1.28.00 'Anti-Giuliani' artists' criminal trial on 1/31/00 We support Lederman, Masco, and many of the other talented artists, craftspersons, and others who ply their wares on the streets of cities. These people have been subject to severe and relentless harassment, discrimination and worse by the Giuliani administration, NYC Councilwoman Freed, and many of Giuliani's hired goons and hitmen in the NYPD. A number of people have compared Giuliani to Hitler, a comparison which comes off as a little extreme, even by our standards. Who Giuliani really DOES remind us of though, is the fascist dictator who held power in Italy concurrently to Hitler's reign, namely Benito Mussolini. Just as with Mussolini, who to THIS day apologists for fascism STILL claim wasn't really ALL that bad--as he made Italy's trains run on time, Giuliani is credited even by some otherwise halfway-intelligent, coherent New Yorkers with having made the city "work" again, gotten the all the bums off the streets (what about all the REAL bums in his administration?!), and things like that. Well gee, if a few Diallos and Orthodox Jews at prayer like Bernard Basch get slaughtered in the crossfire, "WHO'S TO WORRY" eh? Not Rudy, that's for sure. As someone who grew up in N.Y. AND made a living as a musician and journalist--albeit not (usually) on the streets--I just wanna say: Giuliani, shove it where the sun don't shine, you lousy punk! NewsHawk® Inc. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Fw: Anti-Giuliani Artists criminal trial on 1/31/2000 NYC Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 09:25:59 -0800 From: "Virginia McCullough" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <undisclosed-recipients:;> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 6:51 AM Subject: Anti-Giuliani Artists criminal trial on 1/31/2000 NYC Artist/Activists to stand trial on 1/31/2000 A.R.T.I.S.T. members Robert Lederman and Knut Masco will stand trial on Monday 1/31/2000 10 AM in Manhattan Criminal Court #100 Centre Street in room Jury Part 4 before Judge Bartley. According to both the judge and the DA's office this trial will definitely begin on Monday. The defendants are charged with Attempted Making of Graffiti 145.60 and Possession of Graffiti Instruments 145.65 a class A and a class B misdemeanor. They are represented by Donna Klett, Legal Aid Society (212) 298-5203. The activist-artists were arrested on 4/7/97 after allegedly posting political leaflets on lightpoles in the SoHo area which criticized Mayor Giuliani's artist arrest policy and City Council Member Kathryn Freed and her group the SoHo Alliance for their efforts to eliminate street artists. Both defendants were plaintiffs in a successful Federal civil rights lawsuit decided in June of 1997 [See: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html] that made it legal to sell art on New York City streets without a license and which declared the City to have deliberately violated plaintiffs' and other artists First Amendment rights. Lederman and Masco, who between them have been arrested more than 60 times for their political activities during the Giuliani administration, are also plaintiffs in a number of other civil rights suits still pending against Mayor Giuliani and the City of New York and have been longtime opponents of both the Mayor and Council Member Freed. The law under which the two were charged makes it illegal for anyone to post leaflets on City property, however, the Mayor, City Council Members, their staffs and Community Board members are exempted from the law. As a result, while the posting of leaflets by political activists, bands, artists and the owners of lost dogs have become rare in SoHo there's been a tremendous proliferation of leaflets posted by Council Member Freed and the SoHo Alliance, a Freed front group whose director Sean Sweeney is one of Freed's Community Board 2 appointees. Most of those leaflets are directed at drumming up community support for eliminating or preventing the introduction of bars, hotels, clubs, street artists, vendors, trucks, Asian food wholesalers, an AIDs hostel, student housing and other elements the Alliance considers "undesirable" in SoHo. The case scheduled for trial on 1/31 is unusual for a number of reasons not least of which is that it's been in Criminal Court for three years. Initially, Lederman and Masco were also charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree and Unlawful Posting. Recently the DA's office reduced the original grafitti charge to Attempted Grafitti in order to deny the defendants a jury trial. The charges of Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree and Unlawful Posting were eventually dropped and all of the arrest evidence in the case was suppressed by a hearing judge last year. That ruling was later overturned by another judge without holding a hearing or issuing a decision. The only remaining charges consist of an allegation that the defendants intended to damage the City-owned lightpoles by using Elmer's school paste to attach the leaflets and that they possessed leaflets and Elmers paste. A brief submitted in the case on 4/30/99 by assistant D.A. Susan Callan Gyves [(212) 335-3832] claimed that if the defendants had attached the leaflets to the lightpoles with yards of clear plastic