National Coalition for Civil Rights

Jury finds that Loretta Brett did nothing to stop abuse and starvation of Marchella

NEW YORK, April 27 (Reuters) - A Brooklyn rabbi convicted of sex abuse will get a new trial, after a New York appeals court ruled that prosecutors failed to promptly hand over a detective's notes about an alleged bribery attempt.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, held that Rabbi Baruch Lebovits was "substantially prejudice(d)" by prosecutors' mid-trial disclosure of a detective's handwritten notes detailing a conversation in which the alleged sex-abuse victim said he was offered a bribe by a key defense witness in exchange for his silence.

"The untimely disclosure of the interview notes precluded the defense from fully and adequately preparing for cross-examination and set a trap for the defendant which had already sprung at the time the notes were finally furnished," the court wrote in a unanimous order released last week.

Lebovits was charged in 2008 with 10 separate counts of criminal sexual act in the third degree. The alleged victim, then 16 years old, said he engaged in "oral sexual conduct" with the rabbi on 10 separate occasions between May 2004, and February 2005, according to the ruling.

Lebovits contended that the alleged victim was a drug addict who made the accusations to extort money from Lebovits and his family. Lebovits' defense attorney planned to call another rabbi to testify that the alleged victim had approached him months before the trial and admitted the allegations were not true, according to the ruling.

But during a subsequent interview with a detective, the alleged victim said he had been contacted by the rabbi and was offered money in exchange for dropping the charges, the ruling said.

Prosecutors only gave the detective's notes to the defense after the prosecution raised the alleged bribery attempt during a redirect examination of the alleged victim, the ruling said.

Once the notes came to light, the defense moved for a mistrial.

Kings County Supreme Court Justice Patricia DiMango denied the motion, but allowed the defense to recall the witness and allowed additional cross-examination regarding the notes.

'EXTORTION PLOT'

Lebovits was ultimately convicted of eight of the 10 counts and was sentenced to 10 2/3-32 years in 2010.

The Third Department held that the prosecutors' failure to turn the detective's notes over violated Lebovits' right to examine a witness' pre-trial statements, a right recognized by the 1961 Court of Appeals ruling People v. Rosario, the court said.

"The people must turn over to the defense any prior statements by a witness which relate to the subject matter of that witness's testimony for use on cross-examination," the court wrote.

Lebovits' attorney, Nathan Dershowitz, said he was pleased with the appellate court's ruling.

"They know now the witness made misstatements, maybe intentionally, and that this was all part of an extortion plot," Dershowitz said.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn District Attorney's office, Jerry Schmetterer, said " We are prepared to retry the case."

The case is People v. Lebovits, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division: Second Department, no. 2010-3777.

For the Brooklyn DA: Leonard Joblove and Anthea Bruffee.

For Lebovits: Nathan Dershowitz, Amy Adelson and Alan Dershowitz at Dershowitz Eiger & Adelson.

Associated Press

NEW YORK — A mother was convicted Wednesday of murder in the death of her 4-year-old girl who was tied to her bed with a jump rope, beaten, drugged and starved.

Jurors deliberated less than an hour before finding Carlotta Brett-Pierce guilty of the most serious charge in the death of her child, Marchella, in a case that shined some light on fresh cracks in the city's child welfare system.

Two child welfare caseworkers have also been charged in the girl's death, among the first social workers in the country to be held criminally responsible for the death of a child on their watch. They have pleaded not guilty.

Brett-Pierce was on the radar of the city's child welfare system after she gave birth to a boy who tested positive for drugs. She was in drug counseling, but no abuse cases were opened, and the Administration for Children's Services admits it did not do enough to help her or her three children.

Marchella was born premature with severe medical problems — she had a collapsed lung and a breathing tube — and spent most of her life in hospitals, according to testimony. At home with her mother and grandmother, she was bound to her broken plastic toddler bed with a jump rope, and was given food she could not digest, according to testimony. She was also beaten and drugged.

Seven months later she was dead, her ribs visible through bruised, scarred and scratched skin. When police found her Sept. 2, 2010, she had 60 adult doses of Claritin and 30 doses of Benadryl in her system, a medical examiner said. Her stomach contained one kernel of corn. She weighed 18.8 pounds, half the weight of an average child her age.

"To me, at the time, it didn't look bad," Brett-Pierce said while testifying in the trial. "She looked like a child who wasn't sitting on her booty in the hospital all day. She was outside running around for the first time in her life."

As she was led away, Brett-Pierce said she was charged falsely. Her attorney, Alan Stutman, said he would appeal, and said the case was more about a system that failed a mother who needed help.

Brett-Pierce faces life in prison when she is sentenced June 6 by Brooklyn state Supreme Court judge Patricia DiMango, who has presided over other high profile child abuse cases and is known for giving stiff sentences.

Brett-Pierce's mother, Loretta Brett, was charged with manslaughter in the girl's death. A jury was expected to begin deliberations in that case Thursday.

The city's child welfare agency made a series of improvements on how it handles cases following the girl's death. The case recalled the notorious 2006 death of Nixzmary Brown, who was beaten and starved to death under the noses of child welfare workers. Her mother and step-father were convicted in her death, no case workers were charged.

—Copyright 2012 Associated Press