Friday, February 12, 2016

NYPD Officer Peter Liang guilty of Manslaughter

POOL PHOTOGRAPH
Officer Liang buries his head in his hands after verdict is read, courtesy NY Daily News

According to NY Daily News, NYPD Officer Peter Liang was found guilty by the 12 jurors who deliberated in his case. See story here...http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-peter-liang-guilty-fatal-shooting-akai-gurley-article-1.2528827 . Liang claims he accidentally shot a black man, Akai Gurley, in a darkened stairwell. Officer Liang is ethnic Chinese. The prosecution called it reckless behavior. Would the verdict be different if it was a black cop, a white cop, a Jewish cop? I wonder....


Akai Gurley, killed by bullet shot by Liang, courtesy NY Daily News


I personally say that whenever someone is killed, that is a grave tragedy. In this case, Mr. Gurley's daughter will never know her daddy.

It is interesting to note that in the O.J. Simpson trial of the century, I was surprised to read that most of the jury was black. Was that the reason he beat the charges?  In the case of United States v. Nat Schlesinger, a chassidic man sitting in the camp at Otisville, NY, he claims there was a total injustice in taking him to trial 55 miles from  his home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, out to Suffolk county. He said there was a court house two miles from his home. In that case, rest assured there was no chassidim on that jury and he was found guilty of insurance fraud and he got a 15 year federal sentence. So here you see it all depends where you stand trial and what is the composition of the jury. I wonder what was the composition of the jury in the Liang trial?  In a post script, the reporter from the NY Daily News, Christina Carrega, emailed me back that the jury was composed of 8 Caucasion, three Hispanic and one African American.

It is not the end of the world for  Officer Liang. Whatever time he does in jail, if he gets jail time, will pass and then in the end of the day, he can do something else in life. This is just one chapter of his life.

In my case, I was an immigration lawyer who got busted for doing immigration fraud,  did  my time (over 43 months) in jail and am moving on. I love to blog to write about interesting cases and stories and to give my humble opinion and to fight for justice, as the Torah says, Tsedek Tsedek Tirdof, or justice justice thou shalt pursue. That is why G-d has put us on this planet. Every day gives us new challenges and we must rise up to meet them and overcome. If I can convince one person not to do fraud or to stop, then I accomplished a lot. Even if you end up in prison, heaven forbid, there is much hope. A lot was said about me, just google my name. I do believe in free speech. Some said about me was true, some was a lie and some was an exaggeration. Such is life.

Now, when I was in MDC Brooklyn prison, I met several former cops including Randazzo and a former DEA agent in 7 North. I pray that they have closure too.

To read about my prison experience go here...http://www.amazon.com/PRISON-expect-Federal-Bureau-Prisons-ebook/dp/B011GTWLOG





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