tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post3480420212926548696..comments2024-03-27T15:07:31.495-04:00Comments on <b><center>Unorthodox-Jew </center></b> <br><small>A Critical View of Orthodox Judaism</small>: "I Was Blessed That I Lived In Pittsburgh"Paul Mendlowitzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05887774341136059873noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-5277952292441992672009-06-09T22:55:34.213-04:002009-06-09T22:55:34.213-04:00Filed at 10:21 p.m. ET
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Los ...Filed at 10:21 p.m. ET<br /><br />LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A Los Angeles judge has ruled that a former Catholic priest suspected of abusing altar boys in the United Kingdom can be extradited to face trial there.<br /><br />James Robinson is accused of abusing four boys in the 1970s and '80s before and after he served as a priest in three parishes in Coventry and Birmingham, England.<br /><br />Police issued an arrest warrant against the 71-year-old Robinson in August after he was tracked down by a BBC program and challenged in person by one of his accusers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-89669116264320817482009-06-09T17:38:41.199-04:002009-06-09T17:38:41.199-04:00Federal authorities on Tuesday indicted the former...Federal authorities on Tuesday indicted the former chief executive of the accounting firm BDO Seidman on multiple charges of conspiracy and fraud over his work with questionable tax shelters.<br /><br />Six other individuals, including one of the biggest tax shelter promoters of recent years, Paul M. Daugerdas, and two former employees of Deutsche Bank were also indicted on multiple charges in the same filing in Federal District Court in Manhattan.NY Timesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-24521646409569755192009-06-09T17:24:27.311-04:002009-06-09T17:24:27.311-04:00Filed at 4:53 p.m. ET
BOSTON (AP) -- A Massachuse...Filed at 4:53 p.m. ET<br /><br />BOSTON (AP) -- A Massachusetts man who has long asserted he was wrongly convicted of child molestation during a national hysteria over child-care sex abuse cases in the 1980s and was freed three years ago won't face a new trial.<br /><br />Forty-four-year-old Bernard Baran was released in 2006 after a judge ruled the lawyer who represented him at his 1985 trial was incompetent. Baran's supporters also have questioned investigators' methods of interviewing children in the case.<br /><br />Prosecutors say retrying Baran is ''not in the interests of justice'' and would dredge up painful memories for witnesses.<br /><br />In a statement released after prosecutors announced their decision Tuesday, Baran says he feels vindicated. His lawyer, Harvey Silverglate, says Baran would have been acquitted had the case been tried properly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-36639199407869782009-06-09T14:40:26.399-04:002009-06-09T14:40:26.399-04:00UOJ's source got the story wrong, as usual. I ...UOJ's source got the story wrong, as usual. I had a coughing attack and was assisted outside to get some water and cough medicine.Avi L. Shafrannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-16464432152665709312009-06-09T13:15:35.630-04:002009-06-09T13:15:35.630-04:00Captain Testifies at Flight 1549 Hearing
By MATTH...Captain Testifies at Flight 1549 Hearing<br /><br />By MATTHEW L. WALD and LIZ ROBBINS 11:06 AM ET <br /><br />Capt. Chesley Sullenberger III described how he managed to guide the plane safely into the Hudson River.Avi Shafran goes beserk and is removed from the hearingnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-53979787238421204732009-06-09T13:13:14.288-04:002009-06-09T13:13:14.288-04:00http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/0...http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/08/2009-06-08_jewish_patrol_leader_beat_black_girl_in_95.html<br /><br />A top Jewish leader of a new Crown Heights, Brooklyn, neighborhood patrol group created to improve racial harmony has a criminal record for beating a black girl 14 years ago, the Daily News has learned.<br /><br />Leib Skoblo, 33, who appeared with Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly at the group's launch last week, spewed racial epithets and punched a black girl in 1995, court records show. <br /><br />Skoblo's victim said he shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a group designed to lower tensions between blacks and Jews. <br /><br />"I think it is disgusting," said Izena Goudy, 25, now a member of the Army National Guard. "It is the same thing if a pedophile applies for a job in a kindergarten." <br /><br />Goudy's ordeal began as she walked her little sister to school at Public School 161 on Crown St. on March 30, 1995. <br /><br />Leib Skoblo's younger brother, who was 12 years old at the time, started taunting her with racial slurs, Goudy recalled. <br /><br />Skoblo, then 19, and his mother, Ella, followed Goudy and chased her away from the school screaming threats. <br /><br />Leib Skoblo finally caught up with the much younger girl on Nostrand Ave. nearby and took a swing at her. <br /><br />"He hit me so hard it stunned me," she said. "It left me a nice bruise." <br /><br />Skoblo and his mother were both arrested, according to court records. