CONNOR JEERS JUDGE: The lawsuit filed by Civil Court Judge Margarita Lopez Torres and others arguing that Democratic Party bosses control who goes to the State Supreme Court bench elicited some fascinating testimony from State Senator Marty Connor.

            Before we get to it, some background: Connor entered Brooklyn politics in the early 1970s as a reformer, and his Independent Neighborhood Democrats considers itself a reform club. Yet Connor has for years chaired the September judicial convention at which little-known delegates—many employed by, kin of, or otherwise beholden to party bosses—rubber-stamp the slate of Democratic nominees who inevitably win election to 14-year Supreme Court terms.

            The Democratic county organization in Manhattan intervened to fight the lawsuit because it wants to preserve the current system, presumably because the system allows Democratic bosses to make judges. But Manhattan’s argument is exactly the opposite: that bosses do not have that power.

            The defendants are trying to undermine Judge Lopez Torres’s argument that she can’t get elevated to Supreme Court because Assemblymen Clarence Norman and Vito Lopez are punishing her.

            In court, the Manhattan machine called Connor, who cited the 2002 elevation to Supreme Court of Judge Laura Jacobson as proof that someone who’d run for Civil Court against the machine could still be promoted.

            In fact, Connor said, the judge’s husband, Peter Weiss, “has been a political operative supporting candidates against the organization year in and year out.”

            Moreover, Connor said he didn’t think Jacobson to be a particularly good judge because lawyers had told him her decisions were frequently reversed on appeal, and she “was regarded generally in the bar as someone who had temperament problems.”

            Connor said he was so shocked and appalled that Jacobson was to be elevated that he declined to preside over the 2002 judicial convention where she would be nominated. He called Jacobson “a horrible choice” for Supreme Court judge.

            How did Jacobson do it? Connor testified that Weiss had “nagged the party leaders to support his wife” so incessantly that they ultimately did so “to put him off.”

            When Norman realized Jacobson was the second choice of so many district leaders, he didn’t try to block her. “Part of leadership [is] if you see the herd stampeding, you get in front and say you are leading,” Connor explained.

            His testimony about Jacobson revealed that Norman doesn’t make Supreme Court judges as the late machine boss Meade Esposito did. But it wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of the process, if indeed a judge who is rude to lawyers and is often reversed can get elevated because her husband is a political operative with relentless nagging skills.

            But that is just Marty Connor’s opinion.

***

            FREED INMATE SUES: In December 2003, Morty Matz, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, defended the murder conviction of Floyd Batten by telling us, “The witness had a long opportunity to identify the perpetrator. He was with him 10 to 15 minutes showing him furniture.”

            Our occasion for asking was a New York Times story about a review of seemingly hopeless habeas corpus petitions being reviewed by federal Judge Jack Weinstein. From a huge stack of requests to overturn convictions, Weinstein zeroed in on four, including Batten’s, which he granted after we spoke to Matz.

            Said Matz, “Our answer has been in for six years now. The conviction was sound and reliable.”

            Apparently not.

            Hynes neither appealed Weinstein’s decision nor retried Batten, making him a free man after 20 years and one month behind bars for the murder of East Flatbush furniture store owner Igor Khutorsky.

            We called Hynes to see if he had come to believe Batten was innocent or if he just decided it would be impossible to win another conviction at this point. But because Batten has just sued the city, the district attorney’s spokesman declined to comment.

            Hynes was not the D.A. when Batten was convicted; that ignominy belongs to his predecessor, Eugene Gold.

            But Hynes did defend the original conviction over six years of appeals, despite information (which didn’t come out at trial) that the murder was an inside job planned by a Jamaican store employee who was deported after being questioned by the police, and that the murderer was clean shaven. (Batten didn’t work for the furniture store, wasn’t Jamaican, and had pronounced sideburns and a goatee when arrested four days later.)

