PLO GOES PLOP 
A Justice has ruled that a claim to recover $116 million from a Manhattan bank account connected to the Palestinian Liberation Organization for its role in the death of an American rabbinical student and his pregnant wife in 1996 is more “legal” than “equitable.” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich has allowed the declaratory judgment claim to proceed to trial. As reported by The New York Law Journal, the case represents the latest attempt by Rhode Island attorney David Strachman to collect on a $116 million default judgment entered in 2004 by a District Judge in Rhode Island against the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Hamas. Kornreich last year prevented Strachman from recovering the funds from New York bank accounts belonging to the Palestinian Monetary Authority, because a central bank is “a separate judicial entity” from the Palestinian Authority. But Kornreich has now found that since his latest attempt is cloaked as a declaratory judgment proceeding — in which a judge clarifies the rights and responsibilities of parties in a civil matter — and results from the refusal of the defendants to pay, it should be viewed as “a means of executing the money judgment” and “enforceable by execution.” That means a trial.

HOME MAKERS AND BABY TAKERS 
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that New York City has enacted a new policy that allows authorities to remove newborn babies from their parents’ homes if the parents previously had children taken from their custody and their case is still open. “When I got here three and a half years ago, the assumption was the child would stay in the home,” said John B. Mattingly, the City’s Commissioner of Children’s Services, in announcing the policy during a City Council budget hearing. “Most of us in the country have the view that if older siblings are in foster care, and the court has affirmed that they are at substantial risk of harm, it makes very little sense to make the opposite assumption about a six-pound baby coming into the home.” Said Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the Virginia-based National Coalition for Child Protection Reform and a major critic of foster care, “What this policy is really saying, to the worker, the supervisor and even the borough commissioner, is, ‘Go ahead and leave that child in the home if you want, but if anything goes wrong, your career is over.’ ”

READY AND WILLING 
Meanwhile, the debate over the legality of the charge given to prospective grand jurors in Nassau County continues, Newsday reports. Currently, when potential grand jurors show up for service, they are asked whether they are “willing to serve” for the current term. That’s improper, defense attorneys allege, since court officials are basically asking for volunteers, violating the legal requirement for jurors to be selected “at random.” The matter is currently before Nassau County Judge Jerald Carter. A ruling discrediting the charge could lead to hundreds of challenges of criminal indictments countywide.

THE BRAINS OF THE EMPERORS CLUB 
Finally, Newsday also reports that Temeka Rachelle Lewis, the former brains behind the Emperors Club prostitution operation that ensnared former Governor Eliot Spitzer, has pleaded guilty to prostitution charges as part of a plea bargain in which she will cooperate with prosecutors in their continuing investigation. Lewis faces between 16 and 18 months in prison, and has agreed to forfeit $1 million in cash and bank accounts seized by investigators in March. “She is going to put this behind her,” said her attorney, Mark Agnifilo. “It is not a point she ever thought she would be in.”