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of endangering the welfare of a child on Sept. 27, 1995, and was sentenced to three years of probation. <br /><br />The nasty incident didn't prevent Skoblo from being feted last week as one of the coordinators for the new integrated Crown Heights patrol. <br /><br />He and the group were outfitted with black jackets, ID cards and hybrid cars with NYPD emblems after 60 hours of training. <br /><br />"The Police Department is reviewing the matter, including his application to participate," said Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne. <br /><br />Leib Skoblo said he was too busy to talk yesterday, and his family later said he had left for a vacation in Israel. <br /><br />His sister said cops should have known about Skoblo's record. <br /><br />"All I know is that he didn't do anything wrong," said the sister, who wouldn't give her name.Shmarya groupiehttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/08/2009-06-08_jewish_patrol_leader_beat_black_girl_in_95.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-40168260905221049042009-06-09T12:33:33.144-04:002009-06-09T12:33:33.144-04:00The "natural growth" issue is a concocti...The "natural growth" issue is a concoction. Is the peace process moribund because a teacher in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem is making an addition to her house to accommodate new children? It is perverse to make this the center point of the peace process at a time when Gaza is run by Hamas terrorists dedicated to permanent war with Israel and when Mahmoud Abbas, having turned down every one of Olmert's peace offers, brazenly declares that he's waiting for Israel to cave before he'll do anything.<br /><br />In his much-heralded Muslim address in Cairo, Obama declared that the Palestinian "situation" is "intolerable." Indeed it is, the result of 60 years of Palestinian leadership that gave its people corruption, tyranny, intolerance & forced militarization; leadership that for 3 generations rejected every offer of independence & dignity, choosing destitution & despair rather than accept any settlement not accompanied by the extinction of Israel.<br /><br />That's why Haj Amin al-Husseini chose war rather than a two-state solution in 1947. Why Yasser Arafat turned down a Palestinian state in 2000. And why Abbas rejected Olmert's even more generous 2008 offer.<br /><br />In the 16 years since the Oslo accords turned the West Bank & Gaza over to Palestinians, their leaders built no roads, no courthouses, no hospitals, no institutions that would relieve their people's suffering. Instead they poured everything into war & terror, depositing billions from Western donors into Swiss bank accounts.<br /><br />Obama says he came to Cairo to tell the truth. But he uttered not a word of that. Instead, among lofty sentiments, he issued but one concrete declaration of new American policy: "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of Israeli settlements," thus reinforcing the myth that Palestinian misery & statelessness are the fault of Israel.<br /><br />Blaming Israel & picking a fight over "natural growth" may curry favor with the Muslim "street." But it will only induce Arabs to do like Abbas: sit & wait for America to deliver Israel on a platter. Which makes the Obama strategy not just dishonorable but self-defeating.WashPost part 2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-79922379234717775992009-06-09T12:33:11.609-04:002009-06-09T12:33:11.609-04:00By Charles Krauthammer
Obama repeatedly insists t...By Charles Krauthammer<br /><br />Obama repeatedly insists that American foreign policy be conducted with modesty & humility. Above all, there will be no more "dictating" to other countries. We should "forge partnerships as opposed to dictating," he told the G-20. In Middle East negotiations, he told al-Arabiya, America will "start by listening, because too often the United States starts by dictating."<br /><br />An admirable sentiment. It applies to everyone - Iran, Russia, Cuba, Syria, even Venezuela. Except Israel. Israel is ordered to freeze all settlement activity. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton imperiously explained: "a stop to settlements - not some, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions."