NYU Law School Prof Who Sentenced Lynne Stewart: His U.S. Attorney's Office/Columbia/Debevoise & Plimpton Connection

In July 2010, an NYU Law School adjunct professor named John Koeltl unconstitutionally sentenced U.S. civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart to 10 years in prison in the Southern District federal courtroom where Koeltl also is employed as a federal judge. Coincidentally, an Assistant U.S. Attorney since June 2000 in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District that prosecuted Lynne Stewart--a Columbia University Law School lecturer-in-law named Jonathan Kolodner--apparently worked for Judge Koeltl as his law clerk between August 1997 and August 1998.

Prior to being appointed to the federal judicial bench by U.S. Secretary of State Clinton's husband in 1994 (on the recommendation of a now-deceased former AIPAC-backed U.S. Senator named Daniel "Pat" Moynihan), NYU Law School Professor Koeltl worked for years as a corporate lawyer at the Debevoise & Plimpton corporate law firm in Manhattan. While working at Debevoise & Plimpton, Judge Koeltl apparently wrote, for example, legal briefs for Mobil Oil in the Raymond vs. Mobil Oil case, after Mobil Oil was sued for its alleged age discrimination policies. In addition, while working at Debevoise & Plimpton, Judge Koeltl also apparently attended a June 18, 1987 board of directors meeting of The Council for Tobacco Research--along with the top executives of tobacco companies like American Tobacco and Phillip Morris who sat on this apparently then-tobacco industry-dominated board.

Coincidentally, a member of Debovise & Plimpton's Litigation Department (whose aviation industry practice apparently handles litigation arising out of the September 11, 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center buildings)--a Debevoise & Plimpton Counsel named Suzanne Grosso--also used to work as a law clerk in the late 1990s for the judge who sentenced Lynne stewart to 10 years in prison.