MONEY FOR NOTHING 
Providing a bit of resolution in the case of former judge John L. Phillips' mysteriously disappearing assets, the Appellate Division has suspended one of Phillips' law guardians, Emani P. Taylor, for her unauthorized withdrawal of $327,100 from his bank account. Taylor had said she used the money to pay herself and others who were overseeing Phillips’ diminishing assets; the appellate panel disagreed. "At a minimum, [Taylor] withdrew funds from the guardianship account as legal fees without court permission, at worst, she intentionally converted guardianship funds," the court wrote. "While [Taylor] was entitled to be compensated for the work she performed for three years, self-help to guardianship funds is not the way to proceed." As reported by The New York Law Journal, the court also said Taylor had not cooperated with the disciplinary investigation and that her lack of cooperation could “only be interpreted as a deliberate and willful attempt to impede the [Departmental Disciplinary] Committee’s investigation.”

TANKLEFF, RECONSIDERED
Newsday reports that The State Commission of Investigation is ratcheting up its investigation of the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office for its handling of the Martin Tankleff murder case. Tankleff was released from jail recently - after serving 17 years for the murder of his parents - when an Appellate Division panel ruled that new witnesses in 2003 introduced considerable evidence that Jerard Steuerman, a business partner of Tankleff’s father, had the pair killed to avoid repayment of a $500,000 debt. Tankleff was convicted largely on the basis of a recanted confession. The probe will focus on DA Thomas Spota’s refusal to recuse himself when Tankleff sought a new trial in 2003. Meanwhile, The New York Times has an editorial on the matter, and The New York Law Journal has the Appellate Division’s decision.

THE PAROLE BOARD PUPPETEERS
The New York Times also has a story about the disintegration of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by a group of prisoners against the New York State Parole Board, alleging the board categorically denied them parole without considering a panoply of factors, such as the possibility for rehabilitation. The Division of Parole’s squashing of the deal — which would have granted new hearings for about 1,000 prisoners — has been linked to the diminishing political capital of Governor Eliot Spitzer, exacerbated after critics lambasted his granting of parole to a man who’d taken part in a holdup that led to a police officer’s death. (Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA) President Patrick J. Lynch had said, “Violent felons should not be eligible for parole, and cop killers should stay incarcerated for life.”) The Parole Board ultimately delayed the release of Shuiab A. Raheem and agreed to revisit his case. “We don’t want to take any credit if the thing is defeated,” PBA spokesman Joseph Mancini said of the inmates’ lawsuit. “We just want to make sure it is.” Said Robert N. Isseks, the inmates’ attorney, “The timing was pretty obvious. We got word not long after the news articles by e-mail that they don’t want to pursue the settlement and refused to give us a reason.”

JURORS' REMORSE
Gothamist, meanwhile, summarizes the confusion in the aftermath of the recent manslaughter conviction of John White, a black Long Island man who said he was defending himself from a pack of white teenagers who surrounded his house seeking revenge on his son. Multiple jurors now say they felt pressured by judge Barbara Kahn to reach a verdict before the holidays. “If it was my son, I would do the same,” one juror recently told The New York Post.