<br /><br />No "natural growth" means strangling to death thriving towns close to the 1949 line, many of them suburbs of Jerusalem, that every negotiation over the past has envisioned Israel retaining. <br /><br />It means no increase in population. Which means no babies. Or if you have babies, no housing for them - not even within existing boundaries. Which means for every child born, someone has to move out. No community can survive like that. The obvious objective is to undermine and destroy these towns - even before negotiations.<br /><br />Over the past decade, the U.S. has understood that any final peace treaty would involve Israel retaining some settlements & compensating Palestinians accordingly with land from within Israel.<br /><br />That was envisioned in the Clinton plan in 2000 & again at Taba in 2001. After all, why expel people from their homes and turn their towns to rubble when Arabs & Jews can stay in their homes if the 1949 armistice line is shifted slightly to capture major Jewish settlements & shifted into Israel to give to Palestinians?<br /><br />This idea is not only logical, not only accepted by both Democratic and Republican for the past decade, but was agreed to in writing between Israel & the United States in 2004 - and overwhelmingly endorsed by Congress.<br /><br />Yet Obama has repeatedly refused to endorse these agreements or even honor them. This from a president who piously insists that all parties honor previous obligations. And who now expects Israel to accept new American assurances in return for irreversible Israeli concessions, when he himself has cynically discarded past American assurances.Washington Postnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-40922119566088543302009-06-09T11:50:48.719-04:002009-06-09T11:50:48.719-04:00http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/i_really_dont...http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/i_really_dont_think_people_def.html?f=most-commented-intel-7d5<br /><br />I Really Don’t Think People Defecate in the Hallways of Stuyvesant TownBut they are at 42 Broadwayhttp://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/i_really_dont_think_people_def.html?f=most-commented-intel-7d5noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-91710009821577386572009-06-09T10:29:42.031-04:002009-06-09T10:29:42.031-04:00http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08closu...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08closure.html<br /><br />Swimmers were told to stay out of the water on Sunday at Coney Island and nearby Manhattan Beach because of concerns about a sewage overflow.UOJ flushed out some molestershttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08closure.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-47213624334219303842009-06-09T10:26:21.413-04:002009-06-09T10:26:21.413-04:00Pension costs for elected politicians, mayoral app...Pension costs for elected politicians, mayoral appointees and their staffers are forecast to rise 26 percent over the next five years, according to city budget data, with top officials cashing out for yearly sums at or near six figures. These appointees, former council members, city commissioners and their aides required a taxpayer infusion of $57.9 million this year to cover their retirement benefits. [New York Post]Chevra Chazerim - City Hall divisionnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-62216368952396385722009-06-09T10:18:27.937-04:002009-06-09T10:18:27.937-04:00http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/06/2009-06...http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/06/2009-06-06_rangel_warns_of_racial_polarization_if_cuomo_challenges_paterson_for_governor_in.html<br /><br />Rangel warns of 'racial polarization' if Cuomo challenges Paterson for governor in primaryBoog will love thishttp://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/06/06/2009-06-06_rangel_warns_of_racial_polarization_if_cuomo_challenges_paterson_for_governor_in.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-43338750935575286262009-06-09T10:10:48.485-04:002009-06-09T10:10:48.485-04:00Democrats have locked the gates to the State Senat...Democrats have locked the gates to the State Senate chamber to keep Republicans out.<br /><br />What a circus!Albany yentanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-41220206287892027852009-06-09T10:09:52.037-04:002009-06-09T10:09:52.037-04:00http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09rob.h...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09rob.html<br /><br />Fleeing Robber Falls to His DeathYou can run but you can't hidehttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09rob.