Would-be Empire State Building jumper, Jeb Corliss (pictured), isn't in the clear yet. Last year's decision from Supreme Court Justice Michael Ambrecht to dismiss the charges against him was overturned yesterday when The Supreme Court Appellate Division decided to bring the case back to life. A four-judge panel unanimously voted, and the Manhattan District Attorney's office can now pursue its charge of reckless endangerment against Corliss for his 2006 attempted jump. The judges did reduce......

Two lawsuits currently wending their way through New York courts are forcing judges to grapple with the legal ramifications of “gay divorce.” In one case, State Supreme Court Justice Laura Drager is allowing a Manhattan woman to sue for divorce and custody of children borne by a woman she married in Canada in 2004. The ruling echoes a recent appellate court decision in Rochester that found "out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples must be legally recognized......

The construction worker who killed Adrienne Shelly in her West Village office pleaded guilty to manslaughter - and gave new details about why he killed the actress-director. Diego Pillco will receive 25 years in prison; as an illegal immigrant from Ecuador, the Post says his sentence will be "almost certainly followed by deportation." Originally, Pillco had told the police he killed Shelly in November of 2006, he was in a "bad mood" and picked a......

After almost a week of delays, jurors were back in court for the Nixzmary Brown murder case. A expert said that the malnourished 7-year-old's blood was found under the fingernails Brown's stepfather, Cesar Rodriguez, as well as on his jeans. Rodriguez faces murder charges for the malnourished 7-year-old's 2006 death. Rodriguez's defense lawyers said the blood was present because he had tried to save her after the girl's mother beat her to death, noting the......

Charles F. Luce, who was Con Ed's chairman and chief executive between 1967 and 1982, died last week at the age of 90 in California. The Bronxville, NY resident died of prostate cancer. The NY Times notes that unlike most "big business executives," Luce was a liberal Democrat and environmentalist. He took a considerable amount of heat for a NYC blackout during the summer of 1977 and faced angry shareholders who didn't appreciate their dividends......

Last October, a fire was started outside the Engine 34/Ladder 21 firehouse on West 38th Street. The fire was put out, but upon investigation, it turned out the ones who set it were firefighters from different firehouses! A surveillance cameras actually captured Michael Izzo and Richard Capece purchasing the gasoline at a gas station and later splashing the stationhouse's garage door and igniting it, setting off what was described as a fireball. The pair were......

State Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman has ruled that the Broadway production of How the Grinch Stole Christmas can and will proceed, despite the theater owner’s attempt to lock out the stagehands. “Grinch” producers dragged Jucamcyn, the third largest owner of Broadway theaters, into court yesterday seeking an injunction to let the show go on. Local One, the stagehands’ union, is on strike until a contract is agreed upon with the producers’ league, of which......

After Brooklyn prosecutors decided to drop murder charges against ex-FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, after the star witness's testimony was deemed questionable, the judge presiding over the case decided to scold the defendant. DeVecchio had been on trial for allegedly giving mob informant Gregory "The Grim Reaper" Scarpa information to kill other rival informants. Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach's four page ruling included turns of phrase like, What is undeniable was that in the......

Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser has ruled that the three men charged in the murder of Michael Sandy can be charged with murder as a hate crime. Last October, Anthony Fortunato, John Fox, and Ilya Shurov had lured Michael Sandy through a gay chat room to meet them near the Belt Parkway. When Sandy arrived, they robbed and beat him, causing him to flee into the highway and get hit by a car. Sandy was......

A judge has banned Toto's "Washlet" cleaning system billboard from a Times Square building. One of the building's tenants happens to be the Times Square Church, which sued to stop the billboard by claiming it was "certainly unsuited for public exposure to children, and antithetical to the values of our congregation and church.” No word if the parishioners feel their bottoms are clean enough already. State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman said, "The court......

A Harlem Assemblyman is so unhappy with Governor Spitzer that he's laying down what the Post calls Spitzer's "DEBUT DEM DISS." Keith Wright, who is a Democrat, told the Post, "He’s acting like a Democrat Giuliani - it’s either his way or no way. I’m not a big fan. I had a better relationship with [Republican former Gov.] George Pataki.” Ouch! That's a double diss - to bring up Giuliani AND to say Pataki was......

The Department of Education officials are smiling and parents are seething: Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone ruled that the DOE could continue to ban cell phones. The DOE has claimed that cell phones are disruptive and students use them to cheat, while students and parents feel the phones are necessary for safety purposes. The DOE's cell phone ban prompted eight parents to sue the city, and, per the AP, calling the ban......

Now that he's been found medically fit to stand trial, jury selection has started in the trial of Peter Braunstein, the journalist who allegedly posed as a firefighter and molested a former co-worker on Halloween in 2005. The thing is 70% of the jurors questioned yesterday had heard about the trial and left, thanks to the moment-to-moment coverage of the case (exhibit A, B, C). But the NY Times said 30 prospective jurors who would......

The organizers at Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn are planning a protest for this upcoming Monday in reaction to a judge's ruling that allows Forest City Ratner to proceed with its demolition plans, refusing a group of 26 co-plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order. The protest will begin at 8 a.m. in front of 191 Flatbush Ave. between 5th Ave. and Dean St. The state lawsuit maintains that an environmental impact study of the......

A Manhattan jury found four women guilty of gang assault for attacking a man outside the IFC Center last summer. The man, Dwayne Buckle of Queens, said that the group of lesbians attacked him because he was straight, while the women contended Buckle had used slurs and threw a cigarette at them - and that another man stabbed him. Patreese Johnson, who claimed Buckle said, "I'll f--- you straight" to her, was found not......