tape in the same manner the SoHo Alliance and Council Member Freed's office do, they would not have been charged. Elmer's School Paste is a biodegradable temporary glue that can be removed with water or by rainfall and is deliberately formulated to be edible. The clear plastic tape used by the Alliance to post its leaflets is permanent, remaining on surfaces for years. Lederman has previously been charged many times with posting. All of the previous charges were dismissed. Depositions and documents in a recent Federal civil rights suit show Council Member Freed and the Alliance made numerous complaints about Lederman and the street artists directly to Mayor Giuliani, former NYPD Commissioner Bratton and Manhattan D.A. Morgenthau among others, and were involved in years of concerted effort to pressure the First Precinct to have them arrested for selling their art, leafleting, public speaking and protesting. For information on this and other artist arrests and the Federal lawsuits contact: Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (718) 743-3722 http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html Donna Klett, Legal Aid Society (the attorney in the leafleting case) (212) 298-5203 [SEE: PEOPLE v. KNUT MASCO and ROBERT LEDERMAN New York Law Journal] CITY LAW July/August 1999 Vol. 5, No. 4 Public Space: Litigation Arrested For Gluing Posters on Poles Knut Masco and Robert Lederman glued posters criticizing Councilwoman Kathryn Freed to street lamp posts in Soho. They were arrested and charged with making graffiti, criminal mischief, and possession of a graffiti instrument. Masco and Lederman moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that they were selectively prosecuted. The two argued that there were hundreds of posters plastered on light posts (including some from Freed's Soho Alliance); that the officer assigned to making graffiti arrests had not made a single arrest in the eleven days prior to arresting them; and that the prosecutor refused to offer a lesser plea or plea bargain. Judge Troy Webber refused to dismiss the charges, finding that the men were arrested because they affixed their posters with glue, which is one element of making graffiti. The Soho Alliance had used cellophane tape. Judge Webber also found that Masco and Lederman were not the only ones prosecuted for these crimes since the graffiti officer makes about ten arrests per year. P. v. Masco, N.Y.L.J., June 17, 1999, at 31 (N.Y.C. Crim. Ct.) (Webber, J.) 5 City Law 77 (1999) June 17, 1999 Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (718) 743-3722 http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html </XMP> -
1.28.00 'Anti-Giuliani' artists' criminal trial on 1/31/00 We support Lederman, Masco, and many of the other talented artists, craftspersons, and others who ply their wares on the streets of cities. These people have been subject to severe and relentless harassment, discrimination and worse by the Giuliani administration, NYC Councilwoman Freed, and many of Giuliani's hired goons and hitmen in the NYPD. A number of people have compared Giuliani to Hitler, a comparison which comes off as a little extreme, even by our standards. Who Giuliani really DOES remind us of though, is the fascist dictator who held power in Italy concurrently to Hitler's reign, namely Benito Mussolini. Just as with Mussolini, who to THIS day apologists for fascism STILL claim wasn't really ALL that bad--as he made Italy's trains run on time, Giuliani is credited even by some otherwise halfway-intelligent, coherent New Yorkers with having made the city "work" again, gotten the all the bums off the streets (what about all the REAL bums in his administration?!), and things like that. Well gee, if a few Diallos and Orthodox Jews at prayer like Bernard Basch get slaughtered in the crossfire, "WHO'S TO WORRY" eh? Not Rudy, that's for sure. As someone who grew up in N.Y. AND made a living as a musician and journalist--albeit not (usually) on the streets--I just wanna say: Giuliani, shove it where the sun don't shine, you lousy punk! NewsHawk® Inc. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Fw: Anti-Giuliani Artists criminal trial on 1/31/2000 NYC Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 09:25:59 -0800 From: "Virginia McCullough" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <undisclosed-recipients:;> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2000 6:51 AM Subject: Anti-Giuliani Artists criminal trial on 1/31/2000 NYC Artist/Activists to stand trial on 1/31/2000 A.R.T.I.S.T. members Robert Lederman and Knut Masco will stand trial on Monday 1/31/2000 10 AM in Manhattan Criminal Court #100 Centre Street in room Jury Part 4 before Judge Bartley. According to both the judge and the DA's office this trial will definitely begin on Monday. The defendants are charged with Attempted Making of Graffiti 145.60 and Possession of Graffiti Instruments 145.65 a class A and a class B misdemeanor. They are represented by Donna Klett, Legal Aid Society (212) 298-5203. The activist-artists were arrested on 4/7/97 after allegedly posting political leaflets on lightpoles in the SoHo area which criticized Mayor Giuliani's artist arrest policy and City Council Member Kathryn Freed and her group the SoHo Alliance for their efforts to