Lawyer Compares Expert Witness to Street Walker
Criminal defense lawyers say the darnedest things.
Pimps are traditionally colorful characters. Flashy dressers brandishing pimp chalices and all that. Sure sometimes Wayne Brady needs to choke a woman, but “a pimp’s love is very different from that of a square.”
Apparently attorneys for pimps are equally colorful if a New York sex-trafficking trial is any indication. And comparing the prosecution’s expert to a prostitute is not the only wacky legal tactic in the case.
Why can’t I ever get this case when I get called for jury duty?
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The New York Post opens its story by setting the tone with a single line:
In opening statements, he called the alleged victims happy “hoes.”
Howard Greenberg’s strategy for the sex-trafficking trial of a father and son is to argue that they are absolutely pimps, but just not sex traffickers. During the opening, after he referred to the victims as “hoes,” Greenberg pointed to one working girl in the gallery prepared to testify that she loved her job. Prosecutors claim they have pictures of the same woman with a black eye.
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Yesterday, Greenberg took his brazen tactics to a new level. Cross-examining the prosecution’s expert in “trauma bonding,” or as the Post dubbed it “Stock-ho syndrome,” because the Post is clever like that:
“You’re being paid, right?” Howard Greenberg, lawyer for accused violent pimp Vincent George, Sr., asked Chitra Raghavan, a “trauma bonding” expert.
The expert, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, answered that yes, she was getting paid by the prosecution.
“Much in the same way a young woman might be paid –” Greenberg began.
I’ve heard expert witnesses called whores before but this is ridiculous.
“Objection!” shouted prosecutor John Temple, head of the Manhattan DA’s human trafficking unit. “We’re not going there,” warned the trial judge, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Ruth Pickholtz.
“Well,” quipped the lawyer. “I’ve already gone there, judge.”
Touché.
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Lawyer in Sex-Trafficking Case Suggests Paid DA Expert Sells Herself, Too [New York Post]
