NEW YORK (AP) — An 89-year-old longtime federal judge overseeing a case against a crack cocaine crew has visited the gritty New York City neighborhood where its members sold drugs and carried firearms in broad daylight while terrorizing residents.
Judge Jack B. Weinstein (WYN'-steen) strolled mostly in silence around a housing project in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant section Friday. He was trailed by aides, a bodyguard and two news photographers.
Weinstein has been a U.S. district judge in Brooklyn for more than four decades. He has championed class action cases resulting in sweeping verdicts and rulings against handgun manufacturers and tobacco companies. In 2009, he gave life sentences to two police detectives convicted of moonlighting as hitmen for the mob.
He says he visited the housing project because sometimes he needs a firsthand reality check on his cases. He says it'll help at sentencing.
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