eliminate street artists. Both defendants were plaintiffs in a successful Federal civil rights lawsuit decided in June of 1997 [See: http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html] that made it legal to sell art on New York City streets without a license and which declared the City to have deliberately violated plaintiffs' and other artists First Amendment rights. Lederman and Masco, who between them have been arrested more than 60 times for their political activities during the Giuliani administration, are also plaintiffs in a number of other civil rights suits still pending against Mayor Giuliani and the City of New York and have been longtime opponents of both the Mayor and Council Member Freed. The law under which the two were charged makes it illegal for anyone to post leaflets on City property, however, the Mayor, City Council Members, their staffs and Community Board members are exempted from the law. As a result, while the posting of leaflets by political activists, bands, artists and the owners of lost dogs have become rare in SoHo there's been a tremendous proliferation of leaflets posted by Council Member Freed and the SoHo Alliance, a Freed front group whose director Sean Sweeney is one of Freed's Community Board 2 appointees. Most of those leaflets are directed at drumming up community support for eliminating or preventing the introduction of bars, hotels, clubs, street artists, vendors, trucks, Asian food wholesalers, an AIDs hostel, student housing and other elements the Alliance considers "undesirable" in SoHo. The case scheduled for trial on 1/31 is unusual for a number of reasons not least of which is that it's been in Criminal Court for three years. Initially, Lederman and Masco were also charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree and Unlawful Posting. Recently the DA's office reduced the original grafitti charge to Attempted Grafitti in order to deny the defendants a jury trial. The charges of Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree and Unlawful Posting were eventually dropped and all of the arrest evidence in the case was suppressed by a hearing judge last year. That ruling was later overturned by another judge without holding a hearing or issuing a decision. The only remaining charges consist of an allegation that the defendants intended to damage the City-owned lightpoles by using Elmer's school paste to attach the leaflets and that they possessed leaflets and Elmers paste. A brief submitted in the case on 4/30/99 by assistant D.A. Susan Callan Gyves [(212) 335-3832] claimed that if the defendants had attached the leaflets to the lightpoles with yards of clear plastic tape in the same manner the SoHo Alliance and Council Member Freed's office do, they would not have been charged. Elmer's School Paste is a biodegradable temporary glue that can be removed with water or by rainfall and is deliberately formulated to be edible. The clear plastic tape used by the Alliance to post its leaflets is permanent, remaining on surfaces for years. Lederman has previously been charged many times with posting. All of the previous charges were dismissed. Depositions and documents in a recent Federal civil rights suit show Council Member Freed and the Alliance made numerous complaints about Lederman and the street artists directly to Mayor Giuliani, former NYPD Commissioner Bratton and Manhattan D.A. Morgenthau among others, and were involved in years of concerted effort to pressure the First Precinct to have them arrested for selling their art, leafleting, public speaking and protesting. For information on this and other artist arrests and the Federal lawsuits contact: Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (718) 743-3722 http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html Donna Klett, Legal Aid Society (the attorney in the leafleting case) (212) 298-5203 [SEE: PEOPLE v. KNUT MASCO and ROBERT LEDERMAN New York Law Journal] CITY LAW July/August 1999 Vol. 5, No. 4 Public Space: Litigation Arrested For Gluing Posters on Poles Knut Masco and Robert Lederman glued posters criticizing Councilwoman Kathryn Freed to street lamp posts in Soho. They were arrested and charged with making graffiti, criminal mischief, and possession of a graffiti instrument. Masco and Lederman moved to dismiss the charges, arguing that they were selectively prosecuted. The two argued that there were hundreds of posters plastered on light posts (including some from Freed's Soho Alliance); that the officer assigned to making graffiti arrests had not made a single arrest in the eleven days prior to arresting them; and that the prosecutor refused to offer a lesser plea or plea bargain. Judge Troy Webber refused to dismiss the charges, finding that the men were arrested because they affixed their posters with glue, which is one element of making graffiti. The Soho Alliance had used cellophane tape. Judge Webber also found that Masco and Lederman were not the only ones prosecuted for these crimes since the graffiti officer makes about ten arrests per year. P. v. Masco, N.Y.L.J., June 17, 1999, at 31 (N.Y.C. Crim. Ct.) (Webber, J.) 5 City Law 77 (1999) June 17, 1999 Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (718) 743-3722 http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html
