January 22, 1997
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Abraham Ribicoff, Esq.
Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler
Washington, DC 20005
RE: Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler Employment Inquiry - Homicide/Violence Risk
Dear Mr. Ribicoff:
During the period March 1988 to October 1991 I was employed as a legal assistant at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld ("Akin Gump"). Attorney managers at Akin Gump terminated my employment effective October 29, 1991 upon determining, in consultation with a psychiatrist, that a complaint of harassment I had lodged against several co-workers was attributable to a psychiatric symptom ("ideas of reference") prominent in the psychotic disorders and typically associated with a risk of violent behavior. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14 (final order issued June 10, 1996). In the period immediately after my job termination senior Akin Gump managers determined that it was advisable to secure the office of my direct supervisor against a possible homicidal assault, which it was feared I might commit.
My records indicate that in September 1992, within one year after my job termination by Akin Gump, I submitted an employment inquiry to Lori Linskey at Kaye, Scholer, Fierman, Hays & Handler ("Kaye Scholer"). I do not know what communications, if any, Kaye Scholer may have had with Akin Gump's attorney managers or supervisors at the time of this employment inquiry.
I have been under investigation by the U.S. Secret Service as a potential security risk to President William J. Clinton, and was interrogated at the Washington Field Office by Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot as recently as February 1996.
I request that you look into whether Kaye Scholer's records reflect an employment inquiry from me in 1992, and, if so, that Kaye Scholer disclose to federal authorities the content of any communications with any senior Akin Gump supervisors or attorney managers, including Dennis M. Race, Esq. (whom I would have expressly designated as a job reference in my employment inquiry to Kaye Scholer), relating to the subject matter of my job termination by Akin Gump, including facts relating to the firm's alleged determination that I suffered from a paranoid mental state that rendered me potentially violent, or facts relating to the firm's concerns that I might have been armed and homicidal and possibly poised to carry out a homicidal assault on the firm's premises.
The enclosed computer disc contains a document of purely psychological interest that I prepared that is consistent with assertions relating to my mental state (and potential for violence) made by the District of Columbia Office of Corporation Counsel in Brief of Respondent in Opposition to Petition for Review of no Probable Cause Determination by Department of Human Rights, Freedman v. D.C. Department of Human Rights, D.C. Superior Court no. MPA 95-14. The document is presumably relevant to an insanity defense in any possible future felony prosecution. Rest assured, I have provided a copy of the document to federal authorities.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
Abraham Alexander Ribicoff (April 9, 1910 – February 22, 1998) was an American United States Democratic Party politician. He served in the United States Congress, as governor of Connecticut and as President John F. Kennedy's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. He was Connecticut's first and to date only Jewish governor.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely recall I later found out that Senator Ribicoff was already suffering from dementia when I sent him this letter.