BusinessWeek assistant managing editor and blogger Bruce Nussbaum may have been one of the 40 most powerful people in design (back in 2005), but he was no match for State Supreme Court Justice Edward J. McLaughlin. In coverage of a group of lesbians on trial for allegedly beating up a straight man outside the IFC Center (best trial ever?), the Post mentioned that Nussbaum was removed from the jury. Apparently Nussbaum upset Justice McLaughlin for......

A Long Island couple is suing a Manhattan fertility clinic for using the wrong sperm during in-vitro fertilization. Nancy and Thomas Andrews were having trouble conceiving a second child, so they went to the New York Medical Services for Reproductive Medicine to have Nancy's eggs fertilized with Thomas's sperm. But when baby Jessica was born in 2004 to the couple, they suspected something was wrong. From the Daily News:Thomas Andrews is white and his wife......

That is absolutely going to be reversed. There is no way that stands. Alright lemme go take a pee...lemme make peepee... I wanna make peepee and poopie and pee pee... Who's that? Why, it's Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson, taped by the Brooklyn DA's office. Garson is on trial for accepting bribes from lawyers while presiding over divorce cases - and the accusations are incredible. The 74-year-old jurist, who is now suspended, allegedly accepted cash,......

It's really hard to joke about a sex trial where a female Manhattan Montessori school teacher is accused of the statutory rape and sodomy and two teenage boys, but based on the NY Times' article about juror selection, it seems there are moments of levity. Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman is presiding over the case of Lina Sinha, who allegedly had sex with pupils who were 12 and 13 years old; one of the victims......

Yesterday was supposed to be the start of jury selection in the murder trial of Paul Cortez. But lawyers for Cortez, a personal trainer and yoga instructor accused of killing his girlfriend, didn't even show up. Instead, defense attorneys Laura Miranda and Dawn Florio faxed an excuse to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman, who then said, "I'm supposed to believe this" and later "I'll have [Miranda] arrested." Apparently Miranda's excuse was that her mother......

Governor Spitzer has nominated Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones to a position on the NY State Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. You may remember Jones's name from such incidents as the Transit Strike of 2005. Jones is the one who fined the TWU $2.5 million and sentenced TWU president Roger Toussaint to 10 days in jail. Jones would be the lone black jurist on the Court of Appeals, since Pataki did......

Jerry Seinfeld sure has come a long way from being a struggling stand-up comic to trying to avoid paying a real estate broker her commission! Seinfeld and his wife Jessica say that when they called their broker Tamara Cohen to see a townhouse on West 82nd Street, she didn't pick up her phone. But it turns out the Cohen is an observant Jew and was observing the Sabbath. Here are some details from the NY......

The two page blackmail letter that Yoko Ono's driver, Koral Karsan, wrote in hopes of receiving $2M from her, was released yesterday. Karsan's lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, filed it with Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel FitzGerald. In the letter, Karsan accused Ono of sexually harrassing him, and vowed to call Sean Lennon (along with his ex, Bijou Phillips), "Paul", and Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner to testify on his behalf. He also wrote down that Sean Lennon......

Now that the media has been able to see the papers in the battle over Brooke Astor's care, it turns out that Supreme Court Justice John Stackhouse has made some decisions about the ailing philanthropist's care. When Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, accused his father, Anthony Marshall, of mishandling Astor's estate - with Anthony spending money on his own dealings, not his 104 year old mother - temporary guardiandship of Astor went to her friend Annette......

Last May, math-majoring junior Michael Quercia was arrested for possession of 10 ounces of pot in his dorm room, and NYU decided that he should perform 500 hours of community service and would remain suspended until 2007. Quercia thought that was a bit extreme, and a Manhattan judge agreed, calling NYU's ruling "a Draconian measure that is disproportionate to the offense committed." The Daily News reported that Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub thinks that Quercia......

It's just like the MTA to problem solve a couple years after the problem starts. The NYC Transit Authority will be adding more trains to the L line because the current, snazzy R143 line is "not enough" to serve the masses of people. The TA will have to figure out how to make the signals work with both the current, (relatively) high-tech R143s and the old cars (maybe the slant R40s?), and that could......

Even judges can be judged. And in this case, the verdict is "You're out!" State Supreme Court Justice Laura D. Blackburne was "fired" by the state Court of Appeals, regarding that 2004 incident where she let a robbery suspect evade arrest. The suspect was in Justice Blackburne's court for a different hearing, and a detective was waiting outside to question him; Blackburne knew the detective was waiting outside, but advised that the suspect be taken......

The 11,000 square foot mansion dreams of a couple that owns 47 East 3rd Street in the East Village have been stalled for now, as a judge ruled that Catherine and Alistair Economakis did not get permission to cancel their tenants' leases. The buliding has 15 rent-stabilized apartments (totaling 60 rooms) which range from from $600 to $1200, and the Economakises asked the tenants to hit the road when they were expecting a baby. And......

Some good news for photobloggers and fans of street photography: a Manhattan judge has ruled photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia was well within his rights to sell copies of this photograph of an Orthodox gentleman. The shot was taken as part of diCorcia's "Heads" project, which involved shooting pictures using a concealed camera. The Post reports: ...Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische ruled that the head shot showing Nussenzweig, with a white beard, a black hat......

It was a brilliant idea (though first used in Baltimore) for Mayor Bloomberg to bring to the city: 311 would be a resource for NYC residents to learn more about government doings, that the noises outside were actually fireworks and perhaps wonder where to protest a ticket. However, State Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling Cohan (who ruled that gay marriage should be constitutional) just ruled that a call to 311 can mean the a person......