Metro

Postal worker acquitted in Dershowitz sister-in-law crash death

A Manhattan jury this morning acquitted the postal worker who fatally drove over the bicycling sister-in-law of OJ Simpson Dream Team lawyer Alan Dershowitz

It took jurors only half a day to clear Ian Clement, a 64-year-old father of two, on a single count of leaving the scene of the accident that left Marilyn Dershowitz, 68, crushed to death in Chelsea last summer.

Clement had taken the stand last week to say that he simply hadn’t seen the 68-year-old lawyer as she peddled westward on W. 29th Street last summer. He’d had no idea she’d fallen or that the rear right wheel of his seven-ton truck had then run her over, he told jurors.

“I’m relieved. My sympathies lie with the Dershowitz family,” Clement said grimly on his way out of court.

“I was confident because I was not guilty,” he added. “I am confident in the jury system.”

The victim’s famed brother-in-law Alan — a Harvard law professor famous for his work on behalf of Simpson Claus von Bulow — did not attend the trial, and was not in court when the verdict came down.

But he was continually absent presence; in both opening and closing statements, defense lawyer John Arlia accused the powerful legal family of pressuring prosecutors to pursue Clement, forcing prosecutors to call the DA’s original investigator to the stand to rebut the claim.

“I’m a strong believer in the jury system,” said the victim’s husband, Nathan Dershowitz, also a lawyer. “The jury gets its information and it makes its vote.”

He cryptically added: “I’m sorry I wasn’t part of the prosecution team.”

Asked if that meant he was unhappy with the work of Manhattan prosecutors on this case, the grieving husband said: “You can understand what I’m saying.”

Both sides agree that Marilyn Dershowitz had been bicycling about a minute behind Nathan — himself a behind-the-scenes Dream Team member — and fell while negotiating a narrow space between Clement’s massive truck and a parked postal trailer.

Clement told jurors last week that he felt a “bump” as he unwittingly rode over the woman and her bike with his rear right tire, and immediately pulled to the side, as supported by surveillance video.

He saw traffic stopped through his rear-view mirror, and heard horns honking behind him, he had testified.

But after more than two minutes of waiting inside his cab, no one approached his vehicle, and he drove off believing he was uninvolved, he’d argued.

Jurors declined to comment on their verdict.

Additional reporting by David K. Li and Georgett Roberts