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-17417247388902101082009-06-09T10:07:04.280-04:002009-06-09T10:07:04.280-04:00Has Times Square become Slime Square? People are t...Has Times Square become Slime Square? People are tossing hot dog wrappers, empty soda bottles and restaurant bags into the new pedestrian areas. [New York Post]Agudah Fressers take out lunch from Le Maraisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-3460486241089491072009-06-09T10:05:44.134-04:002009-06-09T10:05:44.134-04:00A National Transportation Safety Board hearing on ...A National Transportation Safety Board hearing on the Hudson River splashdown of US Airways Flight 1549 will look into ways to prevent bird strikes.Avi Shafran will be there to attack the pilotnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-11180898871829135282009-06-09T09:21:36.222-04:002009-06-09T09:21:36.222-04:00http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/08/Gaza-milita...http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/08/Gaza-militants-used-booby-trapped-horses/UPI-39701244459232/<br /><br />Gaza militants used booby trapped horsesYasser Margulies enlists Ferd tuchesses to fight for Hamashttp://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/08/Gaza-militants-used-booby-trapped-horses/UPI-39701244459232/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-22304354075799744702009-06-09T09:19:36.805-04:002009-06-09T09:19:36.805-04:00http://wcbstv.com/seenon/bus.driver.efim.2.763485....http://wcbstv.com/seenon/bus.driver.efim.2.763485.html<br /><br />A veteran school bus driver has been arrested in Brooklyn on charges that he sexually abused a 14-year-old student aboard his bus. Even more shocking, as CBS 2's John Slattery reports, the child was mentally disabled. <br /><br />The driver arrested is 62-year-old Efim Bondarev, who is accused of sexually abusing a child entrusted to his care. He was a driver for Careful Bus Incorporated, a private bus company contracted by the Department of Education.Sex abuse at Hoffman's bus company toohttp://wcbstv.com/seenon/bus.driver.efim.2.763485.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-61625673079990925582009-06-09T09:16:48.624-04:002009-06-09T09:16:48.624-04:00http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/schoo...http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/school-bus-inspector-is-sentenced-in-bribery-scheme/<br /><br />A former New York City Department of Education bus inspector, one of seven convicted of taking bribes from several bus companies under contract to transport city students, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Monday morning. He is the second of the seven defendants to be sentenced. <br /><br />George Ortiz, who was the Education Department’s school bus route and safety inspection supervisor for all of Manhattan until 2007, was convicted in February, after other city inspectors described in court testimony the inner workings of a bribery scheme over many years led by some of the most senior inspectors in the Education Department, from at least the mid-1990s until 2007. <br /><br />Mr. Ortiz, 63, of the Bronx, admitted in February that he took bribes from a handful of bus companies in exchange for approving lucrative extra routes and field-trip assignments and ignoring the companies’ minor safety violations.<br /><br />Mr. Ortiz had specific responsibility for supervising companies with city contracts to transport special education students, according to the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.<br /><br />In February, at the jury trial in Federal Court of Milton Smith, an inspector who was convicted of taking bribes and who is awaiting sentencing later this month, inspectors described accepting manila envelopes stuffed with cash and marked with each inspector’s initials, which one inspector would collect from a bus company executive and distribute to other inspectors in their Education Department lounge area, among other meeting places.<br /><br />The inspectors also testified that Mr. Ortiz collected hundreds of thousands of dollars from willing executives at bus companies including Rainbow Transit, Logan Bus, Minibus, Hoyt Transportation, Jofaz Transportation and Careful Bus.<br /><br />All those companies remain on contract with the city.<br /><br />Neil Hoffman, a manager at Careful Bus, which operates 60 routes for special-education students in Brooklyn and Manhattan, said that his company has never bribed any city inspector, including Mr. Ortiz.Hoffman from Careful Bus Company in Boro Parkhttp://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/school-bus-inspector-is-sentenced-in-bribery-scheme/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-55906968273494500732009-06-09T09:05:01.100-04:002009-06-09T09:05:01.100-04:00Does anyone know about a lowlife, now in his 80s, ...Does anyone know about a lowlife, now in his 80s, who was driven out of Far Rockaway by the rabbonim? He claims to be a psychotherapist but is not a licensed doctor or even a graduate of Columbia University's "West Coast campus" which does not exist.