Only in New York

In both politics and the legal field, New York is just a funny place. Not so much funny as in "funny ha ha", but more along the lines of "isn't that just damned peculiar?" There's a low profile, local/regional article in the Gray Lady today which may well leave you scratching your head. The title is "Choir Member Surrenders in Child Snatching Attempt." Now, if you read Running Scared regularly, you know that I just love a good story where child abductors are thwarted. With that in mind, try putting this string of facts and events into a cohesive stream.

• Lawrence Craig, 44, of Riverside Drive in Upper Manhattan, is a singer in his local church choir and is registered on record as a "minister" though it's not known if he has an active congregation anywhere.


• Crag is apparently a close friend of State Supreme Court Justice Donna Mills. Such a good friend, in fact, that she let him borrow her car last Saturday.


• Justice Mills and her car often turn up on odd situations for some reason. She was charged with driving that car while intoxicated and hitting two police cars last year.


• While driving Mills' car, Craig showed up at the Bronx home of Nora Davis and her two sons Saturday afternoon. Nobody in the home knew or recognized Craig.
• 
  
• After claiming he was looking for their mother, Craig pushes his way into the apartment and grabs Davis' four year old son by the wrist and tries to drag him out of the house.


• The mother attacks Craig like... well, like any mother defending her young, frees the boy and drives the intruder out of their home. They watch him drive away in a nice car clearly marked with Supreme Court license plates.


• Justice Mills places a call to the police saying that Craig was using the car with her permission and will surrender to the police presently.


• Further inquiries reveal that Craig has, over the last four years, had three charges of sexual assault on children brought against him - one count of second degree felony sexual assault on a child and two counts of fourth degree sexual assault on a child.
• Craig has pleaded no contest to at least one of the charges, paid a fine of $1,500 and served zero jail time. And he's not only still roaming the streets, but doing so in the car of a State Supreme Court justice.


• And now it appears that he's been granted bail and is once again wandering the city.

I'd love to add some pithy commentary to this bizarre story, but frankly I wouldn't even know where to begin. Maybe we should get Donna Mills to run against Hillary in '06. Man... this is just mind boggling.