Judge Rejects Silverstein Plea To Return
Attorneys for World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein implored U.S. District Court Judge Michael Mukasey last week to let Mr. Silverstein back into the courtroom to attend his $7 billion insurance trial, but their request fell on deaf ears.
Last week, Floyd Abrams, one of Mr. Silverstein's lawyers and a high-profile First Amendment advocate, pleaded with Judge Mukasey and asked whether he could make "any additional determination," to which the judge replied that he didn't know "if any additional determination was called for."
"Do you really want to go into this?" snapped Judge Mukasey, whose patience has been wearing thin in recent days following Mr. Silverstein's gag-order controversy. (On March 18, the judge banished Mr. Silverstein from sitting in the courtroom for violating a gag order. While Mr. Silverstein wasn't found in contempt, the judge said his decision to keep Mr. Silverstein out of the courtroom will stand as "a precautionary measure.")
During his appeal last week, Mr. Abrams informed the judge he has prepared a letter which identifies what his legal team believes is the applicable law illustrating Mr. Silverstein's legal right to attend court sessions.
But Judge Mukasey would have none of it, and he cited a number of reasons why he's keeping Mr. Silverstein out. "As far as I can tell, the only thing that's been added [from the prior week's gag-order hearing] is that I found out that he is willing to violate an order and then he is willing to misrepresent facts about it," the judge told Mr. Abrams. "I don't see how that recommends in favor of his coming back in."
The judge also said if Mr. Silverstein wants to communicate with his lawyers during the day, "he can do that from outside I have allowed people [from both parties] to bring cell phones in [the courthouse] so that there is a vast possibility of communication."
Judge Mukasey emphasized that his order is preventative, rather than a punitive measure. In other words, the judge explained, it's being done because "I don't know what he would do if he thought that something to his disadvantage was happening, and I am not going to risk it."
The judge speculated aloud that if he had three lives to lead, "I would lead one of them as an experiment" and perhaps might allow Mr. Silverstein back in. "But I don't; I have one [life]. And I am not going to experiment with what would happen if [Mr. Silverstein is allowed to return]."
Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, April 2, 2004. Copyright 2004 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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