            Hynes is very much aware that a conviction is more likely to be erroneous when it is based on the testimony of a single eyewitness, as was true in Batten’s case. The D.A. has reviewed some of these sole-witness cases, but it wasn’t until Judge Weinstein examined Batten’s conviction that action was taken.

***

            POLITICS 101: Wanna be a politician? Take a lesson from City Councilman Jimmy Oddo, who represents a chunk of Staten Island as well as Bensonhurst.

            When your district is at the butt end of an insulting joke on a company’s Web site, don’t just have the joke removed. Make sure you promote yourself in the process, even if it means publicizing the insult and thus worsening its effects.

            We allude to the case of Oddo versus Snapple.

            It began when Oddo discovered that Snapple, the official beverage of the city’s public schools, had posted on its online quiz game this sample question: “The most recognized smell in the world is—(no, it’s not Staten Island—it’s coffee).”

            When Oddo complained on December 28, Snapple promptly removed the joke. Not one to let the opportunity for self-glorification go by, Oddo held a “Staten Island Iced Tea Party” the next day at which he poured Snapple products into a sewer.

            Speaking to the Staten Island Advance, Oddo also encouraged Staten Islanders to dump whatever Snapple drinks they had into the nearest catch basin.

            Now, Oddo may well read this and think that if he just went about his job quietly, critics would call him invisible. But in this case the publicity served to associate Staten Island with an odor problem, even though the Fresh Kills Landfill closed several years ago.

***

            HOW MANY COUNCILMEN DOES IT TAKE…: Changing a light bulb became a harrowing experience for Councilman Mike Nelson when he slipped off a wet step-stool and fractured two ribs on a concrete step.

            Nelson was taken by ambulance to Maimonides Medical Center, treated, and released.

            He can laugh about it now (though it hurts every time he does), but initially the accident was quite scary. Nelson, who had been changing the bulb on his back porch when he fell, staggered back into his house, told his wife Sheila what had happened, and then lost consciousness.

            He began having vivid dreams, the kind we all envision having at death’s doorstep. In his first dream, Nelson was once again State Senator Carl Kruger’s chief of staff, and Kruger was barking orders at him, when Councilman Lew Fidler galloped in on a white horse and whisked Nelson off to Coney Island where they found Councilman Domenic Recchia redrawing his district lines in the sand.

            OK, we made that up. Nelson didn’t tell us what he dreamed, only that it was very dramatic.

            Nelson soon regained consciousness. “First thing I said to Sheila, ‘Who’s on my committee on vacancies?’” Nelson kidded.

            Of course, a vacancy at this point would be filled by special election. But Nelson isn’t going anywhere, including back onto the step-stool to change the exterior bulb. “From now on I’m going to get my son-in-law to do it,” he said.

***

             DID KERIK SHOOT JFK, TOO? Amid the hubbub over Bernie Kerik, at least one Brooklyn Democrat has come to believe the former commissioner had a hand in the (unproven) disappearance of personnel records of State Senator Marty Golden that explained Golden’s departure from the police force 25 years ago.

            The source claimed the records were ordered destroyed by Rudy Giuliani to smooth the path for Golden’s election victory over Vinny Gentile, who had challenged Golden to release them.

            Sounds a little far-fetched, no? The idea that a mayor and police commissioner would conspire to commit a felony to help Golden, who was likely to win the race anyway, is a bit hard to swallow. No one has even shown that these supposedly damaging records ever existed, let alone that they were tampered with or shredded.

            Golden has always maintained he left the force because of a severe knee injury sustained chasing a suspect, and we have no reason not to believe him. But, as the only Republican with an all-Brooklyn district, he’s a continuing target for innuendo and conspiracy theories from Democrats.

***

            POLS DOUBT HOTEL, DORM PLANS: A developer plans to build on his southern Brooklyn properties a dormitory for New York University as well as two hotels to house airline personnel on layovers.

            At least, he says that’s what he’ll build.

