The feds want to turn next month’s hotly anticipated FDNY racial discrimination retrial into a star-studded media attraction, city lawyers argued in a scathing Brooklyn federal court filing.
Lawyers for the government submitted an eye-popping witness list for next month’s legal brawl that included a slew of powerful pastors and polticians, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and embattled Rep. Charlie Rangel.
But city attorney Jessica Giambrone lobbied Judge Raymond Dearie to shear off unnecessary witnesses from the trial because they have little relevance to the issues at hand.
“These individuals do not seem able to offer relevant evidence and have been selected solely for the purposes of garnering media attention,” she wrote in her filing.
The government’s roster of potential witnesses also includes Rev. Johnny Youngblood, former Governor David Paterson, Rep. Gregory Meeks and Rep. Yvette Clarke, according to court papers.
“They are very likely being offered not for their substantive testimony but rather for purposes of dramatic impact,” the filing continues. “In general, defendants submit that plaintiffs’ proposed witnesses and exhibits are not appropriate, or relevant, to the issue to be tried.”
The filing requests a hearing with all parties to “clarify the paramenters” of the trial.
Slated to kick off on March 31, Dearie will decide whether the FDNY purposefully discriminated against minority applicants after an appeals court tossed an earlier ruling by Judge Nicholas Garaufis that it had.
In his decision, Garaufis squarely attacked former Mayor Michael Bloomberg for failing to end discriminatory hiring practices in the FDNY.
But the appeals court tossed the ruling and argued that Garaufis was no longer able to remain objective on the topic before appointing the veteran jurist Dearie to handle the case.
Some components of his rejected ruling remain intact, including his appointment of a federal monitor to patrol the FDNY’s hiring practices for fairness.
But the monitor, Mark Cohen, has come under fire from city attorneys for his ballooning invoices that have thus far piled up to more than $ 3 million.
Garaufis has defended his work as necessary to ensure that minority applicants are treated fairly at the FDNY.
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