<br /><br />He targets vulnerable women having marital problems and enters into improper relationships with them.<br /><br />He currently splits his time between Montreal and Monsey.<br /><br />He has been chasing skirts for decades.From Far Rockaway to Montreal / Monseynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-72800219270448269982009-06-09T08:55:47.980-04:002009-06-09T08:55:47.980-04:00http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09switc...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09switch.html?hp=&pagewanted=print<br /><br />The change upends the agenda in Albany, where Democrats had assumed power in the Senate in January, with 32 seats, after more than 40 years in the minority. Democrats were pushing bills to give tenants more rights, strengthen abortion rights and legalize same-sex marriage this session. <br /><br />Democratic leaders were caught off guard as the Republicans and the two Democratic dissidents, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, moved to topple them, and at one point became so flustered that they turned out the lights in the Senate chamber to try to prevent Republicans from installing new leaders. <br /><br />Asked by a reporter what was occurring, Senator Malcolm A. Smith, leader of the Senate Democrats who was huddled in the hall with his staff, responded, “I’m trying to find out right now.”<br /><br />A spokesman for Mr. Smith, who lost the titles of majority leader and Senate president in the shakeup, issued a statement later saying that Democrats would challenge the vote, but it was not clear that they had grounds to do so.<br /><br />Gov. David A. Paterson, at a news conference Monday evening, called the move “an outrage” and said Albany had become a “dysfunctional wreck.”<br /><br />The governor also said “I will not allow this,” but then conceded that there was nothing he could do to stop it.<br /><br />The toppling of Democratic control unfolded in swift and dramatic fashion shortly after 3 p.m. as senators gathered in the lofty oaken chamber for what seemed like small-bore legislative action on an uneventful afternoon.<br /><br />Then, Senator Tom Libous, a Binghamton Republican, offered a resolution to reorganize the Senate leadership, a parliamentary maneuver that captured the entire Capitol’s attention. Within minutes, reporters, an observer for Boog and Assembly members rushed to the Senate, crowding the chamber floor. <br /><br />Democrats tried to stall the move, storming from the chamber and turning out the lights, but the Republicans continued the session as the two Democrats joined with them to elect new leaders. <br /><br />Quickly and without a numerical majority, Dean G. Skelos, a Long Island Republican, reclaimed the title of Senate majority leader. Mr. Espada was made Senate president.<br /><br />Both men have legal troubles. Republicans who earlier this year were calling on Mr. Monserrate to resign after his indictment on felony charges that he stabbed his companion with a broken glass are now welcoming him as part of their power-sharing coalition.<br /><br />Mr. Espada has been fined tens of thousands of dollars over several years for flouting state law by not disclosing political contributions.<br /><br />The state attorney general’s office is also investigating the Soundview HealthCare Network, a nonprofit organization that Mr. Espada ran until recently. <br /><br />The new leadership structure means that Mr. Espada would become governor if Gov. David Paterson were incapacitated.<br /><br />Mr. Skelos said his legislative priorities would include resolving whether Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg could retain control over the city school system, reforming property taxes and reissuing property tax rebate checks that had been eliminated by Gov. David A. Paterson and lawmakers in budget negotiations earlier this year. <br /><br />He said he had not discussed with Mr. Espada whether they would bring the same-sex marriage bill to a vote. <br /><br />Mr. Skelos has said he opposes same-sex marriage, but Mr. Espada is one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, which has been one of the most closely watched issues this session.Boo Boo Brunohttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/09/nyregion/09switch.html?hp&pagewanted=printnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-90469165529028888392009-06-09T08:45:02.521-04:002009-06-09T08:45:02.521-04:00Rumor is that Gary Rosenblatt is planning to do a ...Rumor is that Gary Rosenblatt is planning to do a major expose on "Rabbi" David Cohen. Anyone with information regarding all of the terrible things that he has said and done over the years should contact Gary asap before the story is published. We need to make sure that the story has all of the dirt on him so that he has thrown out of the organized frum community for the rest of his life and so that Ohel is forced to fire him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-47616349720571002952009-06-09T01:49:37.313-04:002009-06-09T01:49:37.313-04:00The Bim-Bam's stimulus bill is pure magic:
