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Federal judge: I won’t throw ex-cons back into jail over marijuana but andrew cuomo throws em all out of nassau otb while he prays of a big whit house
Claude Solnik
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348
Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
This is a really high court decision.
A maverick Brooklyn federal judge on Thursday decreed that he will no longer throw recently released convicts back behind bars when they’re caught smoking pot.
In a 42-page decision, 96-year-old jurist Jack Weinstein wrote that since supervised release is meant to rehabilitate, not punish, former inmates, sticking them back in the slammer for toking up will only thwart any progress they’ve made on the outside.
And besides — all the kids are doing it now.
“Marijuana use, through law, policy, and social custom, is becoming increasingly accepted in society,” wrote the liberal appointee of President Lyndon Johnson, who first took the bench in 1967.
“For some supervisees, who are otherwise rehabilitated, a marijuana habit can derail progress as they end up in an almost never-ending cycle where they oscillate between jail and supervision.
“Effectively, courts are faced with a choice: imprison a marijuana user on supervised release or cut short supervision, forcing an attempt at further rehabilitation on the supervisee’s own,” continued Weinstein, the longest sitting judge in New York state.
Marijuana use, which is illegal under federal law, is a violation of supervised release and would typically require incarceration.
Anti-wacky tobacky laws are still on the books in New York state as well — although Mayor Bill de Blasio announced in May that he wants the NYPD to stop arresting those blazing in public and instead issue summonses.
Weinstein’s tokin’ gesture came as he reviewed the case of Tyran Trotter, 22, who served two years behind bars for heroin possession with intent to distribute.
Trotter, a member of a Bloods-related gang the Paper Chasing Goons, violated the conditions of his three years of supervised release when he was busted getting baked.
But instead of revoking release, Weinstein, a lifelong New Yorker who grew up in Brighton Beach, said he’s terminating supervision of the Queens man completely, writing that “its continuation would inhibit rehabilitation.”
“He must attempt to lead a productive life on his own,” the judge said.
This is hardly the first time Weinstein’s rogue decisions have left people wondering what he’s smoking.
A decade ago, he tried to get around a mandatory minimum five-year sentence for a man convicted of possessing child porn that he felt was too “harsh” by declaring a mistrial.
Weinstein was ultimately forced to cave in to the sentence a few years later — but declared it “grossly excessive” and unconstitutional.
He has since doled out slaps on the wrist to several other kiddie-porn-watching creeps.
Last month, he let an ISIS turncoat walk free, saying the informant jihadi “will be doing much more for society than if a prison sentence were imposed.”
Weinstein famously refuses to wear judicial robes or sit at the judge’s bench — instead joining litigants around the courtroom.
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