GOSHEN — The Brooklyn rabbi who's awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges has filed a federal lawsuit, saying his current court-assigned lawyer, former lawyer, the judge in his case, the judge who arraigned him after his arrest, the Orange County district attorney and the police investigators are part of an anti-Semitic conspiracy to deprive him of due process of law.
Victor Koltun filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court last week, and the defendants have been served with the lawsuit the past several days.
Koltun, 43, is awaiting trial in the Nov. 4, 2010, shooting deaths of former Lloyd cop Frank Piscopo, 49, and his nephew, 28-year-old Gerald Piscopo of Highland. The two men were shot at a house on Liberty Street in the City of Newburgh's Heights neighborhood. Two co-defendants who acted as the gunman and the lookout pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges.
After two years of delays, evidentiary hearings have concluded in Koltun's case; the outstanding issue right now is Koltun's attempt to have Judge Jeffrey Berry remove Paul Brite as court-appointed counsel. Berry refused, and Koltun has asked to act as his own lawyer; Berry was to question Koltun May 31 on his ability to do so.
Koltun's federal lawsuit names Berry and Brite as defendants, as well as Koltun's original court-appointed lawyer, James Winslow, City of Newburgh Judge B. Harold Ramsey, Orange County District Attorney Frank Phillips and career criminal unit coordinator Gary Cooper, City of Newburgh police Chief Michael Ferrara and city detectives Aaron Weaver, Thomas Nafey and Joseph Cortes and State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico and Investigator Rudy Simmons. Brite, Winslow, Ferrara and New York State Police declined to comment. Phillips did not return a call for comment.
Koltun says police timed their Nov. 6, 2010, visit to him in Loch Sheldrake, knowing he could not call a lawyer until after sundown, and so they deprived him of his right to counsel. Their Dec. 1, 2010, arrest of him in Brooklyn thwarted his religious observances, he said. He argues those things make the evidence gathered inadmissible. This demonstrated anti-Semitic bias, Koltun argues.
Koltun's suit says the prosecution knowingly used inadmissible evidence to get an indictment, the judges failed to dismiss the indictment and his lawyers demonstrated ineptitude by failing to get the charges thrown out. All of this, Koltun's lawsuit says, demonstrated malice and a conspiracy driven by anti-Semitism.
He is seeking a total of $500 million in damages. Koltun says he has been hospitalized eight times since his arrest for assorted physical and psychological ailments, and he has lost roughly 200 pounds.
BY Heather Yakin - Recordonline
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