Saying that he wants to prevent the man who mugged him from collecting a $4.8 million court judgment, an elderly man sued the mugger Wednesday and pledged to use any money he reaps to hire more police officers for the region's mass transit system.
The mugger, Bernard McCummings, won the money in a lawsuit against the New York City Transit Authority after he was shot in the back by a transit police officer, leaving him paralyzed. He was shot while fleeing the site where he and two others robbed and beat Jerome Sandusky in 1984 in the subway station at Central Park West and 96th Street in Manhattan.Sandusky, now 81 and living in Newark, said the jury award to McCummings "sends the idiotic message to young men that crime frequently pays." He sued in state Supreme Court in Manhattan under New York state's "Son of Sam" law, which is intended to keep convicted criminals from profiting from their crimes.
Several trial lawyers said they were unaware of any examples of the law's being used to try to seize a lawsuit judgment like the one awarded McCummings and said the suit could test the limits of the new "Son of Sam" statute. The original law was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court because it dealt only with profits from books and films, which the court deemed an infringement of free speech. The new law deals with any income derived from a crime.