Michael F. Armstrong

Michael F. Armstrong
Born 1932
Nationality American
Occupation Lawyer

Michael F. Armstrong (born in 1932) is an American lawyer.[1]

In 1991, The New York Times described him as "the consummate New York lawyer."[2]

Biography

Armstrong graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1954, then served in the US Air Force, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960.[1]

He first worked as a lawyer as an associate at Cahill Gordon.[1] Armstrong was an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 1962 to 1967, after which he returned to Cahill Gordon as a partner in 1968.[1]

From 1970 to 1972, he was chief counsel to the Knapp Commission on New York City police corruption.[2][3][1] In 1973 he was the Queens District Attorney.[4][1]

Armstrong represented the children of Martha "Sunny" von Bulow in a civil suit against her husband, Claus von Bülow, over her estate.[2] The suit settled when Claus von Bülow in 1987 agreed to give up his claim to the estate.[2][5]

Later, he was chairman of the review panel on the Central Park Jogger rape case.[6] In 2002 New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly commissioned a panel of three lawyers, including him, to review the case.[7] The panel issued a 43-page report in January 2003.[7] The panel disputed the claim of one man, Matias Reyes, that he alone had raped the jogger.[7][8][9] Armstrong said the panel believed: "the word of a serial rapist killer is not something to be heavily relied upon."[7] The report concluded that five men who had been convicted, but whose convictions had been vacated, had "most likely" participated in the beating and rape of the jogger, and that that the "most likely scenario" was that "both the defendants and Reyes assaulted her, perhaps successively."[7][8] The report said it was most likely that the defendants attacked the jogger, and Reyes, drawn by her screams, "either joined in the attack as it was ending or waited until the defendants had moved on to their next victims before descending upon her himself, raping her and inflicting upon her the brutal injuries that almost caused her death."[7][8]

In June 2005 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Armstrong chairman of The Commission to Combat Police Corruption.[10][11] The panel was formed in 1995, and conducts audits and studies on the department's anticorruption strategies.[12][11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Justice in New York: An Oral History".
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 William Glaberson (January 19, 1991). "Feuding Lawyers Get a Hearing; Their Peers, an Earful", The New York Times
  3. ↑ Geoffrey Gray (March 28, 2005). "Crooked Cop, Now Jailhouse Lawyer, Seeks Parole at 74". New York Sun.
  4. ↑ Frank Lynn (July 21, 1983). "Man in the News; Nominee for U.S. Judge: John Fontaine Keenan", The New York Times
  5. ↑
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Robert D. McFadden (January 28, 2003). "Boys' Guilt Likely in Rape of Jogger, Police Panel Says", The New York Times
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Edward Conlon (October 19, 2014). "The Myth of the Central Park Five". The Daily Beast.
  9. ↑ Phil Hirschkorn (January 28, 2003). "Police panel slams decision to absolve men in Central Park jogger case". CNN.
  10. ↑ Jaime Adame (August 23, 2005). "Campaign 2005: Crime Declines, Public Safety Worries Continue". Gotham Gazette.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Sue Titus Reid (2011). Criminal Justice Essentials. John Wiley & Sons.
  12. ↑ William K. Rashbaum; John Sullivan (June 2, 2005). "New York: Manhattan: New Anticorruption Chief", The New York Times
Legal offices
Preceded by
Thomas J. Mackell		 District Attorney of Queens County
1973 		Succeeded by
Nicholas Ferraro