This is a complaint against New York County Assistant District Attorney Joanna Berlin.
It is lodged because of her inappropriate behavior towards a gay male Latino victim of domestic violence who is a complaining witness in a case assigned to her. So nobody should think this complaint is made in a vacuum, at the following link may be viewed a report prepared at the Columbia University Law School highlighting New York's violations of International Laws in its treatment of minority victims of domestic violence: http://www.law. Columbia. Edu/media_inquiries/news_events/December07/dom_violence
Even apart from ADA Joanna Berlin's inappropriate treatment of the complaining witness, there is an appearance that ADA Joanna Berlin could be involved in hindering prosecution, and an additional appearance that some of her superiors and other colleagues in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office could be involved in hindering prosecution. Such circumstances are not entirely non-existent. A Queens County District Attorney, for example, was once indicted on charges of hindering prosecution and it was found that he had influenced those under him to do so also.
During an October meeting, the complaining witness had a number of evidence leads for Assistant District Attorney Joanna Berlin, which she declined to follow. When asked why, ADA Joanna Berlin said "The typical jury member does not understand much about domestic violence, so I can't use that." ADA Joanna Berlin was then asked if one can use expert witness testimony in cases involving domestic violence. She said "No." Under New York law, however, one can use expert witness testimony in cases involving domestic violence. Also at that October meeting, and seconded by the D.A.'s GLBT Liaison Katie Doran, ADA Joanna Berlin told the complaining witness "We've seen worse injuries than yours." His spleen had been ruptured more than one month previously, he was still unable to walk normally, and he was frighteningly thin.
At a meeting in May, with staff of Safe Horizon present at a meeting with ADA Joanna Berlin, the complaining witness tried to raise the subject of an element of evidence he had on more than one prior occasion, including during the October meeting, mentioned to ADA Joanna Berlin.in the presence of the Safe Horizon staff in May, ADA Joanna Berlin claimed that the complaining witness had never mentioned this element of evidence to her. The complaining witness reports that at this meeting in May ADA Joanna Berlin then said that she could indeed use this element of evidence but that doing so would only make the prosecution of the case take longer. It would be one matter had ADA Joanna Berlin said that she could not recollect whether the complaining witness had spoken to her of this evidence. But she categorically denied that he had ever mentioned it to her. Yet I was present in October when he spoke of it to her, and when she told him she could not use it.
It should be mentioned, furthermore, that there is some appearance in the way the criminal defense attorneys have been handling the case that they might be taking certain steps which result in higher attorney bills for the defendant, steps they would not necessarily want seen taken in their own defense if accused of a crime and interested in the fairest, most competent and most efficient legal representation.
There is also an appearance that one or more persons in Robert Morgenthau's New York County District Attorney's Office could be doing something to facilitate the defense attorneys' aforementioned possible behavior. Concern for justice, combined with concern for the protection of the safety of the community, requires vigilance from each of the prosecution and the defense of both the People's and defendants' rights equally.
Even if ADA Joanna Berlin and by extension Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office has not done anything illegal in its handling of the prosecution of this case, ADA Joanna Berlin's re-victimization of this domestic violence victim is something that no decent society would let stand.
I communicated with one domestic violence expert about ADA Joanna Berlin's mistreatment of this complaining witness, and that expert said "This is a fine example of why domestic violence victims are afraid to leave their abusers and press charges against them." Not only is there substantial documentation lending credence to claims that ADA Joanna Berlin has re-victimized this witness, in February the witness's psychologist wrote a letter urging the Manhattan District Attorney's Office to re-assign the case to a different attorney in the interest of the complaining witness's mental health. That letter went ignored by Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office.
In June, a different doctor, this one the complaining witness's psychiatrist, wrote a letter giving the complaining witness's mental health diagnoses, stating that ADA Joanna Berlin was exacerbating his mental health problems, and stating that re-assigning the case to a different attorney is a "matter of medical necessity." That letter, too, was ignored by the District Attorney's Office.
In June, there was a third party violation of the criminal court order of protection, an order which states "No third party contact." A police complaint was made, but when the police were called by way of follow-up from the complaining witness, the police said that ADA Joanna Berlin had called the precinct to say she did not want to do anything with the complaint. The complaining witness sent ADA Joanna Berlin two e-mails asking her to give him a written explanation of her handling of the incident, but she never responded. Despite the existence of a DVD from a security camera tape showing the violator of the order of protection, the third party violator has never been positively identified to the complaining witness. Others in Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office who were informed of this situation but did not communicate anything about it to the complaining witness are Bureau Chief Armand Durastanti, ADA Anne Donnelly, ADA Marc Dahl, ADA A. Moore and GLBT Liaison Katie Doran.
Various attempts to have government officials and public employees and others from outside Robert Morgenthau's Office investigate this matter and additionally, to have steps respectful of the complaining witness's human and legal rights have so far come to naught. The Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence says it does not have jurisdiction over the District Attorney's Office, and, it is not interested in advocating in the DA's Office on the victim/witness's behalf. It is, however, after all called "The Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence, " and so I told one staff member there that surely somebody in that office could make the situation known to Mayor Bloomberg and that Mayor Bloomberg could then successfully stimulate an investigation, and additionally, respectful treatment of the complaining witness. The staff member fell mute, as though, in a democracy, to expect an elected official to act to remove from the position an Assistant District Attorney violating the rights of a complaining witness and in the process, not doing everything possible to protect the safety of the community, were too much to ask, and an impossible thing. Public Advocate Betsy Gottbaum's Office was also contacted about this matter. They encouraged for a letter to be sent to them, and said they would then present it to the District Attorney. Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office reacted by having GLBT Liaison Katie Doran call the Public Advocate's Office to complain about the victim's advocate and to say that all of the witness's complaints were baseless. It should be pointed out that ADA Joanna Berlin and GLBT Liaison Katie Doran were both present at the October meeting and that at that meeting, both said inappropriate things to the victim. There is an appearance that ADA Joanna Berlin and GLBT Liaison Katie Doran could be covering for each other's inappropriate statements to the victim.
