AND you thought the O.J. Simpson trial was over. In a mean, little courtroom in The Bronx, a defendant is trying to get off on a drunken-driving rap by claiming she’s the victim of the biggest police conspiracy to frame an innocent person since that other, more fabulous case in Los Angeles.
Only this time, the defendant is not some millionaire who killed his ex-wife, or anyone else.
Playing out in The Bronx is a crummy misdemeanor trial of a woman who allegedly got stinking drunk in July 2002, climbed behind the wheel of her dad’s vintage Rolls Royce, then rammed the vehicle into two cars parked in Loehmann’s lot.
She’s not some jock. She’s something worse. This defendant is an actual, sitting Manhattan Supreme Court judge.
“The defendant was so drunk, so intoxicated that she reeked of alcohol,” said Assistant District Attorney Shireen Plaseied. “She slurred her speech. She was so drunk, she was incapable of getting out of her own car.”
The two officers who arrested Mills happened to be black. But that pesky fact did not faze defense lawyer Paul Gentile.
“They” – Gentile never identified the “they” – “selected two officers to handle the case. They chose the most inexperienced person on the scene . . . That person was a black female. She’s partnered with a black male.”
“They” did that, Gentile insisted, “so that, one day . . . they could put people of color on the stand.”
Will this almost laughable ploy work?
Earlier in the day, potential jurors were asked if they believe cops lie.
They all nodded enthusiastically.