Tile Wolfe appears in court. Occupy Wall Street protestors that were arrested appear in court today. (Steven Hirsch)
Call it Occupy Criminal Court.
There were only nine takers when the DA’s office offered dismissal deals today to the first batch of Occupy Wall Street protesters getting arraigned on disorderly conduct charges.
The rest of those offered the deals — 55 protesters who were also arraigned on disorderly conduct charges — are insisting on going to trial.
An additional 14 protesters out of today’s batch — all of whom had been arrested during the Sept. 14th march to Union Square — missed their court dates altogether.
“I was falsely arrested,” explained one among the going-to-trial majority, Lizzi Dierken, 47 — a San Francisco taxi driver who showed up in court with big yellow and purple fake flowers in her pigtails.
Cops had corralled her and four other protesters with barricades and netting at Broadway and 12th Street, Dierken said, adding that she will take her case to trial even if it means traveling between here and California.
Even one among the smattering of deal-takers said he was only agreeing to the dismissal so he can press charges against the cop he says threw him to the sidewalk that day on University Place.
“I took the deal to move the process along — so I can press charges,” said Samuel Queary, 24, who said he was arrested when he stepped outside from his job at Gray Dog Cafe to watch the marchers.
“I just went out to videotape it — and I got tackled,” said Queary, of Brooklyn.
Prosecutors have said they will recommend that charges be dismissed in six months’ time against protesters charged with minor, disorderly conduct violations — provided they are not rearrested in that half-year’s time.
They are not offering the deals to protesters charged with misdemeanors like resisting arrest
The 54 who’ll be going to trial will first file motions to get their charges dismissed in the interest of justice, said Martin Stolar, one of a dozen National Lawyers Guild lawyers volunteering to handle the Occupy cases.
So far, about 555 people have been arrested in Manhattan Occupy Wall Street incidents, DA Cyrus Vance said. “The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office fully supports every person’s first amendment right to peacefully demonstrate,” he said. “At the same time, we are charged with enforcing violations of the law.”