By Matthew Russell Lee
SDNY COURTHOUSE, April 22 – A doctor facing an NYPD parking ticket and reportedly saying "I'm the hero" back in 2016 resurfaced on Tax Day 2019 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, as a police brutality jury trial. Rachel Wellner was at the plaintiff's table and NYPD officer Vega was on the stand, getting asked Didn't you touch near her breast? Wellner was a breast surgeon at Montefiore Hospital in The Bronx but got fired after what the tabloids called her "cop ram" incident.
On April 22 Judge John G. Koeltl gave the jury a break in order to ask the lawyers to prepare arguments for him on whether a failure to immediately correct the statement of an Assistant District Attorney was in fact an "adoptive admission" (he didn't sound convinced) and about tabloid reporting he'd told the jurors to avoid over the weekend now being in evidence and on the TV screen in the courtroom, albeit with a crude blacked-out redaction. We'll have more on this.
On April 18, Wellner took the stand and by day's end was grilled by the City on when she called the New York Post, and about saying she was led out of the precinct in a chain gang. She said based on the photo the chain gang must have come later. She said the New York Post called her, and she asked them not to publish her name. They've since reported on and excerpted from what they called her "semi-autobiographical novel." The judge has told the jurors not to seek out any information on the case - or presumably the novel. By the end of April 18 her lawyers had used seven hours and 50 minutes; the City had used three hours and 32 minutes. Inner City Press stayed another two hours for a crack sales plea agreement, a pharmacist pleading not guilty to oxy sales, a sentenced man staying out for months taking his wife's narcotics and finally a lawsuit on controversial seizures by New York marshals of out of state debtors' assets. Watch this site.
When Wellner began she made a point of immediately telling the jury that she organized medical missions to Nicaragua and that along with his $450,000 salary at Montefiore she was able to be back with the Latino community she feel in love with. The government / defense did not object. Across the hall an insider trading prosecution got interesting - but Inner City Press will return to the Wellner case. Back on April 16, the second day of the trial, Vega's partner Nicolett Davodian was on the stand and her deposition and previously filed reports were being used against her. When did she start saying that Vega's knees were swollen? That Wellner had allegedly called all female NYPD officer a derogatory word for lesbian? And the now somewhat famous, "I'm the hero, the cops are not heroes"? There were many I can't recalls. Coming next is the two officers' supervisor, who allegedly reprimanded Davodian for gloating to Wellner upon subsequent full arrest, Are you happy now you crazy f*cking b*tch? Inner City Press will be there - watch this site.
Both the Daily New and the New York Post at the time mocked her for saying she was the hero and the NYPD was not. Her civil complaint recites her voluntary work in Nicaragua and Israel. SDNY Judge John G. Koeltl at the end of questioning on April 15 told the jury to be sure not to check social media (how realistic that is today is a question), then held several off the record sidebars with the case's attorneys, followed by pleasantries with visitors from Australia. We'll have more on this trial.
