April 9, 2008
A Noisy Train, a Fed-Up Rider and a Day in Court
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
All John Clifford wanted was a peaceful ride to work on the 7:39 to Pennsylvania Station. He would get to the Long Island Rail Road station at Long Beach early every weekday morning, board the train, stake out a five-seat section to rest his bad back, and prepare to read his newspaper and eat his breakfast.
But all around him, there would be chaos. One woman putting on full makeup while listening to her iPod and talking to friends. Another inviting guests to a barbecue and talking about personal problems. Men chatting on cellphones. They were treating the ride as a social situation, he testified in court on Tuesday, forming cliques and getting to know each other by name.
He asked the passengers to keep it down, but the chatter continued. In March 2007, Mr. Clifford had had enough. He shouted an obscenity at a passenger talking on his cellphone and slapped the hand of another, and was arrested. On Tuesday, he found himself in Manhattan Criminal Court, telling his tale.
“I stand up for my right to be let alone,” Mr. Clifford, a retired New York City police sergeant, declared from the witness stand at his nonjury trial on charges including harassment and assault.
To his accusers, Mr. Clifford, 60, was a bully who hogged five seats and had told one passenger, Donna DeCurtis, who had talked loudly, that he knew her name and where she lived, and that “I can make your life hell.” He had been arrested before, the prosecutor said, though, until now, the charges had always been dropped.
After one of those arrests, Ms. DeCurtis testified on Tuesday, “everybody just stood up and applauded.”
But Mr. Clifford testified that, deep down, many of his fellow passengers were grateful, but were too scared to speak up. “When I sit on the train it’s quiet,” he said. “I get up, people come over and shake my hand. They say: ‘Thank you. I wanted to rip her throat out.’ ”
Outside court, he compared himself to Rosa Parks, fighting for his right to sit where he wanted in peace.
“Look what happened to her,” he said, pointing out that Parks was punished for her stand against discrimination. In court, however, he sometimes sounded like the Miss Manners of the railroad, blaming the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the railroad’s parent agency, for not enforcing its own etiquette rules, which restrict noise to 70 decibels under some circumstances.
He had bought a noise meter and found that the train alone measured 70 decibels. “When you’re talking across the car it goes to 80 decibels,” he testified.
Although he seemed like a perfect client for a civil rights lawyer, he chose to represent himself. He has a law degree.
Dressed in a blue Oxford shirt, wearing glasses, and with close-cropped gray hair, he looked lawyerly as he was sworn in to testify. Mr. Clifford said that he routinely took up a section of five facing seats because he was 6-foot-4 and suffered from backaches. It was, he said, the only place where he could cross his legs to ease the pain. He offered to show his scar from a back operation to Judge Larry Stephen, who declined.
“Do I admit to being domineering?” he testified. “Yeah.”
He described his usual routine on the 7:39 or the 8:03 from Long Beach to his job as a private investigator in Manhattan: “I eat. I mind my own business. I read my paper. I get to work.” Interfering with that routine, he said, was “this clique that think it’s their absolute right to talk as long and as loud as they like.”
Only one clique? the prosecutor asked.
“There are different cliques throughout the train,” he replied. “Throughout every train.”
He said that in October 2006, Ms. DeCurtis deliberately provoked him by talking to one of her friends across the aisle.
“They’re talking from one side of the train to the other,” he testified. “That aggravates me. I can’t concentrate. I can’t catch up on current events, and it gives me a headache, so I tell them off.”
Judge Stephen gently interjected, “You can move to another car, can’t you?”
“The problem is, Your Honor, there are no seats,” Mr. Clifford replied.
He admitted that he had threatened to make Ms. DeCurtis’s life hell, but said he knew personal details about her only because she had talked about them so loudly to her friends.
“But you have to realize some of your conduct is inappropriate?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, it only becomes inappropriate when people themselves won’t behave,” he said.
Mr. Clifford faced charges of misdemeanor assault, attempted petit larceny, harassment and disorderly conduct.
He admitted that he had cursed at a passenger, Nicholas Bender, who was talking on his cellphone, then slapped the hand of another passenger, Lydia Klein, as she tried to give her business card to Mr. Bender — but only after she slapped his hand first. The prosecutor said Mr. Clifford was trying to steal the information on the card, hence the larceny charge.
“He is not a white knight, he’s Darth Vader,” said Mary Weisgerber, the prosecutor, in her closing argument.
But after it was all done, Judge Stephen acquitted Mr. Clifford of all charges. The judge said he had discounted most of the testimony against Mr. Clifford because all but one of the witnesses had “an ax to grind.”
“While the court does not condone the defendant’s manner of getting people to remain quiet or silent on the Long Island Rail Road,” Judge Stephen said, “I see no crimes having been committed beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Railroad officials said they were disappointed. “Some of our customers feel as if they have been abused by Mr. Clifford’s behavior,” said Joe Calderone, a spokesman for the railroad. “We will not tolerate aggressive behavior by Mr. Clifford if he seeks to impose his own standards of conduct on others. We will not hesitate in the future to call on police if necessary to protect the safety of our customers and employees.”
As Mr. Clifford left the courtroom and stepped outside to light a celebratory cigar, he pronounced the judge “excellent” and even complimented the prosecutor for finding one neutral witness.
On Tuesday evening, he took the A train to the Grant Avenue-Pitkin Avenue station in Brooklyn, where he picked up his car for the drive home to Long Beach — not because he was afraid to take the commuter railroad, but because the subway was more convenient, he said. He celebrated at Shines bar.
“Believe me,” Mr. Clifford said, “I am no hero. Rosa Parks is a hero. I’m just a knucklehead.”
Al Baker and C. J. Hughes contributed reporting.
