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ORDER IN THE COURT

By Mike Hudson

A sane word or two seems to be in order regarding the media maelstrom Niagara Falls City Court Judge Robert Restaino found himself in following a March 11 incident in Domestic Violence Court.

The judge was presiding over a group of men who stood accused of, or were convicted of, beating their wives, girlfriends and/or children. A no-nonsense jurist, Restaino has little sympathy for men who physically abuse women and kids.

During the court session, the cell phone or pager of one of the wife-beaters rang. There is a big sign posted at the entrance to the courtroom instructing those who enter to turn off all electronic devices. It's written in letters about three inches high. It was ignored by at least one of the accused, who apparently had about as much respect for the court as he did for the woman he terrorized.

The judge halted the proceeding, and ordered the offender to come forward. He did not, displaying the same level of cowardice he had when he committed his crime.

One thing a judge cannot do is lose control of his courtroom. Restaino told the dirtbags assembled that, unless the guilty party spoke up, he would raise the bail on all of them. There is, it seems, even less honor among misogynists than there is among thieves, and no one stepped forward.

And, being a man of his word, the judge did what he said he was going to do.

Here's where things start to become muddled. According to Rick Pfeiffer of the Niagara Gazette, 49 perpetrators were jailed. In the Buffalo News, Tom Prohaska wrote that 20 defendants were locked up.

That's a difference of over 100 percent and, clearly, one of the figures is way out of whack. Not that it matters, since, in my view, Restaino performed a valuable public service. The more woman-haters he can put behind bars, the better.

But I believe Prohaska's account. He's the dean of the local cops-and-courts reporters, having been on the beat for 15 years or more. The blow-dried and Botoxed Pfeiffer came late to print journalism, after his career as a talking head on television crashed and burned.

Aside from that, Pfeiffer chose to use as the main source in his stories a fellow named Marcellus Overton, one of the defendants in the courtroom that day. Restaino raised Overton's bail to $1,000, and he was incarcerated. What Overton was accused of doing, Pfeiffer never says. So I looked it up.

Overton was arrested by Niagara Falls police on Dec. 1 of last year and charged with criminal mischief and harassment following an incident at the home of his child's mother. At the time, the woman requested an order of protection and told officers that Overton had become violent with her going back to 2002. Last month, he was charged with contempt for violating a court order. The woman told officers at that time she had been threatened repeatedly by Overton.

One wonders why Pfeiffer chose to omit this easily obtainable information from his sensational report. Actually, one doesn't wonder. Because to include Overton's rap sheet would be to undermine his credibility, which was central to the yarn Pfeiffer had chosen to spin.

And that wasn't the end of it, either. Pfeiffer then went on to quote anonymous callers to the Gazette's "Sound Off" line to further his smear of Restaino. Ironically, back on Nov. 2, Gazette Publisher Wayne Lowman issued a memo critical of the Reporter to all Gazette employees. In it, he stated that the use of anonymous sources, even those known to the author of an article, represented "the worst of all journalistic examples."

So much for practicing what you preach.

The invented controversy reached a fever pitch when Administrative Judge Sharon Townsend announced that Restaino "could" face a judicial investigation because of his actions. Restaino's ambitions to run for the state Supreme Court in November are well known, as are Townsend's qualifications as a Republican Party hack. Restaino, of course, is a staunch Democrat, coming, as he does, from a long line of staunch Democrats.

What it all boils down to is this: A highly respected jurist, presiding over a roomful of bums who were only there because they didn't know how to act in the first place, became chagrined when it turned out that they didn't know how to act in court either. Along comes a two-bit newspaper writer, hungry for a headline, and a partisan political operative, bent on damaging the reputation of a colleague. Magically, a maelstrom is born.

The Gazette can side with the dirtbags if they want to. It seems to suit them.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com March 22 2005