Rep. Charles Rangel just recently was reprimanded by the House of Representatives. He has now moved on to the judicial branch where Judge Edward McLaughlin reprimanded him for his conduct in the bail hearing of one of the alleged members of the 137th Street gang, a high school student named Afrika Owes.
Owes is a student at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and was one of fourteen suspected gang members arrested last month.
Rangel repeatedly ignored three demands from the court and a bailiff to sit down.
Rangel insisted that Owes should be released despite tapes from Rikers Island that have her reportedly involved in running guns and getting orders to “shoot for the head.” Not exactly the best record for a bail demand.
Source: CBS
It’s political grandstanding meant to garner votes and a reprimand is a small price to pay for the continued goodwill of his voters. He is just reinforcing his message that he stands with the downtrodden and disenfranchised. He’s crazy like a fox.
Rangel stayed too long at the fair … that’s what greed does to you
A little more info:
Judge rejects Rev. Calvin Butts’ attempt to spring prep student Afrika Owes
BY Michael J. Feeney
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2011/03/07/2011-03-07_rev_rips_confused_judge_in_afrika_case.html
BTW:Nice Photo.
Rangel may well be losing his marbles. If he was not acting as her attorney, what the hell was he doing there. Why would you want to act as a character witness(if that was why he was there) for someone who wants to “shoot for the head”? I am guessing there is more to this nutty story.
Where did you think Charley was going to get his next Chief of Staff from? Accountemps? Kelly? An ad on Monster?
No.
He was just going directly to the source.
Wow… Stupidity keeps on….
I couldn’t tell from either this short article or the one at CBS whether Rangel was employed as her defense attorney or simply a character witness. It sounded possible that he didn’t know her and couldn’t actually be a character witness and was trying to act as an advocate even though she had a different lawyer.
The definition of “Contempt of Court” is a big issue in my life and I read and thought a lot about it. I was interested enough to click on the CBS link and then I clicked on their link to a description of what happened there. There was no video.
I think that all court hearings should be digitally recorded and put on the court dockets. The faces of witnesses and the accused but not yet convicted should be digitally blurred.
How does a guy that has held power as long as he have not know that his methods here are not going to win? He must be slipping mentally or he would know that discrete inquiries and recommendations would have more sway. He uses his power like a newbie teabagger instead of a veteran.