News for Norm Pattis

How attorneys are using #MeToo to defend their clients accused of sexual assault

Jul 25, 2018 - The Inquirer Daily News

After Ari Goldstein’s hearing last week on sexual assault charges, his attorney said the accuser had ulterior motives — that it is simply a case of “#MeToo gone wild.”
“The atmosphere of #MeToo,” attorney Perry de Marco Sr. said in an interview Tuesday, “has infected this case.”
The point of #MeToo, the movement that originated on social media and has brought down dozens of powerful men accused of everything from workplace...

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What Happens When You Try to Join the Mile High Club?

We all want to know: What kind of trouble can you get into if you’re caught?

Jun 25, 2018 - Travel + Leisure

There have been Mile High Club stories for as long as there have been airplanes — or at least, it feels that way.
With so much information circulating the internet on “how to” join, it's obvious people are intrigued by the Mile High Club, even if they have yet to join. But what are the rules on airlines? How much trouble could you get in? While it might sound fun and exciting, no one wants to get arrested for getting busy on a plane.
When it comes to repercussions...

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Danbury once again ordered to rehire a police officer

Jun 5, 2018 - News Times

The state’s arbitration board has ordered the city to rehire veteran Police Officer Daniel Sellner.
Sellner was fired three years ago after the city accused him of using excessive force during an arrest.
The arbitration board’s decision marks the second time in the last two months that city officials have been ordered to rehire a police officer. A Superior Court judge ruled in April that the city should have issued a suspension instead of firing Officer Chris Belair two...

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Skakel's Successful Appeal - Lawyer Norm Pattis says New Trial Likely

May 20, 2018 - Associated Press Radio

What happens now that Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel's murder conviction, in the 1975 bludgeoning death of a 15-year-old girl, was overturned by the Connecticut Supreme Court. AP correspondent Julie Walker reports.

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Moxley’s mom ‘disappointed’ as Skakel’s conviction tossed

Tells Herald she’ll keep fighting to ‘find justice’

May 5, 2018 - Boston Herald

The elderly mother of Martha Moxley, the teen allegedly bludgeoned to death with a golf club in Connecticut by Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel decades ago, said she’ll spend the rest of her life working to “find justice” for her blonde-haired girl.
“I was 43 when my daughter was murdered, and I’m going to be 86 in 20 days. That’s half of my life that has gone on, and I’m willing to spend the rest of my life to find justice for Martha,” Dorothy...

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Court Vacates Murder Conviction of Kennedy Nephew Michael Skakel

The divided court ordered a new trial in the case that garnered national and international attention.

May 4, 2018 - Connecticut Law Tribune

By a 4-3 ruling late Friday, the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated the 1975 murder conviction of Michael Skakel, nephew of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s widow Ethel Kennedy. The divided court ordered a new trial in the case that garnered national and international attention.
Skakel was convicted in 2002 of the beating death of his 15-year-old Greenwich neighbor Martha Moxley. He spent 11 years in prison for the murder.
But on Friday, the high court said Skakel’s...

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Connecticut Supreme Court Tosses Conviction of Kennedy Cousin Michael Skakel

May 4, 2018 - Law & Crime

In an extremely rare move, the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed its own previous decision in the case of Michael Skakel, a cousin of the Kennedy family. The court on Friday ruled that Skakel did not receive a fair murder trial in the death of Martha Moxley. Skakel and Moxley were neighbors in affluent Greenwich, Conn. when she was murdered in October 1975. Moxley was 15 when she died. Skakel was tried and convicted in 2002. He is a nephew of the widow of Sen. Robert Kennedy.
Attorneys...

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Pattis on Bill Cosby Verdict

Apr 27, 2018 - Fox 61

Norm Pattis talks with news anchor about the most recent Cosby verdict.

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The Yale Rape Trial Isn't Over Yet

A criminal court cleared Saifullah Khan of the charge of raping a fellow undergraduate, but he's about to face a campus committee.

Mar 22, 2018 - The Weekley Standard

The March 7 acquittal by a New Haven jury of a suspended Yale student on charges of raping a classmate has been much lamented on campus and in the national media. But a review of the evidence shows that the trial was fair, the defense was ethical, and there was much more than a reasonable doubt about the accuser’s claim that she was so drunk as to lack the capacity to consent.
The facts of this he-said, she-said case are that Saifullah Khan, a then-22-year-old Yale senior, and his...

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Juror in Saifullah Khan Yale Rape Case Says Acquittal Was Justified: 'I Think He's Innocent'

"I think he doesn't deserve this, and I think it's sad."

Mar 12, 2018 - Reason

A jury acquitted former Yale student Saifullah Khan last week of committing rape on Halloween night in 2015. If you read Time, The New York Times, The Yale Daily News, or any number of other mainstream media outlets' coverage of the case, this verdict may seem like a travesty of justice, even a calculated counterstrike against the #MeToo movement.
Khan's defense attorney put the victim on trial, critics say, by asking her uncomfortable questions about her sexy Halloween costume, her...

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