News broke Wednesday that the Rev. Al Sharpton would be cutting troubled attorney Sanford Rubenstein lose as rape allegations against the attorney stay in the headlines.
Rubenstein, long noted for representing the aggrieved, now has a lawyer to defend him against charges that he raped a woman in his penthouse apartment on the Upper East Side last week. The alleged incident occurred after Rubenstein and the woman had attended a 60th birthday celebration for Sharpton at the Four Seasons Restaurant Wednesday, Oct. 1.
This week, it was reported that the woman awoke the next morning and had sex for the second time with the attorney, a story that conflicts with an earlier version, in which the victim, in an impaired state, awoke to find the attorney raping her.
Reached by phone Tuesday morning, Sharpton admitted that the woman was a high-ranking official in his National Action Network and was the co-chair of the birthday bash. “She is someone I highly respect and is a very credible person,” he said.
After initially saying that he would not “disparage either party,” as details leaked about bleeding as the rape kit was being administered, used condoms and a sex toy found in the apartment, Sharpton said, “Even if it was consensual, why would he take a key leader of our organization back to his apartment right after a fundraiser? It’s disrespectful to our movement.” Perhaps the real reason for Rubenstein’s ousting is revealed by Sharpton’s statement that “the women in our network are absolutely outraged.”
Representing Rubenstein is famed attorney Benjamin Brafman, who ensured that infamous French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn never stood trial in the 2011 alleged rape of hotel maid Nafissatou Diallo.
While many people have questioned Rubenstein’s perceived penchant for stepping out with very young Black women, for years the septuagenarian attorney, who has won large settlements in several tragic cases involving Black victims, such as the police killings of Amadou Diallo and Sean Bell, has enjoyed a tight relationship with Sharpton’s National Action Network.
Notables who attended Sharpton’s birthday party included Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Aretha Franklin and Spike Lee. Should Rubenstein be indicted, technically they could be called as witnesses during his trial.
Although Rubenstein has not been arrested at press time, cops earlier carried many items of evidence from his East 64th Street apartment, including a mattress.
The victim, who the AmNews is not identifying, has retained the services of lawyers Kenneth Montgomery and Keith White. They told the AmNews that they have submitted significant evidence to the NYPD and District Attorney Cyrus Vance.
The Police Department did not respond to an AmNews request for a statement on the case. Montgomery said that his client is overwrought. “She is trying to weather the reporters and all the other people camped outside her home,” he said of the single mother of a teenage girl and twenty-something man.
The victim’s lawyers and others are questioning why Rubenstein has not been arrested. Montgomery said, “I think it’s politics. I think there is a disparity in how this is being handled versus other cases.” A prominent New York lawyer told the AmNews, “I have certainly represented cases where there has been an arrest with much less evidence than seems to be present here.”
In this case, as in the Strauss-Khan case, a wealthy, high-powered white man is being accused of assaulting a Black woman. Montgomery said that what is happening is a “micro-inspection that doesn’t normally occur.” He added, “Clearly someone has to make this determination. I am a former prosector, and I think we have enough for an arrest and an indictment.”
Not much mentioned, if at all, is the possible conflict of interest in this case. Just as with the Strauss-Kahn case, husband and wife lawyers represent the accused and the investigating Manhattan DA’s office, respectively. Marc Agnifilo, former head of the violent and organized crime unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for New Jersey, is a partner at Brafman and Associates, now representing Rubenstein. Karen Friedman Agnifilo is chief assistant district attorney for New York County district attorney. A spokesperson from Vance’s office told the AmNews, “We’ll decline comment as no charges have been brought. We would not comment on a case pre-arrest.”
Asked about any perceived Agnifilo conflict, the spokesperson said that in instances where the husband was representing someone being investigated by the DA, “[Karen Friedman Agnifilo] would recuse herself.”
Brafman told the AmNews in a statement, “I will not comment on any aspect of the investigation or any of the alleged facts reported in the press, even those I know to be patently false. I stand by what I have said from the beginning. When a thorough and complete investigation of the incident is concluded, no criminal charges will be filed against Mr. Rubenstein because he did not commit any crime.”
Asked about a report that the victim went to Rubenstein’s apartment with a female friend, and then apparently asked her to leave, Montgomery said, “She didn’t ask anyone to leave, but we are not going to discuss the details of the case.”
White, the alleged victim’s attorney, said the female friend is being “completely cooperative.”
“We find it offensive and disparaging that when a woman, particularly in the urban landscape, is the victim of a vicious attack, she then becomes the victim of public scrutiny,” declared an outraged Montgomery. “There have been thousands of cases where the privacy of the victim of sexual assault was safeguarded by the DA’s office, the Police Department and the media. This is all troubling because these same protections are not being afforded to the victim in this case. This victim is a mother. This victim is a daughter. This victim is a pillar of her community. Yet, reporters are camped outside of her home and trying to take pictures of her.”
Montgomery charged that the leaking of information about the victim and the case “have been continuous since the inception of this case, have prejudiced the investigation and are solely there to impact public perception in hopes to discredit the victim. A victim who is a high-ranking executive at one of the country’s largest corporations and a member of many civic organizations that serve the community.”
With his partner in agreement, Montgomery stated, “That said, we understand our continuing legal obligations as members of the bar and also the ethical considerations in our discussion of certain elements of the case. However, we want to be clear that at no time did the victim consent to sexual contact with Mr. Rubinstein.”
The AmNews asked about reports that the victim seemed to have been drinking at Sharpton’s birthday bash. White replied, “I think it is irrelevant, but what is certain is that [the victim] and Mr. Rubenstein have never been intimate or hung out … In response to published reports referring to surveillance footage of the victim and Mr. Rubinstein at his building, that footage sheds no light on whether Mr. Rubenstein sexually assaulted the victim and is silent on the issue of what happened inside of that apartment. Like many of the leaks in this investigation, it’s an intentional effort to discredit the victim and try the case in the court of public opinion.”
Montgomery said that his client has a strong support system, which is surrounding her at this time.
“Our desire in representing the victim in this case is to enable the district attorney to do their job and prosecute Mr. Rubinstein, whether it’s popular or not. We are working hard to ensure that this victim is treated with the dignity and respect that she deserves.”
Staying firmly in the middle, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “I think the allegations are very serious, and obviously troubling, but let’s be clear, there’s an investigation going on. To the best of my understanding, there are no formal charges yet. We have to treat everyone equally, and they first have to see where the justice system goes with this and then there will, of course, be due process. So I don’t think there’s a lot more we can conclude until the investigation takes its course.”
As for Rubenstein’s involvement with the Eric Garner family as they pursue justice in the chokehold death of Garner, Sharpton would only say there will be some changes. The rumor around the National Action Network is that Michael Hardy, the National Action Network’s counsel, or the attorney in the Ramarley Graham case, will step in to replace the embattled Rubenstein.
“We will disclose that information at our weekly rally on Saturday,” Sharpton said.