More recently, the office of New York City Council Member Gale Brewer has been involved in this matter. While the Council Member's staff behaves with apparent concern, there nonetheless has reportedly taken place a conversation between Gale Brewer's Office and Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office, during which the D.A.'s Office communicated ambiguously about the situation to Gale Brewer's staff, and that Gale Brewer's staff had thereby been somewhat thrown off the trail. I am using names here because it is far past the time when various people in New York City government took note of Assistant District Attorney Joanna Berlin's inappropriate treatment of this complaining witness, took with due seriousness the letters written by the complaining witness's psychologist and psychiatrist, and told the District Attorney that any decent society would insist on ADA Joanna Berlin being removed from this case, and quite possibly, dismissed from the District Attorney's Office.
If ADA Joanna Berlin re-victimizes one complaining witness in this manner, she could well do so to other witnesses. And if Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office permits ADA Joanna Berlin's re-victimization of this witness to stand, then it could well permit other Assistant District Attorneys to re-victimize other complaining witnesses.
It bears mentioning that in the 2005 election, Robert Morgenthau's chief opponent had as a significant platform point that Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office does not handle cases involving domestic violence in the modern manner most likely to deter domestic abuse. When in September, this complaining witness lay in a surgical intensive care unit bed because of the injuries inflicted on him in a domestic violence context, a nurse took me aside and said "If he goes back to living with the abuser, the next time, you will get a call that he is dead. We see it all the time; it is very sad."
That is a reality of present day New York City. ISCUs in hospitals in New York City, after treating severely injured domestic violence victims, see those same victims returning to the hospitals, dead at the hands of the same abusers who had previously injured them and caused them to go to the intensive surgical care units. And an additional reality which I have seen is that the police, police detectives, the District Attorney's Office and its staff, including Assistant District Attorney Joanna Berlin, and also, other government agencies and victims' services organizations do not do everything one could possibly do, and should do, to protect the safety of the community, and to treat complaining witnesses with consistent and due respect for their legal and human rights.
To state it another way, systemic failures throughout the healthcare, social services, governmental and criminal justice systems in New York City are resulting in the entrapment of victims by abusers, in emotional, physical and sexual abuse of victims by abusers, in beatings of victims by abusers and even in the deaths of victims at the hands of abusers. It is a human rights emergency within our borders not being responded to in a manner befitting a decent society.
It should be noted that there is a political disincentive for crimes of violence in New York City to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Giuliani. Who reportedly is eyeing a gubernatorial run. And Bloomberg both benefit from the perception that they reduced violent crime. But misdemeanors are not reported in the City's statistics of violent crime. It is not morally correct for politics to have priority over the safety of the community and the human and legal rights of victims. Another phenomenon to note is that in some instances, social services agencies that receive government funds on the local, state and national levels only receive those funds contingent on a District Attorney's approval of their receiving them.in such situations, the social services organizations could be intimidated out of successfully advocating for victims, when the criminal justice system mistreats them and/or otherwise mishandles the cases involving them.in the interest of protecting the safety of the community it would be worthwhile for professional news organizations to have investigative reporters investigate if this is the case in New York.
What Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office reportedly said to New York City Council Member Gale Brewer's Office about this situation is that ADA Joanna Berlin... Because of my advocacy... Was not any longer the one involved in this case, and that it is now her supervisors involved in it. I asked if that meant that the complaining witness would no longer be forced to deal with ADA Joanna Berlin. Then, the Brewer staff member admitted he didn't really know if that was what was meant. And, he said that ADA Joanna Berlin's superiors were reaching out in recent days to the complaining witness, although that has not happened. This was not the first time that Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office, contacted by some outside agency or person about the matter, spoke to that outside person ambiguously and duplicitously, possibly in order to squelch investigations. Brewer's staff member also told me that the District Attorney's Office told him that because of my advocacy, "all eyes in the District Attorney's Office are on this case." That is not necessarily a reassuring statement. It's for certain that the complaining witness sent two e-mails to ADA Joanna Berlin but also copied to others in the District Attorney's Office asking for a written explanation of their handling of the third party violation of the order of protection, and that nobody from Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office responded. One could also imagine that if improper behavior within the District Attorney's Office were originating and/or seconded at a level above ADA Joanna Berlin that "all eyes in the District Attorney's Office" might indeed be on the case, but not primarily or even at all in the interest of seeing that the complaining witness's legal and human rights be respected and that he be treated decently and respectfully at all times.
There are, let's not forget, a letter from the complaining witness's psychologist and a letter from the complaining witness's psychiatrist, saying that removing ADA Joanna Berlin from the case is a matter of medical necessity. Combined with all additional supportive evidence, why has that so far not led to ADA Joanna Berlin being removed from this case?
There is some fear, based on her past behavior that ADA Joanna Berlin could retaliate against the complaining witness, or in some other way (s) further re-victimize him. Were she to do so, this report will be updated. I would also update the report as regards other officials' handling of the matter. For the record, were there ever signs that Robert Morgenthau's District Attorney's Office acknowledged any inappropriate treatment of the complaining witness by Assistant District Attorney Joanna Berlin, and committed to consistently decent treatment of complaining witnesses, I would make a "better late than never" update. Denial in the face of e-mail evidence, obfuscation, failures to directly and honestly address grievances, misleading and inaccurate communications with others, and other abuses, however, obviously are not acceptable.
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