Lawyer for Levi Aron Defends Her Client… and Herself
The death threats and hate mail, she says, have slowed, and she keeps her office door unlocked in defiance. There, Jennifer L. McCann sits behind her desk, wearing leopard print pumps, poised for an argument.
Ms. McCann chose to defend Levi Aron, a hardware clerk from Brooklyn who is accused of a crime that gripped the city this summer: the kidnapping, killing and dismembering of Leiby Kletzky, 8, who got lost walking to meet his parents in July in the Hasidic Jewish enclave of Borough Park.
“People assume I’m O.K. with a young boy being murdered because I represent the defendant,” Ms. McCann, 30, said recently in her office in Garden City, N.Y., which she opened in March after four years of practicing criminal defense law for a local firm. “To me, that’s pretty vicious. They have to understand, I’m not all right with people being murdered or with crime. I’m all right with defending constitutional rights.
“If he’s guilty, he will be convicted. And that’s it. But my God,” she added with gritted teeth, “it’s going to be legally.”
At Mr. Aron’s arraignment on Aug. 4, Ms. McCann insisted to distraught Jewish community members outside a courtroom that her client was no different from anyone accused of murder or drunken driving — he had rights. Her comparison drew gasps and angry retorts.
While legally correct, her comment seemed insensitive, according to one seasoned criminal defense lawyer. “Likening a drunk-driving offense to the slaughter of an innocent child is not an argument that is going to be received well by many,” said Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer who has been involved in several high-profile cases, including that of a former New York police officer, Kenneth Moreno, who was acquitted of raping a woman while on duty.
“There can’t be too much righteous indignation going on,” Mr. Tacopina added, suggesting that she take a softer tack with a jury. “There are some cases where you have to be sympathetic.”
Mr. Aron’s trial is months away, but already Ms. McCann has been defending herself as much as her client — to the press, on Facebook and, most recently, to the judge. Justice Neil J. Firetog of State Supreme Court, a veteran of homicide cases in Brooklyn, questioned her experience, and that of her co-counsel, Pierre Bazile, a former New York police officer who has also practiced law for four years.
Justice Firetog criticized them in a special hearing for procedural errors, and reprimanded Ms. McCann for generating public exposure and complaining when it worked against her.
Mr. Bazile, whom the Aron family hired first, brought in Ms. McCann after a more experienced lawyer, Gerard Marrone, quit, saying that as a father of three, he was sickened by the accusations.
“To sit there and say, ‘This is a hard case, I don’t want to take it?’ ” Ms. McCann said. “No, that’s for somebody else, that’s not who I am.”
Raised Catholic in a farming town in Michigan, Ms. McCann grew up idolizing Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female Supreme Court justice, and her father, Peter, a Vietnam veteran and school administrator who died of cancer when she was 12.
“She’s one tough lady, and knowing Jennifer McCann, she just won’t give up,” said Thomas F. Liotti, a Long Island defense lawyer who hired her out of law school and still advises her daily.
Ms. McCann, a graduate of Villanova University and St. John’s University School of Law, is largely unknown outside Suffolk County, where she was mostly recognized as the protégée of Mr. Liotti, known as a contentious litigator.
In 2009, she worked with him on the case of Kathleen Prisco, a Long Island woman who fatally stabbed her husband and pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Doctors for the defense and the state accepted that plea, negating the need for a trial, and she was sent to an institution.
Ms. McCann said the most likely strategy with Mr. Aron would be an insanity defense, considering that Mr. Aron gave the police a signed confession and the fact that he had no alibi.
Such a defense, she said, carries daunting odds, since it is almost never used in felony cases and is rarely successful when it is. Mr. Bazile declined to comment about his co-counsel.
Ms. McCann, who is now working pro bono, said she had struggled to recruit medical experts to examine Mr. Aron to determine whether such a strategy was viable.
“Some have turned it down for money, busy schedules, and one really wanted the case but he is unable to take it for political reasons because of his affiliations with institutions of higher learning,” she said.
Ms. McCann said she accepted the case because it required a lawyer “who knows what to do with these types of defenses.”
Still, as Justice Firetog pointed out, Ms. McCann’s trial experience is limited. She handled a resentencing appeal for Nathan Powell, a film producer who killed his colleague in Long Island City, Queens, in 2001, and dismembered the body. Ms. McCann had the original, lower 20-year sentence restored.
She worked on a case involving a Long Island woman, Jesenia Vega, 27, who was driving drunk after a party in 2007 when she dragged her boyfriend under her car, killing him. Ms. McCann argued that Ms. Vega was trying to defend herself from abuse. Ms. Vega pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, the most serious of three charges, and was sentenced one to three years in prison.
During that case, Ms. McCann said, she received calls and threatening questions similar to those she gets now: “How do you sleep at night?”
Ms. McCann considers it her Catholic, as well as constitutional, duty to care for society’s castoffs. “You protect their rights,” she said, “even when society wants to turn on them.”
