The Rabbi and The Rebbetzin (27 page)

Shula
agreed to see Mr. Wolf that afternoon. When she came into his office, he
described the case as follows:

“A
couple, John and Virginia Pearson, had been arrested for disturbing the peace
during the course of a violent argument. The neighbors reported that they had
heard the wife yelling repeatedly, ‘Stop him! He is going to kill me’ at the
top of her voice. Normally, a crime of disturbing the peace was punished by a thirty
day sentence. Many times the punishment was suspended and occasionally the
defendants were referred for evaluation in a mental hospital.

“In
this case, the judge, Eva Handle, was reluctant to let the man go with a mild
sentence. She called in the assistant district attorney and said to him, ‘I can’t
let this man go with a thirty day sentence. The neighbors clearly heard the
wife yelling that her husband was going to kill her, and I suspect that he beats
her regularly. We have had too many cases where a wife was actually killed or
seriously injured by a violent husband after such actions were ignored. I want
you to investigate this case, and I am going to defer sentencing until you send
me a report of the investigation. If I find out that he is a frequent wife-beater
or that he was beating her in the course of the argument, he may be sentenced
to a full year in jail.’

“The
Assistant D.A., a man by the name of Philip Rogers, objected. ‘If we
investigate him any further, he’s entitled to a lawyer and currently he is
indigent.’

‘Listen,’
Judge Handle said. ‘You can’t burden smaller one- or two-man firms with pro
bono work. Assign the case to a larger firm that has loads of lawyers sitting
around doing nothing. Get one of them to take the case.’”

Shulamit
waited in Wolf’s office for further details. Wolf then told her what happened
after the district attorney finished talking to him.

“The
Assistant D.A. called on John Pearson and gave him the bad news. ‘John, I’m
sorry to tell you that the judge won’t sentence you at this time. She suspects
that you were beating Virginia at the time of the argument and earlier as well.
She is a well-known crusader in cases of violence against women. If she
discovers that you were beating your wife, you are in deep trouble. Assaulting
a wife is a felony in this state and you are liable to be sentenced for a year
in the Pen, if not longer.’

‘I
never beat my wife,’ John replied adamantly. ‘What is more, I can’t afford no
lawyer.’

The
assistant D.A. attempted to calm him down. ‘According to the Miranda warning
you received, the State is obligated to provide you with an attorney. We have a
list of high-quality firms who have to provide legal services to indigent
defendants. If you get one of them, they may secure a plea bargain to keep you
out of jail or they may get a reduced sentence. I would keep silent as you are
entitled to do. If you deny ever beating your wife and it turns out that you
actually did, you will be charged with perjury. When that happens, not only do
you go to jail but they throw away the key.’

‘What
firm can you get for me?’

The
district attorney answered, ‘We can get Finkel Nash. They haven’t done any pro
bono work for a long time and we can put the squeeze on them.’

‘Finkel
Nash? I saw on TV that they hired this good-looking Jewish b#$^% and this black
nigger woman.’

The
district attorney was not shocked because he was used to dealing with violent
men. He warned Pearson to keep his mouth shut and not to use foul language at a
high-class law firm or else they would drop his case for cause. Shulamit waited
in Wolf’s office for further developments.

After
consulting with the manager of the law department, Michael phoned the D.A. and
advised him that Finkel Nash would accept the case and that he was the attorney
assigned to deal with the suspects. Wolf asked the D.A. if the defendant was
out on bail.

“Yes,
he is,” the D.A. said.

“How
did he raise bail if he is indigent and needs pro bono?”

The
district attorney asked Michael, “When you are charging, what is your hourly
fee?”

“Depending
on the nature of the crime, it could average around $400 an hour.”

“That
answers your question. The judge set the bail low at $2,500. For a bail bond,
Pearson has to raise 10%, which amounts to $250 or just a little over half an
hour of your time. Pearson managed to scrape up the $250 for the bail, but if
he needs 10-20 hours of your time on this case, he would have to pay as much as
$8,000, which is far beyond his means.”

“Does
he have a rap sheet?”

“Yes
he does, but I’ve seen worse,” the D.A. replied.

“Hold
it a second,” he told the D.A. He then turned to Shulamit and asked, “Are you
free at 10:30 tomorrow morning to help me on this case?”

When
Shulamit answered in the affirmative, Michael returned to the district attorney
and said, “Let Pearson and his wife report to my office, Room 705, tomorrow morning.”
He then hung up the phone and spoke to Shulamit.

“I’ll
tell you where I need your assistance,” he said. “The suspect claims that he
never beat his wife and wasn’t hitting her at the time of the argument. If he
is not telling the truth, Finkel Nash cannot help him escape punishment and we
will drop the case. If we try to exonerate a wife-beater, we will have every
woman in this city picketing our office. The only way that we can handle the matter
is if we are certain that he is an innocent man and is telling the truth. I
myself have no background in family law and I don’t know anything about the
subject. I want you to hear each of the Pearsons and get their full story. If
you feel that they are not being honest, I will advise the D.A. and he will
have to hire professional investigators by himself before we continue with the
case.”

The
next morning, the Pearsons arrived at Finkel Nash and reported to Michael Wolf.
Wolf recorded the basic background of the couple and explained that the rest of
the meeting would take place in Room 1502 by a specialist in domestic
relations. Wolf sent a young paralegal to direct the couple to Room 1502.

Shula
welcomed the pair and told them to take seats at her desk. She began to explain
the procedure that she would follow. As soon as she started, the intercom rang.
When Shula picked up the phone, she was told that Albert Nash wanted to speak
with her. Shula had worked long enough at Finkel Nash to know that when the
managing director called an attorney at the firm, there was no delay allowed.
She told the Pearsons that she had a call from the managing director of Finkel
Nash which she had to take. She asked them to sit quietly for a few minutes and
that she would be right back.

