JUDGE Eddie Torres was working out at the 23rd Street Y in the early ’80s when my colleague Phil Messing asked him, “How do you feel?”
Judge Eddie replied, “I feel great. I just gave a very bad guy 25 years to life.”
At another sentencing, Judge Eddie gave another creep 50 years in jail.
Creep: “Judge, I can’t do 50 years.”
Judge Eddie: “Do the best you can.”
Gavel. Case closed.
Another creep starts to whine like a jet engine in court about Judge Eddie’s sentence.
Judge Eddie; “Son, your parole officer hasn’t even yet been born.”
Gavel. Case closed.
Which brings us to Anthony Bottom, a nasty reptile who gives a new meaning to the word chutzpah.
He was up for parole this week for the assassination of Officers Waverly Jones and Joe Piagenti in Harlem in 1971, when he was a member of the so-called Black Liberation Army.
The fact that Officer Jones was a brave and decorated African-American cop somehow escaped Anthony Bottom.
In looking for parole, Bottom claimed he was a political prisoner. Thankfully, parole was denied.
Yesterday, Joe Piagenti’s widow, Diane, asked for state legislation to assure that cop-killers don’t even have a chance of parole.
She thanked the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association for its aggressive campaign to deny this worm, Anthony Bottom, any chance of parole.
“It’s nice to smile again for all police officers and widows of police officers,” she said.
And my smile joins hers.
But let me ask: Why is it ever written in the books that scum can even think about freedom when they take a cop’s life?
You see, I always thought life in prison meant until death do you depart.
“Of course, there are guidelines for judges in sentencing, but, as far I am concerned, life for cop-killers really means life,” Judge Eddie told me yesterday from Manhattan Supreme Court, where he still wields a shiny sword for heroes who die in the line of duty.
To those of evil intent, remember his words: “Son, your parole officer hasn’t even yet been born.”