Favorably Settles 1st Amendment Lawsuit Against NYPD
City Hall was brought to heel last week by Green Party Mayoral Candidate and televangelist gadfly Reverend Billy Talen, as they paid out $23,000.00 to settle the wrongful arrest of the Rev in Union Square on June 29, 2007.
The First Amendment-violating arrest, which occurred while Talen was actually reciting the 45 words of the First Amendment, received coverage in the world press including Europe, Russia and China. The New York Times, among many news outlets, quoted Civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel’s irrefutable assertion that “Reverend Billy has the First Amendment right to recite the First Amendment.”
Siegel, who represented Talen with co-counsel Earl Ward, argued that Talen should not have been arrested at all. But, to add incarceration to injury, the NYPD held Talen for 22 hours in “The Tombs” below 100 Centre Street, rather than simply issuing a summons from the precinct. This follows the widely noted pattern, since the Giuliani administration and continued under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of imprisoning protesters overnight. Courts have awarded settlements to hundreds of protesters incarcerated by the New York police in recent years.
Talen is now running for office as the Green Party Candidate for Mayor of New York City. After the settlement, he said “We cannot say that we have changed the policies and violations of American free speech rights that are a hallmark of the Ray Kelly and Mike Bloomberg tenure. We can promise these two leaders that the funds of this settlement will be directly spent by free speech activists, especially at our city’s traditional speaker’s corner, Union Square Park.”
Video of the 2007 arrest online at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8H4YATaX1k
More information at:
http://www.voterevbilly.org
http://www.revbilly.com
