A trial date has yet to be set for the accused shake-down mistress of Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman, with both sides spending their latest hearing today accusing each other of bad behavior and the judge warning the defense against “poking sharp sticks in the other guy’s eye.”
Curvy blonde Louise Neathway is charged with extorting $6,000 and attempting to extort $15,000 more last year from the then-married Cashman by threatening to go public with their fleeting affair.
She sat at the defense table today looking indignant as Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel FitzGerald chided her lawyer, Lawrence LaBrew, for a private email back-and-forth with prosecutors.
“It’s nothing but poking a sharp stick in the other attorney’s eyes,” the judge warned. “It never does any good to poke sharp sticks in the other guy’s eye if you’re trying to work out a resolution.”
In his emails, which were referred to but not released, Neathway’s lawyer accuses prosecutors of improperly getting their hands on sealed arrest warrants that Neathway’s Upstate ex-husband, Jason Bump, once took out against her.
Prosecutors recently forwarded the emails to Bump’s lawyers for use in the couple’s ongoing custody battle over their 15-year-old daughter, Neathway’s side alleges in motions filed today. The warrants have been in the public domain at least since November, when prosecutors included them in a pretrial filing.
Lead prosecutor Kenn Kern, meanwhile, blasted back that Neathway’s side was “taking a highly antagonistic approach while at the same time requesting a (plea) offer.”
“It makes it difficult to have serious conversations,” the prosecutor said, when the defense is “filing what we feel to be frivolous motions and antagonistic emails.”
Both sides agreed that plea negotiations had reached a standoff, given that prosecutors were unwilling to reduce the charges low enough to spare Neathway from the prospect of being deported back to her native UK.
“She’s doing very well,” Neathway’s mother, Caroline Meanwell, said after court today. “She’s strong. And we’re obviously dedicated to fighting this case.”
Any trial on the Cashman extortion charges would have to wait until Neathway is first tried on unrelated allegations that she lied on New York state paperwork to qualify for a below-market rent for her apartment in a luxury building in TriBeCa.
The parties return to court next month for an update on Neathway’s plan to call a domestic violence expert to the stand to testify that Neathway lied on paper because she suffered post traumatic stress syndrome from allegedly being battered by Bump. Prosecutors complained today that Neathway’s claim is based solely on her own self-reporting.