Page 313 - WhyAsInY

soMe Case stuDies
Not So Lovely Ritas
Between the second and third years of law school, I did not do what many of my classmates did. I did not become a highly paid and well- feted “summer associate” at a law firm. I am not sure that that is what I would have wanted to do. But that didn’t matter. As I understood the minimum grade requirements of the most prestigious firms, that was something that I could not do.
I am sure that in my heart of hearts, I did not want to end my sev- enteen-year summer camp streak, but my superego got the best of my id, and I decided that it would be wise to seek a job that was law-related, and more law-related than working at United Lawyers Service. Some- how I ended up landing a job as a summer legal intern (for pay!) at the New York City Department of Investigation, the mission of which was to root out corruption by New York City employees, all kinds of New York City employees. Right before I got there, a Department of Investi- gation wiretap had caught the Water Commissioner, James L. Marcus, being bribed by Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo, head of the Lucchese crime family, and while I was there, the department launched a super- secret (failed) investigation of the then Comptroller, Mario Procaccino.
At the time of my employ, I worked with members of the Tactical Patrol Force (yes, the same elite portion of the Police Department that had led the “bust” at Columbia), and in that connection, I met and spent some time with Officer David Durk, who, I was amazed to learn, had gone to Amherst (how’s that for an example of elitism?). Little did I then know, but Durk was already cooperating with Officer Frank Serpico in trying to root out corruption in the Police Department. (Al Pacino was to play Serpico in the 1973 eponymous movie directed by Sidney Lumet. Durk did not play a big part in the movie, but he should have; it was he who went, unsuccessfully, to Mayor Lindsay’s deputy, Jay Krie- gel, who was portrayed in the movie—very unflatteringly. Kriegel, who had graduated from Midwood in 1958 and was a senior in Phi Gam at Amherst when I was a freshman, made or implemented the decision not
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