For the past year, Hell Gate and Type Investigations have been haunting courtrooms, hanging out in strange outerborough political clubhouses, and filing endless requests for transcripts to produce Courts of Contempt—our investigation into the machinations of New York's broken judicial system.
This installment of our investigation looks at how the Brooklyn Democratic Party's tight control of who is elected as a judge in the borough creates a perfect environment for graft and misconduct. After we released the project last week, two characters from this entry—lawyer Sam Sprei and former Brooklyn judge Edward Harold King—were indicted by federal prosecutors for fraud. You can read our coverage here. To see the full Courts of Contempt project and read all the Case Files, you can go here.
(If you want to see more work like this and help support worker-owned local journalism, now is a great time to subscribe to Hell Gate, because we're running a sale. Act now, and we'll throw in a beautiful hard copy of our Courts of Contempt zine!)