Widow Ordered to Pay Ex-Murder Suspect

TRENTON, N.J. � Almost 50 years after a police officer was slain, his widow has been ordered to pay $150,000 to the man acquitted of the murder.

Elizabeth Bernoskie says she doesn't have the money. Her lawyer calls the court ruling Tuesday "a cruel, torturous experience."

Charles Bernoskie, a police officer in Rahway with six young children, was shot to death while on duty in 1958, but it wasn't until 1999 that anyone was charged with the murder.

Robert Zarinsky, already in prison for the 1969 murder of a 17-year-old girl and a suspect in the killings of other teenage girls, was linked to the Bernoskie killing by his sister, Judith Zarinsky Sapsa. She told authorities that when she was 16 Zarinsky and a cousin said they had killed a police officer during a botched robbery.

The cousin, Theodore Schiffer, corroborated her story, admitted a role in the killing and served three years in prison.

Zarinsky, however, was acquitted. Jurors believed he did it but felt prosecutors did not build a strong enough case to prove it, the foreman said.

Elizabeth Bernoskie sued Zarinsky for wrongful death and was awarded $9.5 million in 2003. Zarinsky posted his $150,000 mutual fund as a down payment.

On Tuesday, a state appeals court panel ruled that Bernoskie's lawsuit should not have been allowed since Zarinsky had already been acquitted. The $150,000 must be returned, it said.

Bernoskie divided the money among her children and cannot afford to repay it, her lawyer said. Now, Zarinsky can move to seize her assets, including her home.

"I don't know what I am going to do," she told The Star-Ledger of Newark. "It is so horrible. I don't know where to turn, who to talk to."

Her lawyer told the paper the ruling was "diabolical."

"Everything is unraveled and undone," said attorney Kenneth Javerbaum. "It is a cruel, torturous experience (Bernoskie) has had. It is probably giving (Zarinsky) enormous pleasure."

[Maybe I'm wrong but I thought this is how the Goldman family finally got to OJ, guess the laws in Jersey are different !]

I don't think the article got the case right.

The ruling on February 10, 2006 was that the statute of limitations should not have been tolled.

"On February 10, 2006, this court issued its decision on the merits of defendant's appeal from the judgment. Bernoskie, supra, 383 N.J. Super. at 127. Because the delay between plaintiff's husband's death and the trial impaired defendant's
ability to present a defense, we reversed the judgment and dismissed the complaint. Id. at 135-47. [Fn1 Plaintiff's complaint was filed in 1999, after defendant was indicted and charged with murdering plaintiff's husband in 1958. Id. at 131.]"

http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/a4905-05.pdf at 3.

The most recent case just ordered the plaintiff to give the defendant his money back: "What has been given or paid under the compulsion of a judgment the court will restore when its judgment has been set aside and justice requires restitution." Id. at 5.

Imagine the press getting it wrong

I know every state is different (and I'm still not a civil lawyer) but if the police/presecution didn't have enough evidence to file until 1999 and the Plantiff filed the civil suit in 1999, it would seem like the the SOL should not start running until the "discovery" of the tort.

I agree with her lawyer that bites !

From the Newsday, "He was linked to the Bernoskie killing by his sister, Judith Zarinsky Sapsa, when she was caught stealing from his mutual fund."

I have no sympathy for Defendant Zarinsky but here was the star witness for the State of New Jersey, his sister stealing money when they flipped her on a forty year crime. I know that we take our witnesses where we find them. But the crime was twenty or thirty years (now I see forty years) when they tried to prosecute.

Regarding the civil lawsuit after the criminal acquittal. In Texas the general rule is the same as in California, an acquittal in the criminal trial does not collaterally estop the civil trial. Howevever, a quick westlaw search shows a series of red and yellow flags on cases announcing the rule. In Texas any lawyer worth his civil salt would know that the civil lawsuit is by no means a gimme, once the criminal result is not guilty. By the way the law for civil forfeiture after the criminal acquittal leads to a rebuttable presumption that the property was not used in a criminal act. Sorry, this might be practicing criminal law.

So this forty year old set of facts was reversed on SOL grounds in civil court. I cannot say that I am surprised. As lawyers we are subject to the discovery exception to the SOL. But other tortfeasors get better protection. As a defender of governments and their employees I generally do not support discovery exceptions to the SOL.

But I don't want to practice New Yersey law either. As an aged law professor said, bad facts make bad newspaper headlines or something like that. I feel sorry for the widow, but what if this alleged serial murderer did not kill the policeman? Sounds kind of silly when you (I) say it slow or fast. Where is F. Lee or Racehorse when you need them?

[This message was edited by Ray on 07-11-07 at .]

[This message was edited by Ray on 07-11-07 at .]

Is how a convicted murderer and suspected serial killer ever had $150,000 in a mutual fund account. When my kinds find out how little money I've tucked away for their college, they're gonna kill me, and this hook had $150k in the bank?

Hi. My name is Scott, and I'm ... er, well, um, I'm sometimes a civil lawyer, too. (From crowd: "Hi, Scott!") From a civil lawyer's perspective, there is one overriding lesson to be taken from this, and it's one of which the lawyers who sue constables based on nulla bona returns should take heed. A plaintiff should never, EVER, execute on a judgment that has not been finalized on appeal. If you think the mook ... I mean judgment debtor will abscond with, pigeonhole or evaporate the means to satisfy the judgment, file for a request for a writ of attachment or writ of sequestration. But, like my daddy told me many times, don't start spendin' your money before you've got it in your pocket. And a corollary to that rule is: don't start spending someone else's money until you're certain they can't take it back from you. I wonder if the widow's lawyer is sweating a malpractice suit right now.

The big shocker to me, too, was that they spent the money when the appeals were still in progress. Hello???!!!

Apparently, a mook is a "moronic bonehead" or something like that. For details, click here.

quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Brumley:
But, like my daddy told me many times, don't start spendin' your money before you've got it in your pocket.

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Did your daddy have an opinion regarding the Maines Brothers Band?

Yes. He thought Lloyd was the most talented one. But, if he was alive today, he probably would have said that Lloyd's little girl has strayed too far into pop. Dad was always a country/western swing purist. Me, I like to rock.

quote:

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Originally posted by Scott Brumley:
Yes. He thought Lloyd was the most talented one. But, if he was alive today, he probably would have said that Lloyd's little girl has strayed too far into pop. Dad was always a country/western swing purist. Me, I like to rock.

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Well, I know you like to rock out but I also knew your daddy raised you right when we met AND then again confirmed when you first mentioned the Maines Brothers band. A superior Texan!

And my late father wouldn't have cared for the young Maines stray into the pop realm either. But he was a fan of that Lloyd Maines Pedal Steel sound on those Robert Earl records.
[This message was edited by GG on 07-16-07 at .]

[This message was edited by GG on 07-16-07 at .]