Brooklyn Judge Noach Dear gives until it hurts – all Brooklynites. The scandal-ridden former city council member, whose role as a judge was supposed to be limited to hearing low level debt disputes, was removed from hearing criminal cases after he ruled that a man cited for public drinking of an alcoholic beverage could go free because the enforcement of laws forbidding public drinking of alcoholic beverages is racially biased.
Judge Noach Dear
Judge Noach Dear Gets ‘Demoted’ After Issuing “Bizarre” Ruling
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Brooklyn Judge Noach Dear gives until it hurts – all Brooklynites.
The scandal-ridden former city council member, whose role as a judge was supposed to be limited to hearing low level debt disputes, was removed from hearing criminal cases after he ruled that a man cited for public drinking of an alcoholic beverage could go free because the enforcement of laws forbidding public drinking of alcoholic beverages is racially biased, the New York Post, which called the ruling “bizarre,” reported.
Dear ruled that police must lab test any beverages before penalizing public drinkers.
The defendant, Julio Figueroa, had already admitted he had been drinking beer on a public street.
The 59-year-old Dear, a leading member of the bourough's Orthodox Jewish community, was elected judge in 2007, even though he had not previously worked as an attorney and had no experience as a judge. He was quickly limited to hearing low-level debt disputes, but recently Dear volunteered to take criminal cases on weekends to help alleviate the court’s manpower shortage. Dear allegedly hoped that his volunteer weekend criminal court work would lead to his promotion, courthouse sources told the New York Post.
“Somebody here messed up,” one of those sources reportedly said. “He never should have been given that assignment.”
Summonses for violating open-container law frequently result arrests for other crimes. In 2011, more than 12,000 arrests for other crimes allegedly came from open container summonses, the Post reported based on one police supervisor’s estimate. 124,498 in total were issued during 2011, meaning about 10% led to an arrest for another, more serious, crime.
Dear won his judgeship after making a back room deal with State Assemblyman and Brooklyn’s Democratic Party boss Vito Lopez.
In 2002, Dear almost got elected to the State Senate, losing a close election to Kevin Parker. Lopez, who saw Dear as a a threat to the party’s candidates, backed him for judge — even though Dear had no experience as a working attorney. Dear’s candidacy was even opposed by the Brooklyn Bar Association.
In his 18 years on the City Council, Dear allegedly accepted improper or illegal overseas travel junkets from charities he gave government funding. In his campaign for US Congress in 1998, his staff allegedly violated campaign financing laws by forging signatures of ‘donors.’