Younger and certainly better-looking than any of her Niagara Falls City Court colleagues, Judge Diane Vitello remains rightfully proud of her accomplishments without losing touch with her working-class origins.
Vitello grew up on Seneca Avenue in the 1970s, not far from the Laborers Local 91 hall. Her father, Sass Vitello, suffered from a heart condition and collected disability while her mother, Mary, worked the counter at the Como Deli.
"I was a coat-check girl at the Como when I was 15," she told the Reporter. "I've been working all my life."
As a young girl, she spent considerable time around the family business, Uncle Dud's Grill on Ferry Avenue.
"Every Sunday when I was a kid we'd go there for dinner, grandma insisted," she said. "There was a big table in front of the window, it was the biggest event of the week."
After high school, Vitello enrolled at Niagara University, but found that, even with a job, she couldn't afford the tuition. So she enrolled at Buffalo State University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in 1985.
She then went to work as a counselor for United Cerebral Palsy of Niagara, saving her money and applying to law schools around the country. She chose the University of Dayton, a school widely known for its pioneering efforts in training women as lawyers during the early years of the 20th century.
"I wanted to be an attorney ever since I could remember," Vitello said over crab cakes at Gadawski's. "The whole idea of getting justice for people, it seemed like about the most important thing you could do with your life."
On passing the bar, she worked briefly for Cigna Property & Casualty Insurance before opening her own one-woman law practice in Niagara Falls. Her caseload consisted primarily of criminal and family law cases, and led her to become confidential law clerk to the late Paul Crapsi, the longtime county Family Court judge.
"Paul was a great judge," Vitello said. "Family Court really covers a wide range of law, and he was a wonderful teacher."
In 2002, she ran for City Court judge, narrowly losing to Judge Angelo Morinello in a hotly contested race. Since her appointment to the bench by Mayor Paul Dyster in June, Vitello said, Morinello has gone out of his way to help her get her bearings.
"When you first get in there, you don't even know where the restroom is," she laughed. "Judge Morinello has been a tremendous help."
Vitello has also served in recent years as an assistant district attorney and an adjunct professor of law at Niagara County Community College, as well as on the boards of the Niagara County Action Program, Planned Parenthood, the Business and Professional Women and United Cerebral Palsy, among others.
Today she remains true to the working-class roots she credits with helping her to achieve her lifelong ambitions. She said she has nothing but respect for her opponent in the upcoming election, Charles Pitarresi, but believes that her professional qualifications and life experience make her the best person for the job.
"I've lived in and worked for the people of Niagara Falls all my life," Vitello said. "I was ready for this job, and I plan on keeping it after November."
Our thoughts and prayers this week go out to the family of 12-year-old Magdalena Lubowska, who died last week while on a field trip at the Whirlpool Rapids in the lower Niagara River.
Magdalena slipped on a moss-covered rock and was swept away by the powerful current while under the supervision of 23-year-old Timothy Hedges, who -- with his mother, Eva -- runs an illegal "summer camp" out of their Fourth Street home. The operation had been the subject of numerous complaints to city officials by neighbors, but no action was ever taken despite obvious zoning issues.
The Hedges apparently preyed on the large Polish immigrant community in New York City, gaining the trust of parents eager to provide their children with a brief respite from the mean streets of the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens.
They had no license to operate their camp, Timothy Hedges had no license to guide anyone in the treacherous gorge and, on the day Magdalena was lost, he was supervising at least 23 children, another violation.
Imagine the grief of the parents, Mariusz and Katarzyna Lubowska, upon learning their beautiful daughter was gone.
The system aided and abetted a pair of unscrupulous operators by allowing a situation to exist that resulted in the death of a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her. There's plenty of guilt to go around.
"Our goals are the same as they've always been," said the Lubowskas' attorney, Gus Farinella, on learning of the recovery of a body believed to be Magdalena's in the lower river. "To find Magdalena and bring the Hedges to justice."
That seems like the least we can do.
The insistence on the part of the daily newspapers here to refer to an incident that occurred on a bus carrying the Wilson High School baseball team last April as "hazing" serves to minimize what can only be called a savage sexual attack.
According to court papers filed in the case, two 16-year-olds and an 18-year-old set upon two younger boys, slapped, punched and kicked them into submission before pinning them down on the floor of the bus and inserting a cell phone and "multiple fingers" into their rectums.
I know it's sickening to have to read that, because it was sickening to write it.
Two Wilson baseball coaches, Thomas Baia and William Atlas, were on the bus at the time but claim ignorance of any sort of misbehavior on the part any of the children they were allegedly supervising. Both have been charged with three counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
If the allegations are true, the charges against them are light indeed. While the endangering count carries a maximum sentence of a year in jail, judges rarely hand out the maximum. Probation and counseling are the most common sentences meted out in today's permissive society.
What happened on the bus that day represented a complete breakdown of civilization. Basic human decency was nowhere to be found, and savagery of the basest sort prevailed.
P. Andrew Vona, the attorney for one of the accused sodomites, sees things differently, of course.
"I don't think it's a situation where it's appropriate for any of these kids to come out of this with a criminal record," he said.
While he's entitled to his own opinion and is undoubtedly being well paid to try and cast sexual assault as nothing more than horseplay, I've got to disagree.
If they are found guilty, the perpetrators should be forced to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives, so that they may not be allowed to forget what their victims most certainly won't be able to.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Aug. 26 2008 |