Bankruptcy Misconduct - Death Threat

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Death Threats

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Death Threat

Lawyer Conveying Death Threat is "Punished"

Reverses Garcia/Spitzer Precedent

The New Jersey Supreme Court has just issued a stark reversal of established precedent which allows a Lawyer to threaten the life of a litigation client, at least in New Jersey. Nearly a decade after the incident, witnessed by opposing counsel, the lawyer receives a public reprimand.

The death threat was delivered in October of 2001, and it only took until June of 2009 for the offending Maplewood, NJ solo attorney Joel Ziegler to receive a really tough public reprimand. Talk about speedy justice.

What's wrong with this?
"I'm going to cut you up into bits and pieces, put you into a box and send you to India and your parents won't recognize you."

Now let's put this in perspective. According to the article in the New Jersey Law Journal, this death threat was made in front of opposing counsel. We don't know if the threatened client reported the death threat, or the report was made by opposing counsel, in either event the witnessing lawyer must have resisted the financial and career motivations to succumb to ACPOC Syndrome. The witnessing lawyer evidently gave testimony against opposing counsel ... Bravo!

That any form of punishment might befall upon a Lawyer conveying a death threat to a litigant flies in the face of precedent allowing death threats by counsel established by Federal Bankruptcy Judge Arthur J. Gonzalez and the famous former U.S. Attorney (a DOJ prosecutor) and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. These two "defenders of justice" took explicit action to defend the right of a bankruptcy lawyer in the Worldcom Fraud Bankruptcy to convey a death threat against a litigant who directed his lawyer to bring to the attention of the Court bankruptcy misconduct related to illegal financial favoritism granted to certain hedge funds and related conflict of interest issues. In the Worldcom case, the death threat was depicted in a transcript filed with the Court (Click Here To Download It!!!) and which was acknowledged as accurate by the offending attorney. Both Gonzalez and Spitzer decided against any criminal referral or ethics action. Now that it is publicly known Eliot Spitzer was engaged in business with the Prostitution arm of some number of organized crime families, we shouldn't be too shocked if Spitzer's need to protect criminals extended to hedge funds and their BigLaw bankruptcy lawyer enablers.

But let's put things into perspective: We are reporting on the public slap on the wrist, not on disbarment or incarceration. Calls to the New Jersey Office of Attorney Ethics were mysteriously disconnected after we asked more specific questions on the investigation and "ethics prosecution". Perhaps we shouldn't have referred to Mr. Ziegler's conduct as a "death threat" as we inquired about criminal referral. At any rate, we called the phone number provided us for further inquiry to the NJ Supreme Court ... and only got an answering machine. That's NJ tax dollars at work.

Not reported in The New York Times, for obvious reasons, were "off the record" remarks by an anonymous New Jersey Supreme Court clerk who dared to think and speak the truth:

Well, the Court didn't want to get anyone in trouble for threatening the life of an Indian. Yeah, ever since we were kids we hated Indians as the Cowboy is the patron saint of the business of Justice in New Jersey. Lord knows how much race plays a part when a case is heard, who is the victim, who is the lawyer. Sure, we love it when an Indian gets screwed. But one strike against Joel Ziegler is that he is not part of BigLaw, as a sole practitioner he just doesn't have to budget to grease enough palms. The other thing is it was an explicit death threat and that bitch opposing counsel wouldn't forget what he said, we had to do something. Come on, anyone else would have gone to prison. We waited 8 years after he wound down his practise down and gave him a slap on the wrist. We couldn't be any more outwardly corrupt or talk radio or internet blogs might start drawing attention to things. And one other thing Joel, don't be cheap when your kid needs to bring a gift to a social event because you never know who is related to who.

Well, a little bit of parody in that one anonymous thought quote above never hurt. But let's not forget the truth. A lawyer threatens someone with death, dismemberment, and expulsion from the country. The crime is witnessed by another lawyer. The lawyer escapes prison, and apparently, all criminal repercussions. The lawyer receives a slap on the wrist 8 years later. In the WorldCom case, when a litigant sought to expose the conflict of interest and fraud which diverted huge sums of money (a/k/a stole) to conflicted clients he receives a death threat. The death threat is converted to a written transcript which cases the lawyer (and the judge) to complain that "apparently" a phone call was recorded without an attorney's knowledge. No criminal referral is made, no ethics action is undertaken. The creditor is hammered by the judge and Debtor's counsel for daring to expose that the emporer is naked.

The truth is that "Justice" in America is often a fraud. Large law firms and their brethren lawyers are bound by bloodlines, racism, and secret loyalties to protect each other and their illicit clients. Our current financial crisis is a direct result of the corruption at the DOJ, the SEC, and among our judges.

Dear people of races deemed inferior by the corrupt U.S. government lawyers who pretend to uphold justice: Be carefull. If you are from India, China, or any other country that is considered inferior to the racist U.S. lawyers at the DOJ and SEC, you will get screwed. Feel confident that you can resist any claims against you by pointing out the blatant frauds upon the Court committed and protected by these corrupt lawyers. Madoff didn't live high on the hog for so long without inside government protection. Same for Dreier, Traub, and Fineberg.