ADOPTION IS A PRIVILEGE
Southern District Judge Richard M. Berman has sentenced a woman who bilked the state’s adoption system out of $1.68 million while simultaneously neglecting the 11 disabled children she adopted to nearly 11 years in prison, reports The New York Times. Berman called Judith Leekin’s actions “diabolical in nature” and defended his tough sentence by citing the extreme nature of Leekin’s scheme, which he said defrauded a system intended to “provide loving care and nurturing and support to children…It turns that system on its head and into a heartless, dangerous money-driven scheme. One cannot be allowed to perpetrate fraud to subvert our adoption system for financial gain.” Continued Judge Berman, “It seems to me that adoption is a privilege, not a right, and there should be conditions of accountability and safety and honest intention attached to that privilege, and it would also be useful, in my opinion, if there were active monitoring by responsible agencies.”

50 CENT’S LAWYER STAYS
Newsday reports that New York County Supreme Court Justice Carol Edmead has denied a request by the rapper 50 Cent’s former girlfriend to disqualify the attorney Brett Kimmel from representing the rapper during a contentious insurance payout case involving the former couple’s fire ravaged Long Island home. The ex-girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, alleged that she had previously contacted Kimmel in 2005 and inquired about representation over child support issues. She argued that Kimmel’s  current representation of 50 Cent constituted a conflict of interest. “I would not pick up the phone and speak to someone I don’t know who has not retained me and give them legal advice about a case,” Kimmel told Justice Edmead, who ruled that not enough evidence existed to create an attorney-client relationship.

FORCIBLE COMPULSION AND THE LEGISLATURE
And from The New York Law Journal comes news that Sullivan County Judge Frank J. LaBuda has petitioned the Legislature to fix a loophole in state law that allows sex offenders to avoid a felony charge for sexually abusing mentally disabled young people. The plea came inLaBuda’s dismissal of a first-degree sexual abuse conviction against a defendant, Daniel MacLean, because of a lack of proof that showing that MacLean acted with so-called forcible compulsion. “Not a scintilla of evidence was presented at trial showing that defendant used physical force or a threat which placed the victim, or another person, in fear of immediate death or physical injury,” LaBuda wrote. ”Indeed, the victim was never questioned regarding any fear and in many cases of abuse the child victim may be too young to formulate a fear factor as required by the statutory definition of forcible compulsion. No matter how abhorrent, aberrant, and vexing the defendant’s behavior is, this Court is constrained to follow the law until our legislature deems it fit to protect the disabled child with felony sanctions for their abusers. This protection in today’s society with an increasing sexually abused population in autistic and challenged children is needed.”