Jurors were asked to decide Monday whether former Governor George Pataki's decision to divert violent sex offenders into mental institutions after their prison terms ended was an abuse of power or a well-intended effort to protect the public. The program initiated in 2005 was a "sham" attempt to "bypass the Constitution," plaintiffs' attorney Reza Rezvani said in closing arguments at a civil trial in federal court in Manhattan. "You know that the Constitution applies to everybody… No one is saying don't lock up the bad guys. But you do it right and you're fair."
Pataki's attorney, Abbe Lowell, told the jury of one man and seven women that what's most shocking about the lawsuit brought by six convicted sex offenders who were eventually freed is "what the plaintiffs did, not what the defendants did." The plaintiffs "were mentally ill and dangerous and should have been committed," Lowell added as Pataki listened nearby from the defense table.
