allow Jackson’s written statement either.
“You can’t wait?” an emotional Jackson asked Saturday. “It’s just so sad. [My aunt] was going to speak to the court.”
Jackson (photo) tearfully shared the heartbreaking contents of her letter with The News.
“I declined to appear in court in person not because I don’t want to be there but because I do not have the tolerance to sit and watch a woman who took an innocent person away from her kids, her mother, her sister and brothers,” Jackson’s statement began.
“I tried to find it in my heart to forgive you but I just can’t… The one thing I would love to know is why you took her away. What would make you think it’s OK to stab another human being 83 times and think it’s OK?
“To this day I cannot even look at the picture of my mother without breaking down and reliving May of 2016,” the statement continued. “I know that the justice system has to do what they think is right and humane to you. But I hope you never see freedom, not in the physical and not in the mental. You, Dorothy Curry, are not mentally ill. You are evil and selfish and you play on that mentally ill game that people try in my opinion. Nothing wrong with you. You chose to brutally murder my mother. I have no mercy for you.
“My mother was loving, kind, caring and funny. A woman who never hurt anyone. She came to America. She worked hard and you ended her life for nothing.
“You will be able to get visits to see your family,” the
. ily will never get to visit her, visit her body. We visit our memories. … Don’t expect forgiveness from her family.”
Jackson ended thanking “everyone in the law enforcement and the courts for working on the case.”
“My only satisfaction at this point is knowing you are locked up and cannot have a normal life. Who knows, maybe you will meet hell on earth and in prison,” Jackson wrote.
Rosini, the ADA who was shuttled out of the courtroom after she argued with the judge about waiting for Millet’s sister to appear, declined to comment Saturday.
Harrington, rather than allowing Rosini time to call Warren from outside the courtroom, insisted she do it in court, where the signal is terrible. After the prosecutor learned the sister was on nearby Fulton St., Harrington demanded Rosini end the minute-long call and ripped her for delaying the hearing.
“You’ll speak to the sentencing or I’ll hold you in contempt,” he said, later demanding: “Take her in the back,” and mocking the prosecutor’s complaint.
Millet, 48, was fatally stabbed in May 2016 by Curry, a fellow resident of a Brooklyn YWCA that provided housing for low-income and homeless women.