Th...The Bim-Bam's stimulus bill is pure magic:<br /><br />The more jobs he 'saves and creates', the higher goes the unemployment rate.<br /><br />Currently at 9.4%, highest it's been in the last 25 years.<br /><br />The Bim-Bam Identity.boognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-73618087352389192042009-06-08T23:36:46.455-04:002009-06-08T23:36:46.455-04:00http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/science/earth/08...http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/science/earth/08weatherize.html<br /><br />The federal government is spending $5 billion in stimulus money to weatherize homes across the country. That is almost as much as it has spent on weatherization since the program was created in the 1970s to cut heating bills and conserve oil for low-income people. <br /><br />But this year, there is a twist. <br /><br />An unusually large share of the money will be spent not on keeping cold air out but on keeping cold air in. <br /><br />Repeated questions have been raised about the effectiveness of weatherization in hot-climate states. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, which evaluates the program for the Energy Department, released a study last year questioning the program’s results. The laboratory found that insulating homes did not save a significant amount of money on cooling, a finding it said was consistent with previous studies.Bim Bam blows $5 billion in taxpayer money on AChttp://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/science/earth/08weatherize.html?hpnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21519732.post-43550920401160929752009-06-08T23:31:50.145-04:002009-06-08T23:31:50.145-04:00http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/an-in...http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/an-inmates-view-of-drug-law-reform/<br /><br />A group of New York prosecutors who want to monitor the results of changes to the state’s drug laws began the effort Monday with an unusual twist — playing a recording of a prison inmate who predicts how the new statutes will allow him to keep dealing drugs. <br /><br />The inmate — whose name was not released — was awaiting trial on charges for the possession and sale of a controlled substance in the third degree when he was recorded. He calls the new statutes a “drug dealer’s protection law.” <br /><br /><br />“So you hear what they did — they just created the beast,” says the inmate, caught on tape during a telephone conversation with an acquaintance. “The beast is coming home to be the juggernaut.” <br /><br />The new drug laws were signed into effect in April, repealing many of the mandatory sentences for drug felons that were part of the so-called Rockefeller-era drug laws, and allowing judges to send some offenders to treatment rather than prison. <br /><br />The Staten Island district attorney, Daniel M. Donovan Jr., who pushed for the creation of the prosecutors’ group to investigate the ramifications of the changes, said he believed that one constituency had not been heard in the debate: “The voice we didn’t have was that of the drug dealers. That’s the side that we never get to hear.” <br /><br />“We thought there was no need for further reform,” he added. “Violent crime is at an all-time low.” <br /><br />The group that Mr. Donovan, who is president of the New York State District Attorneys Association, has gathered to monitor the effects of the new laws includes 14 prosecutors. The group’s intention, he said, is to track trends in drug-related crime, and if it believes those trends indicate that the new laws are failing, to lobby the governor and state legislators. <br /><br />This year’s changes to New York’s drug code followed a previous round of revisions in 2004, which in turn softened the Rockefeller drug laws, the tough code introduced in 1973 by Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller to combat epidemic heroin use. <br /><br />When Democrats gained control of the Senate in January, they were able to push through further changes long fought by Republicans.The Paterson Pitter-Patter identityhttp://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/an-inmates-view-of-drug-law-reform/noreply@blogger.com