Ellen Mariani died on 10/31/15, apparently due to medical problems. The Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund has published a statement in memory of her which discusses her life and her litigation efforts. Click here to read it.
Click here for more info.
This update gives an overview of this entire fundraising project and some information about Ellen’s case. Click here to read the Sept. 7, 2014 update.
The settlement allows Bruce Leichty to challenge the sanctions imposed on him for having revealed to the 2nd Circuit the ties that existed between the son of 9/11 trial Judge Alvin Hellerstein and the Israeli affiliates and joint venturers of certain defendants in the 9/11 case (ICTS, Huntleigh, and Boeing). Bruce says he has not yet decided whether he can take on that appeal; there will be an announcement on the website when a decision is made.
Unfortunately, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals denied Ellen Mariani’s Petition For Rehearing En Banc of her appeal. The decision is dated 7/30/13 and it can be read by clicking here. Ellen and her attorney Bruce Leichty are considering what to do next. There is a possibility that they will want to pursue a new petition for writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court.
The Mariani Petition for Rehearing En Banc contained arguments for both review of the denial of Ellen’s appeal and the imposition of sanctions. If the Clerk complies with this latest Order it would appear that under the procedure for determining en banc rehearings a much broader selection of 2nd Circuit judges will now see the complete Petition for Rehearing En Banc, although it is not possible to predict whether these judges will feel compelled (as Carney and Hall have instructed) to ignore the request for full rehearing of the denial of Ellen’s appeal. Leichty had argued that only the judges polled for rehearing were qualified to decide if rehearing en banc could still be granted as to the underlying denial of the appeal, which denial was justified by Carney and Hall on the grounds that all of Mariani’s claims had been disposed of by rulings in her earlier efforts to intervene and appeal — a patently inaccurate conclusion if one reads the entire Mariani appellate brief.
On June 20, 2013 Ellen Mariani’s attorney, Bruce Leichty, filed two motions directed to the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. He filed: (1) an Emergency Motion For An Order Requiring That All Future Motions In This Case Be Considered By Different Judges From Those Who Issued The 5/15/13 Decision; and (2) a Motion For An Order Vacating The 6/14/13 Order And Asking The Court To Reconsider The Rulings (dated 5/30/13 and 6/14/13) Which Prevented The Filing Of The Petition For Rehearing En Banc.
One of the arguments Bruce made in both of these motions is that the court issued the 5/15/13 order which issued sanctions against and harshly condemned both Bruce and Ellen only after the mandate had been issued, which was improper, and then the court would not allow Bruce to respond because the mandate had issued. A “mandate” is a document issued by an Appeals Court and sent to the lower court after the Appeals Court is done with an appeal. It returns jurisdiction of the case back to the lower court. No activity is supposed to happen in the Appeals Court with a given case after the mandate is issued because the Appeals Court no longer has jurisdiction (except that it is possible in some cases for an Appeals Court to recall a mandate and then it could act). What the Appeals Court did was it waited until after the mandate had issued and then, in violation of basic legal principles, it issued its vitriolic 5/15/13 order. But then when Bruce sought to respond by filing the Petition For Rehearing En Banc, the court said that the mandate had already issued and that therefore Bruce could not file his petition. This was a kind of trick that Judge Carney and Judge Hall of the Appeals Court used to deny Ellen her basic right to file a Petition For Rehearing En Banc and to prevent any other judges from reviewing their corrupt and demented handling of Ellen’s appeal.
The Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals issued an order dated 6/14/13 which denied Bruce Leichty’s motion, dated 5/31/13, which sought to (1) overrule clerk Catherine Wolfe’s Notice Of Defective Filing dated 5/30/13 (which prevented Bruce from filing his Petition For Rehearing En Banc), and (2) to file the Petition For Rehearing En Banc of Ellen Mariani’s Appeal. (A petition for rehearing “en banc” means that one is seeking to get a full panel of judges to review a decision, as opposed to just the small panel of judges who initially reviewed the appeal.) In essence this means that this little cabal of judges along with clerk Wolfe are trying to make sure that no other judges besides them get to see Ellen Mariani’s appeal. They are saying that Bruce does not even have a right TO FILE a Petition For Rehearing En Banc. Only judges Susan Carney and Peter Hall have been permitted to review Ellen’s appeal, the same two judges whose vitriolic 5/15/13 order excoriated Bruce and Ellen and issued sanctions against each of them and condemned them as “anti-Semitic” for merely showing improper connections of Judge Hellerstein to the Israeli defendants in this case (in his filings dated 4/19/12). (The Petition for Rehearing en Banc also sought review of the 6/26/12 summary order denying Ellen’s underlying appeal.)
Hey Judge Carney and Judge Hall, what are you afraid of? Are you afraid that if other judges looked at this appeal they would see that your conduct was very unlawful and that it violated Ellen’s basic rights?
The conduct of these two judges constitutes abuse of power and it violates not only Ellen Mariani’s rights but it also even violates the rights of the court itself, since the other judges are wrongly being prevented from reviewing this case.
After Judge Hellerstein oversaw a process in which every single one of the approximately 100 cases which sought a trial (instead of taking the government hush money from the Victims’ Compensation Fund) after a family member died on 9/11 was forced to settle out of court without any trial, Judges Carney and Hall are doing all they can to stamp the legal life out of the one remaining case which is still trying to find justice in the courts.
Ellen Mariani’s attorney, Bruce Leichty, attempted on 5/29/13 to file a Petition For Rehearing En Banc of the 5/15/13 order of the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals (which strongly castigated both him and Ellen, alleging that he was “anti-Semitic” and that he had acted in “bad faith” and that he had filed frivolous briefs). However, the clerk of the court, Catherine Wolfe, refused to file it and sent Bruce a Notice Of Defective Filing. However, Bruce argues that she was overstepping her authority in doing this because she based her position on a legal analysis of some of the details of the motion, details which were argued inside that motion. That is a decision that should be made by a judge, not a clerk of the court. (See discussion in the MEMORANDUM OF APPELLANT ELLEN MARIANI IN SUPPORT OF EMERGENCY MOTION FOR ORDER OVERRULING NOTICE OF DEFECTIVE FILING, ALLOWING FILING OF PETITION FOR EN BANC REHEARING, AND FOR RECALL OF MANDATE IF NEEDED.) Bruce called her and tried to discuss the matter with her. She hung up on him. (See Bruce’s affidavit [after the Memorandum of law], paragraphs 3-5.) Bruce was forced to file an additional motion just to try to get the Petition For Rehearing En Banc filed and considered. (That motion includes the following documents as attachments: the Notice Of Defective Filing; the Petition For Rehearing En Banc; the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’s 5/15/13 order; and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’s 6/26/12 order. That motion also includes an affidavit from Bruce which refutes many of the false positions contained in the 5/15/13 order [in particular see pages 8-17 of that affidavit].)
Vincent Gillespie was interviewed on Inside The Eye Live! with Dennis Fetcho on 6/1/13. You can listen to that interview by clicking here.
The Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals issued an order dated 5/15/13 which harshly castigated both Ellen Mariani and her attorney Bruce Leichty and which issued financial sanctions against both of them and which accused Bruce of “bad faith” and “anti-Semitism” and filing frivolous briefs. On 5/29/13 Bruce filed a Petition For Rehearing En Banc of the 5/15/13 order. (This means that he is asking the court to reconsider the matter with a full panel of judges, instead of just the two who issued that order.) Bruce’s Petition For Rehearing En Banc refutes the court’s allegations of the 5/15/13 order. The petition can be read by clicking here.
Ellen Mariani Legal Defense Fund 