WAITING FOR THE WORD
A verdict in the Sean Bell murder case is expected this morning. In anticipation, The New York Times has set up its City Room blog as a kind of way station for the city's collective conscience, but warns readers who want to weigh in that "comments are moderated, and there is no guarantee of publication. Among the rules: Stay on topic, avoid personal attacks, threats, profanity, slurs, repetition and SHOUTING in capital letters." The blog has many links explaining interesting moments in the case's trajectory. The Times' Clyde Haberman, meanwhile, explores a "middle path" option available to Judge Arthur Cooperman. In this scenario, he would convict the officers of reckless endangerment, a misdemeanor punishable by one year in prison. And The Daily News interviews Bell's would-be mother-in-law, Laura Harper Paultre, who says, "Miraculously, I don't feel any anxiety. I'm very optimistic about tomorrow. I have faith in Judge Cooperman and in God." More to follow.

DECATHLETE OIL MAN
From the Associated Press comes news that oil trader Samir A. Vincent, who testified against two co-conspirators in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, has been sentenced to probation by Southern District Judge Denny Chin and fined $300,000. A decathlete on Iraq's 1964 Olympics team, Vincent had been accused by prosecutors of helping the Iraqi intelligence weaken the economic sanctions that helped create the oil-for-food program in the first place. But prosecutors also said he had been a key government witness. "It is not hyperbole to state that without Vincent's cooperation, the government's OFFP [oil-for-food program] investigations may not have resulted in criminal charges and its prosecutions would not have resulted in convictions," Edward O'Callaghan, chief of the U.S. Attorney's Terrorism and National Security Office, wrote in court papers. "One wonders how he ended up in the situation he was in," said Judge Chin. "Part of it was money. And I'm persuaded some of it was a sincere desire to help the Iraqi people."

LANGONE GOING TO TRIAL
In a 3-2 decision, the Appellate Division yesterday refused to dismiss charges against former New York Stock Exchange Chairman Kenneth G. Langone. The New York Law Journal has the story. Langone is accused of breaching his fiduciary duty to the exchange by misleading board members about deferred compensation for then-Chairman, Richard A. Grasso, in connection with his hotly contested $187.5 million compensation package. After more than one million documents and 61 depositions, the majority held that Langone did not "conclusively establish" that he fully disclosed the extent of Mr. Grasso's proposed compensation to the board. The majority affirmed a 2006 decision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Ramos, finding that under the state's Not-for-Profit Corporation Law Langone had a responsibility to "accurately convey his compensation recommendations to the Board . . . Langone also had a duty to make compensation recommendations which were in the interest of the NYSE, in good faith."

ON THE LEASE, ON THE HOOK
And from Newsday comes word of a Court of Appeals decision that found a Manhattan high-rise owner liable for injuries sustained by a tenant's workman, even though the worker was hired without the landlord's consent in violation of the lease. The 5-2 majority held that allowing a lease provision to protect the owner would "eviscerate the strict liability protection" State Labor Law provides workers. "Our precedents make clear that so long as a violation of the statute proximately results in injury, the owner's lack of notice or control over the work is not conclusive — this is precisely what is meant by absolute or strict liability in this context," wrote Judge Victoria Graffeo. In a dissent that accused the majority of "literalism," Judge Robert Smith (with Judge Susan Read concurring) wrote: "I do not see how the statutory goal of preventing workplace accidents is advanced by holding a landlord liable in a situation like this. What could anyone expect the landlord to do to prevent the accident, other than what it did?"