"Local attorney and outspoken New York ethics board member Ravi Batra was taken to the hospital yesterday after a hearing where he took a stand calling for politicians and lobbyists to be more accountable to the public."
From The NY Daily News:
The same year, court records show, Batra began receiving a larger number of potentially lucrative court appointments, such as receiverships, than he had in previous years.
On at least three appointments, Batra took over in the cases when Carl Andrews, a Norman ally and now a state senator, recommended Batra for the jobs in sworn affidavits.
He has gotten at least 80 court-appointed assignments, state Office of Court Administration records show, and Batra received nearly $190,000 for 18 of them.
Sometime between 2000 and 2002, he was appointed to sit on the Brooklyn Democratic organization's judicial screening committee, which decides which candidates the party will endorse for judgeships.
Yet Batra remained under the radar until late 1999, when two lawyers, both disgruntled Brooklyn Democratic Party loyalists, wrote Norman an angry letter, complaining that Batra was cutting them out of a court-appointed case.
The case in question was a years-long receivership over the Cypress Hills Cemetery. Batra had fired the two lawyers, one of them the son of a judge, and hired his own firm to represent him in the case.
The letter sparked a major internal probe into judicial patronage - and Batra was removed from the case.
From The NY Post Ravi Batra and senator John Sampson in a pickle?
ALBANY — State Senate Minority Leader John Sampson’s pick for New York’s ethics-oversight agency chairs the board of a private company that paid Sampson for legal work last year.
Both Sampson (D-Brooklyn) and board chair Ravi Batra say the senator represents In Touch Communications only on legal matters that don’t involve New York.
Sampson also reported owning shares of Gateway Wines of Brooklyn — less than 10 percent, according to spokesman Mike Murphy.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/pol_ethics_pick_pickle_guO3WGGktob9ywhedEs57M#ixzz20vXN8Q8x
From The NY Post today on Ravi resigning and guess what he makes a sexual misogynist comment about women -- disgusting -- he is a dirty guy and he makes it about women's sexual and cleanliness PUKE!!!!
State ethics guardian Ravi Batra has resigned his membership in the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, which lobbies state government.
Batra, a litigator in private practice who was appointed to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics by Senate Minority Leader John Sampson (D-Brooklyn), claimed he was unaware the association employed paid lobbyists.
The commission oversees lobbyists and their clients and investigates alleged lobby-law violations.
Batra said he had thought the association’s lobbying was handled by the separate Lawpac political- action committee.
He agreed to give up his membership after he said he learned of the association’s own lobbyists, including Dan Klores Communications and former Senate Republican Counsel Kenneth Riddett, from the Albany Times-Union.
“To be on the ethics board, you have to be cleaner than Caesar’s wife,” said Batra.
He said in a separate statement his resignation was “to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.”
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/ethics_big_quits_group_1uNzoC66Ii5P2ioMZLXkMO#ixzz20vXqFuWs
