It seems that former Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro has a nasty habit of getting herself into awkward situations.  It’s not easy being a shrill “tough on crime” voice when you get involved in wiretapping with Bernie Kerik while running for Senate, or just hanging out at home with your felon, cheating husband.  So who can blame her when she runs some poor fellow down and the cops doctor the police reports to make her involvement disappear?

Eric Turkewitz at New York Personal Injury Blog has done a journalistic mitzvah reporting the story of Harley-owner Scott Lieberman, who just had the pleasure of cashing a check for $200,000 to cover the injuries when he was sideswiped by Pirro’s SUV.  Now there’s nothing terrible about having an accident, but as with everything else Pirro, a simple accident turned awkward.

While the officer on the scene first reported a collision between Pirro’s SUV and Scott Lieberman riding his Harley, that report was subsequently deep-sixed after the officer saw Jeanine Pirro in the back and saw that the SUV was owned by her husband. The second accident report didn’t have the Pirro vehicle in the accident. According to this New York Post story at the time:

Lieberman said that after talking to Horgan, cops stopped writing a two-vehicle accident report and started one saying he skidded off the road on his own. “Investigation reveals no other veh. involved in accident,” the final report reads.

According to an interview I conducted with Lieberman’s counsel, Harlan Wittenstein, a copy of the original police report indicating a collision was given to Lieberman’s ex-girlfriend who had been riding ahead and saw the accident in her rear-view mirror as she pulled up to a stop light. The original report clearly has Al Pirro’s name on it as the vehicle owner. The subsequent police report only claimed a motorcyclist down with no contact and no Pirro name. The two reports are here: Lieberman.pdf

After learning the Pirros were involved, the police accused Lieberman of being a fraud as he was writhing in agony. Lieberman, who was taken to the hospital and needed surgery to fix his broken ankle, didn’t take kindly to the accusation.

It’s like magic.  First Lieberman was run down by Pirro.  Then there was no Pirro involved at all.  Poof.  Naturally, the police officer who exercised discretion by omitting the Pirro involvement from the doctored report suffered no ill-effects.

One might ask, why should the Pirros be blamed when it was the cop who doctored the reports?  Because Jeanine Pirro, who never shied away from the limelight when accusing others of wrongdoing, was happy enough to stand by while the cop “fixed” the problem.  Had she stepped forward and admitted her role, then the fault would rest solely on the cop, if indeed the cop would have done anything wrong in the absence of a little encouragement.

But Jeanine, Ms. Law & Order, was happy to hide behind the fictitious report and conceal the fact that she was involved in running Lieberman down.  The Pirros have a funny thing about how right and wrong is only for the little people.

The SUV in which Jeanine was riding was owned by hubby Al, who has had some problems of his own:

Al Pirro — a disbarred real estate attorney who was convicted of 66 counts of tax fraud, whose license has been suspended (and reinstated), has been embroiled in head-line grabbing extramarital affairs, and generally been a burden to his wife’s ambitions — is no doubt happy to get at least one legal problem behind him.

The good news is that the People of New York somehow managed to avoid electing Jeanine to the position of senator or attorney general in the midst of this, and she’s been relegated to TV judge, a pale copy of Judge Judy.  Jeanine has always been good for entertainment, though rarely in the way she intends.