Shula
went behind the partition to speak privately with Nash in case there was some
confidential business that the latter wished to discuss. Nash explained that he
needed her input in a zoning case involving a synagogue that wished to expand
its building despite opposition of the neighbors. He needed someone who was
familiar with synagogues to explain the terminology in the case to him and he
knew that she was married to a rabbi. Shula consented and was trying to arrange
an appropriate meeting time.

She
was still talking to Mr. Nash when she heard a loud yell from John Pearson.

“Don’t
you dare tell her that I ever hit you.”

“Why?”
she responded, “Are you going to stop?”

“It’s
my right to hit you whenever you deserve it,” he howled.

“Go
to hell,” she shouted back. “I’ll tell them the truth. I hope you go to jail
and they lock you up forever.”

Pearson
slapped her in the face and she gave a terrible scream. “Don’t hit me again,
you b$^&*.”

At
this point Amanda ran out from her office into the main office. She got there and
heard Pearson threaten his wife. The minute Amanda got into the main office,
she turned her camera on and that started the sound recorder.

Shula
said to Albert Nash, “I’ll call you back. I have an emergency here in the
office.” Shula hung up and ran out to the main office yelling at Pearson. “Don’t
you dare hit her again, you BA$#@%&!” Shula had many years of voice
training and was able to yell so loud that it stunned those present.

“Stay
out of my business, Jew lady. When I finish with my wife, I’ll take care of
you.”

Before
he finished speaking, he gave his wife a vicious punch to the face and she fell
to the floor semi-conscious, bleeding from the nose and mouth. Amanda continued
snapping and recording.

Before
John could turn around, Shula opened her desk drawer and grabbed a tack hammer
which she used to hang up posters in her office. She was in good shape and hit
the man full force with the flat side of the hammer at the top of his head. He
sank to the floor totally unconscious.

With
the drawer still open, she pushed both red buttons at the same time. Realizing
the enormity of what happened, she fainted and fell onto her chair. Amanda was
so shaken that she couldn’t do anything except snap pictures of the victims
with the recording mechanism on.

Within
a fraction of a second, alarms went off in the security office, the medical
office, and in the managing director’s office. Captain Casey was sitting in the
office enjoying a policeman’s brunch of doughnuts and coffee. “Oy vey!” he
screamed, even though he was not Jewish. “The Rebbetzin is in trouble. He
grabbed his gun and instructed three members of his staff to grab their guns
and follow him. His two other men were left, one to guard the main entrance to
the building and one to help at the elevator. When they got there, they sent
the passengers out of the elevator and piled in. Before the door closed, three
nurses and a student aide rushed in behind them. They were carrying medical
kits and the aide was carrying two blankets. Casey hit the direct switch and
shot up to the 15
^th
floor.

Using
his skeleton key, he opened the door and instructed his men to follow him with
their guns drawn in case a rape or robbery was taking place. When he saw the
two bodies on the floor, he told the men to put away their guns and get to
work. He then told the nurses to come into the office as well. Casey had witnessed
many crime scenes and knew pretty well what to do. He ordered Nurse Jones to
help Mrs. Pearson and stop the bleeding. He then told Nurse Klein to check if
Pearson was still alive and he ordered Dr. Greenberg and the aid to help Shula,
who seemed to him in complete shock. He next asked Lieutenant Wolfson to call
for two ambulances and Sergeant Warner to call for police reinforcements,
consisting of two detectives and four patrolmen. Both officers immediately
grabbed the phones and made the calls. Casey next asked Amanda what happened,
as she was the only one capable of telling him.

Amanda
quickly explained that Pearson had threatened his wife and Shula, and then
punched his wife very hard and she fell to the floor bleeding. Before he could
start his threatened attack on Shulamit, she grabbed her hammer and struck him on
his head. Pearson then fell unconscious to the floor.

Casey
then called the managing director and briefly summarized what happened. He told
Nash that no one was killed, but Mr. and Mrs. Pearson were seriously injured
and were being sent to Philadelphia General by ambulance while the Rebbetzin
was being treated for shock by Dr. Greenberg.

The
doctor ordered the nurse’s aide to take down five heavy legal tomes and stack them
under Shula’s feet so that her legs could be raised. She checked Shula’s heart
and blood pressure and covered her with one of the blankets.

While
Casey was on the phone, Dr. Greenberg took the phone from him and reported to
Albert. “Shula was in delicate condition to begin with because of her pregnancy
and was upset at the enormity of the case. She fainted and went into shock. Her
blood pressure was way down and we may have to administer some adrenalin. John
Pearson is alive and should regain consciousness. He doesn’t have a fracture but
he may have had a concussion. Mrs. Pearson may have a broken nose and may have
lost some teeth.”

Nash
thanked her and hung up. He then called up Andrea to get to Shula’s office to
answer any questions about the company. Finally, he called the head of the
criminal law department, Sam Leonard, to prevent any attempt to arrest the
Rebbetzin.

When
police reinforcements arrived, Mr. and Mrs. Pearson had already been
transported to the hospital. Captain Casey had quickly assigned the patrolmen
to their positions inside the main entrance and on the 15
^th
floor.
No unauthorized visitors were allowed to enter the building, including
reporters and photographers. If they got past the entrance they were to be
stopped at the 15
^th
floor.

Two
detectives, Ray Perkins and Steve Smith, took seats in front of Shulamit’s desk
and asked to talk to someone in charge. Andrea Cohen greeted them and said she
would be glad to update them.

“May
we know who you are?” Perkins asked.

“I
am Andrea Cohen, director of public relations for Finkel Nash.”

Steve
Smith was surprised that Andrea was so young. “How come such a young and
beautiful girl is director of public relations at such a large firm?”