            But to call Councilman Lew Fidler and Assemblyman Frank Seddio skeptical, or even dubious, would be an understatement. They are certain the stated purpose is bogus, a scam to allow the developer to construct a larger building than would otherwise be allowed.

            The developer’s strategy seems to be “Let’s call it something so we can build it, and decide what we’re going to use it for later,” Fidler said.

            Take the dormitory purportedly slated for Strickland Avenue. Why would NYU want a dorm an hour away from its campus?

            “None of us for one minute believe it will ever be a dormitory for NYU,” Fidler said.

            And the two six-story hotels for pilots and flight attendants on East 69th Street between Avenues X and Y in Bergen Beach?

            “As if that’s the nearest vacant land to the airport,” Fidler said incredulously, suggesting the actual use might be medical offices or condominium apartments.

            Seddio is hiring an architect to study both proposed projects, Fidler said. The hotel site, by the way, faces Seddio’s house.

            “It’s a massive development across the street from one-family homes. That’s wrong,” Fidler said. “You want to talk about altering the character of a neighborhood? Dropping two hotels like they came from Mars in the middle of a community is wrong.”

            The quandary for opponents of the projects is that both are as-of-right. That is, they are allowed by existing zoning.

            But Fidler and Seddio seem intent on making things as difficult as possible for the developer, Alex Forkosh.

            “This guy put a backhoe on his property on Thursday afternoon at 2 o’clock. By 4 o’clock my office had state DEC, city DEP, and the Buildings Department there,” Fidler said. “This guy better be doing everything in strict accordance with law.”

            The councilman added, “If he’s playing a game of chicken with us, he’s going to find out how mistaken he is to think we’re going to blink first.”

            The controversy has also put State Senator Carl Kruger in an uncomfortable position because the developer is a friend of his and a big contributor to his campaign fund. Kruger has been known to unleash verbal assaults and sic his publicity machine on proposals unpopular with the community, but initially he was subdued about Forkosh’s plans.

            Kruger later told a reporter from this paper that his understated response was actually a result of his seething anger toward the proposals. Oh, sorry—we should have warned you to have a barf bag handy before you read that.

            Our reporter Gary Buiso discovered that $16,000 had been donated to Kruger’s campaign fund from various entities with the same 400 Broome Street address as one of Forkosh’s companies, Coral Realty.

            Kruger rejected the notion that his stance of Forkosh’s development plans is affected by the contributions or his friendship with Forkosh. He said the hotel proposal has caused him “particular consternation” but that he was simply taking a wait-and-see approach.

***

            MONEY TREE BLOOMS FOR HYNES: The Daily News reported that Mayor Mike Bloomberg will host a $1,000-a-head fundraiser for Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes. The paper explained the Republican mayor’s favor for a Democrat by suggesting the mayor is looking to court black voters in Brooklyn.

            Huh? We don’t see how helping Hynes will curry favor with blacks, particularly since he’s likely to have at least one black opponent. Attorney Paul Wooten seems to be running, and State Senator John Sampson will probably join the race as well. Sampson could keep his Senate seat if he loses the D.A. race.

            Meanwhile, with the Democratic primary just nine months hence, the time is drawing near for Councilman David Yassky to you-know-what or get off the pot. It’s a tough call for Yassky, who would have to relinquish his Council seat (good through 2009) to run for D.A.

            If Yassky takes the plunge, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce chief Kenneth Adams and Williamsburg activist Isaac Abraham, and another candidate or three, would vie for the open Council seat.

***

            TIDBITS: In a tactic that could pay dividends in the 2006 race to succeed Rep. Major Owens, one candidate, the incumbent’s son Chris Owens, has taken to sending messages to a host of e-mail discussion groups in the district. He recently sent a list of tsunami relief organizations to six Yahoo groups in Boerum Hill, Park Slope, Lefferts Gardens, and Prospect Heights, reaching hundreds of voters at no cost. At the end of each message is a link to Owens’s campaign Web site.

# # #