A Noisy Train, a Fed-Up Rider and a Day in Court
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS
All John Clifford wanted was a peaceful ride to work on the 7:39 to Pennsylvania Station. He would get to the Long Island Rail Road station at Long Beach early every weekday morning, board the train, stake out a five-seat section to rest his bad back, and prepare to read his newspaper and eat his breakfast.
But all around him, there would be chaos. One woman putting on full makeup while listening to her iPod and talking to friends. Another inviting guests to a barbecue and talking about personal problems. Men chatting on cellphones. They were treating the ride as a social situation, he testified in court on Tuesday, forming cliques and getting to know each other by name.
He asked the passengers to keep it down, but the chatter continued. In March 2007, Mr. Clifford had had enough. He shouted an obscenity at a passenger talking on his cellphone and slapped the hand of another, and was arrested. On Tuesday, he found himself in Manhattan Criminal Court, telling his tale.
“I stand up for my right to be let alone,” Mr. Clifford, a retired New York City police sergeant, declared from the witness stand at his nonjury trial on charges including harassment and assault.
To his accusers, Mr. Clifford, 60, was a bully who hogged five seats and had told one passenger, Donna DeCurtis, who had talked loudly, that he knew her name and where she lived, and that “I can make your life hell.” He had been arrested before, the prosecutor said, though, until now, the charges had always been dropped.
After one of those arrests, Ms. DeCurtis testified on Tuesday, “everybody just stood up and applauded.”
But Mr. Clifford testified that, deep down, many of his fellow passengers were grateful, but were too scared to speak up. “When I sit on the train it’s quiet,” he said. “I get up, people come over and shake my hand. They say: ‘Thank you. I wanted to rip her throat out.’ ”
Outside court, he compared himself to Rosa Parks, fighting for his right to sit where he wanted in peace.
“Look what happened to her,” he said, pointing out that Parks was punished for her stand against discrimination. In court, however, he sometimes sounded like the Miss Manners of the railroad, blaming the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the railroad’s parent agency, for not enforcing its own etiquette rules, which restrict noise to 70 decibels under some circumstances.
He had bought a noise meter and found that the train alone measured 70 decibels. “When you’re talking across the car it goes to 80 decibels,” he testified.
Although he seemed like a perfect client for a civil rights lawyer, he chose to represent himself. He has a law degree.
Dressed in a blue Oxford shirt, wearing glasses, and with close-cropped gray hair, he looked lawyerly as he was sworn in to testify. Mr. Clifford said that he routinely took up a section of five facing seats because he was 6-foot-4 and suffered from backaches. It was, he said, the only place where he could cross his legs to ease the pain. He offered to show his scar from a back operation to Judge Larry Stephen, who declined.
“Do I admit to being domineering?” he testified. “Yeah.”
He described his usual routine on the 7:39 or the 8:03 from Long Beach to his job as a private investigator in Manhattan: “I eat. I mind my own business. I read my paper. I get to work.” Interfering with that routine, he said, was “this clique that think it’s their absolute right to talk as long and as loud as they like.”
Only one clique? the prosecutor asked.
“There are different cliques throughout the train,” he replied. “Throughout every train.”
He said that in October 2006, Ms. DeCurtis deliberately provoked him by talking to one of her friends across the aisle.
“They’re talking from one side of the train to the other,” he testified. “That aggravates me. I can’t concentrate. I can’t catch up on current events, and it gives me a headache, so I tell them off.”
Judge Stephen gently interjected, “You can move to another car, can’t you?”
“The problem is, Your Honor, there are no seats,” Mr. Clifford replied.
He admitted that he had threatened to make Ms. DeCurtis’s life hell, but said he knew personal details about her only because she had talked about them so loudly to her friends.
“But you have to realize some of your conduct is inappropriate?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor, it only becomes inappropriate when people themselves won’t behave,” he said.
Mr. Clifford faced charges of misdemeanor assault, attempted petit larceny, harassment and disorderly conduct.
He admitted that he had cursed at a passenger, Nicholas Bender, who was talking on his cellphone, then slapped the hand of another passenger, Lydia Klein, as she tried to give her business card to Mr. Bender — but only after she slapped his hand first. The prosecutor said Mr. Clifford was trying to steal the information on the card, hence the larceny charge.
“He is not a white knight, he’s Darth Vader,” said Mary Weisgerber, the prosecutor, in her closing argument.
But after it was all done, Judge Stephen acquitted Mr. Clifford of all charges. The judge said he had discounted most of the testimony against Mr. Clifford because all but one of the witnesses had “an ax to grind.”
“While the court does not condone the defendant’s manner of getting people to remain quiet or silent on the Long Island Rail Road,” Judge Stephen said, “I see no crimes having been committed beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Railroad officials said they were disappointed. “Some of our customers feel as if they have been abused by Mr. Clifford’s behavior,” said Joe Calderone, a spokesman for the railroad. “We will not tolerate aggressive behavior by Mr. Clifford if he seeks to impose his own standards of conduct on others. We will not hesitate in the future to call on police if necessary to protect the safety of our customers and employees.”
As Mr. Clifford left the courtroom and stepped outside to light a celebratory cigar, he pronounced the judge “excellent” and even complimented the prosecutor for finding one neutral witness.
On Tuesday evening, he took the A train to the Grant Avenue-Pitkin Avenue station in Brooklyn, where he picked up his car for the drive home to Long Beach — not because he was afraid to take the commuter railroad, but because the subway was more convenient, he said. He celebrated at Shines bar.
“Believe me,” Mr. Clifford said, “I am no hero. Rosa Parks is a hero. I’m just a knucklehead.”
Al Baker and C. J. Hughes contributed reporting.
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