Summary: Famed New York lawyer Sanford Rubenstein has been accused of rape.
Famed and prominent lawyer Sanford A. Rubenstein has been accused of rape. Though no charges have been formally filed, a 43-year-old woman who attended a party with him last Thursday is claiming third-degree rape, which possibly means she was too unconscious or too intoxicated to consent.
Rubenstein is famous in New York for his high-profile cases against the Police Department. He took on what became the biggest police settlement in the city’s history up to that point in the case of Abner Louima in 1997 after she was sodomized with a broom handle by police in a precinct bathroom.
Since then, the famed lawyer, who studied at Brooklyn Law School, before being admitted to the bar in 1972, and who is now 70-years-old, took on similar cases, such as the death of an unarmed 23-year-old on the day of his wedding in 2006 when a shower of police bullets struck him and others outside a Queens strip club.
He has also represented a Brooklyn woman in 2012 who due to police irresponsibility was not given proper medical care, and had to have her hands and feet amputated: a case that won her $17.9 million.
The allegations against Rubenstein may upset his work for the family of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old Staten Island man who was choked to death in July by a policeman after his arrest for selling loose cigarettes.
The rape allegedly occurred after a birthday bash for Rubenstein’s longtime friend, the Reverend Al Sharpton, an event that brought such big names as Mayor de Blasio, Gove. Cuomo, director Spike Lee, and singer Aretha Franklin.
As reported by NYDailyNews.com, who first broke the story, the alleged incident occurred hours after the party at Rubenstein’s apartment. The woman is a business executive and “top official” at Sharpton’s National Action Network.
“Sanford Rubenstein vehemently denies any misconduct,” said Michael Ross, his lawyer.
Third degree rape is a class E felony in New York, carrying a clout of a one to four year prison sentence.
As the event did not happen at the birthday bash, Sharpton has made no formal comment on the incident, but having known the woman for years, and as a friend of Rubenstein, he said “I consider both of them a friend. I sent her an email today. My heart is with both of them that the truth comes out.”
Rubenstein’s attorney in the matter will be Benjamin Brafman.