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CCNY'S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER   OCTOBER 2000 VOLUME 3, NUMBER 1

CUNY Students’ Attorneys Charged With Misconduct by Federal Judge
By Messenger Staff

Civil rights attorneys Ronald McGuire and Nicholas Penkovsky have been ordered to answer charges of professional misconduct made by federal Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak. McGuire and Penkovsky could be fined and the case against McGuire referred to a state disciplinary panel for additional sanctions including reprimand, censure, suspension or disbarment.

Since 1991 Ron McGuire has represented hundreds of CUNY students without charge in criminal cases and disciplinary proceedings arising from student protest activity. Mr. McGuire, who is presently the legal director of the CUNY Emergency Legal Defense Project, has also represented CUNY students as plaintiffs in many lawsuits in state and federal court. Mr. Penkovsky has acted as Mr. McGuire’s co-counsel in many of these cases.

The public hearing before Magistrate Pollak will be at 9:30am on Monday, November 13 at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn at 225 Cadman Plaza East. An emergency meeting for supporters of Ron McGuire and Nicholas Penkovsky will be held on Tuesday, October 17 at 6:30pm at the offices of the Community Service Society at 105 East 22nd Street in Conference Room 4A.

Judge Pollak accused McGuire of lying to her in an unrecorded statements McGuire allegedly made in 1998 when McGuire and two College of Staten Island students sued for a preliminary injunction after CUNY officials refused to authorize contracts for McGuire to be paid fees to deliver lectures at CSI and Hunter College. Judge Pollak claims that McGuire reneged on a promise that he would deliver the lecture at CSI even if the court did not issue an injunction. She has accused Penkovsky of collaborating with McGuire in “a deliberate and willful strategy to mislead this Court and the defendants.” McGuire and Penkovsky and their clients submitted sworn statements denying that McGuire ever made such a promise and maintain that the record of the court proceedings unequivocally supports their contention.

Supporters of McGuire and Penkovsky are disturbed that the hearing is being held before Judge Pollak after she already concluded that McGuire and Penkovsky were guilty of misconduct. Especially important in this case, where the charges are based on alleged, unrecorded statements that Judge Pollak claims Mr. McGuire made to her and where McGuire and Mr. Penkovsky deny having made such statements, is that Judge Pollak is actually the only witness against them, as well the presiding judge in the case.

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