The Brooklyn judge credited with bringing down the borough’s corrupt system of filling judgeships took the stand yesterday against the man who ran it – telling jurors that crossing disgraced Democratic Party boss Clarence Norman Jr. nearly torpedoed her 2002 campaign.
Margarita Lopez Torres, now a sitting surrogate, sued state election officials two years ago, winning a stunning victory when a federal judge ruled unconstitutional the entrenched system of Brooklyn party bosses picking candidates for the primary.
Yesterday, she described how Norman, the alleged master of that very system, yanked his support for her in a closed-door meeting at his Democratic club.
Prosecutors trod delicately on the reasons Norman booted her from the party slate in 2002, to avoid prejudicing jurors.
But outside the presence of the panel, they indicated that the surrogate told them she’d refused to hire the daughter of Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn), a freshly minted law-school graduate, as her law secretary.
Lopez, who is not related to Lopez Torres, has since replaced Norman as Brooklyn’s Democratic honcho.
Lopez Torres told jurors she was demoralized when she realized she wouldn’t have party backing.
“You’re on your own without an organization. You have to start from scratch to build up an organization that can get you elected,” she said.
But Lopez Torres pulled off a victory in 2002 anyhow, photocopying campaign literature at Kinko’s and relying volunteers culled from her family, friends and neighbors.
Lopez Torres’ testimony barely touched on the issues of the trial, Norman’s alleged strong-arming of her competitors Marcia Sikowitz and Karen Yellen in return for party backing.
But she did offer her opinion that Norman was managing the two women straight to defeat by forcing them to mount a joint campaign with a third white woman, Robin Garson.
“I found it remarkable that there was a slate of three white women and we didn’t think it would necessarily play well in certain parts of Brooklyn,” she said.
Defense lawyer Anthony Ricco dove into that opening, striving to cast Lopez Torres as a narrow-minded campaigner who apportioned her resources with a map and a red pen. “Do you ever take these kinds of facts into consideration?” he asked. “This is a minority community? This is a Latino community?”
“Yes,” Lopez Torres said.