Justice Firetog has criticized Ms. McCann for discussing the case on her office’s Facebook page. With Facebook groups like “Levi Aron Deserves the Death Penalty” harassing her, Ms. McCann said she felt obligated to protect her client’s image for a potential jury pool.
In her trial preparations, she has learned about the Hasidic community in Borough Park and has also learned a new word. “Shiska,” Ms. McCann said, mispronouncing the Yiddish word, shiksa, for a non-Jewish woman.
Ms. McCann does not apologize for what she does not know. Or the profession she chose.
“This is what I do,” she said. “You kill people, you call me.”
My heart bleeds.... NOT!
She can defend herself all she wants but she is still a lowlife. She CHOSE to represent him. The only people I would not bash defending callous murders are unfortunate court appointed lawyers who have to take on the case. Any other lawyer DOES have the choice and this IS her choice.
A shame on her
If she did choose I agree. I think her publicty seeking carrer will suffer in the long run.
mom
What a low life. She doesn’t even care about the monster (who could???) and she’s all for his rights? Feh! I didn’t see little Leiby HY”D having his rights acknowledged.
due process please
Thank G-D there are people who will do the job of defending such accused. As she said, if he’s guilty, he’ll be punished – but let it be done legally.
agree with #4
i agree with number 4. people can go crazy and its not always their fault, but for society’s sake, they must be put away and dealt with.
Low life is right
Its a publicity stunt since she had no personality to get her onto reality shows.
she is doing what america is about.
if not for people like her, well, then you have Communism,i don’t mind that but that’s not what America is and this case is here.
a mom of little boys.
Coming back from the mountains we stopped in the same gas station that Leiby was seen in. We got gas, but when my kids wanted to go to the bathroom, I just couldnt bring myself there, and we drove out of the way to find another bathroom. This machshefa, (Did she learn that word yet?) wanted so badly to take on this case for her own interests. She could not care less about Levi Aron or his mental state. She only cares about her fame. (She did take the case pro bono.) I cant wait for it to come back and bite her so hard in the tush, that she she wont be able to sit on it for the rest of her life.
To # 4
There is a diffeence in simply doing the job that has to be done adn basking in the glory of trying to get a lesser sentence for this evil monster (which she fully intends to get with an insanity plea)
The way of justice
Defending someone doesn’t mean establishing them as innocent, it simply ensures due process. The Torah is not a religion wherein people are supposed to make decisions based on feelings but rather on a code of law. As such, the Torah clearly states that murder cases go through the process of trial. In fact, this is one of the 7 Noahide laws. America is unfortunately no stranger to crime and there have never been questions about criminals of all kinds having a hearing, why should the first one that does not deserve a regular trial suddenly be a Jew? This has nothing whatever to do with the atrocity of the crime, but with the fabric of society and a system of justice.
RR
she will probably always get this kind of bottom feeder job.
very low.
someone has to do it, but its really one I would never want. I’d rather clean someone’s house and make money like that. Its honest work.
concerned
i think he deserves life imprisonment under high surveillance maybe a mental jail
@2
The truth is… unfortunately we have a lot more sick, twisted people in this world who will be seeking her services(if G-D forbid they rule in his favor). So all this publicity will unfortunately be a benefit. In my opinion anybody who in their right mind can defend someone like him will ultimately lose their mind.
True
Avrhom Ovinu Defended Sidom – a whole city of the worst people. At the end they were guilty and punished accordingly. Same here. I hope he gets punished accordingly – probably not going to happen.
The Oracle
Here, displayed before us today, is the worst of the legal profession. Those who associate themselves with madness to create a name for themselves. Why does one defend the indefensible? The Court will not consider Aron insane, and he will receive several consecutive life sentences. He will be killed in prison during a prison riot.
Thus speaketh the Oracle.
Disgusted
Bs“D
”This is what I do,“ she said. ‘You kill people, you call me.”
What does she mean? If you kill someone by accident or on purpose?
If she meant by mistake, then I understand but if she meant on purpose, then she is absolutely nuts.
COMPASSIONATE
I HOPE SHE HANGS HERSELF!
Shimon Shak
#10 you have no idea what you are talking about…according to Torah that boys father can go and kill Aron if he saw him on the street with no trial or judge and be completely guiltless….don’t give that evil b&*%^ scruples that don’t exist….she is indeed the worst of humanity
mom of 8 yr old
This is a women who never made peace with her fathers death. she empathizes with loners and is trying to recreate her own destiny through (sick) others. you need help women!!
Disgusted
“You kill someone. You call me?!!!!!”
What a disgrace for this poor excuse for a human being……
Tangles
She is so full of it. She doesn’t have the background to know what to so with this case. She took it for the publicity plain and simple. She’s so green she opens her mouth trying to defend herself constantly. Am experienced seasoned attorney would not be as ignorant. Levi deserves her