December 14, 1996
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW #136
Washington, DC 20008-4530
Alan S. Kaden, Esq.
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson
Washington, DC 20004
RE: Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson Employment Inquiry - Homicide/Violence Risk
Dear Mr. Kaden:
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. 1/ 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.
During the summer of 1992, approximately nine months after my job termination by Akin Gump, I submitted an employment inquiry to Cheryl Rippel at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson ("Fried, Frank"), as evidenced by the enclosed U.S. Postal Service certified mail receipt dated July 27, 1992. I do not know what communications, if any, Cheryl Rippel 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 counsel Cheryl Rippel to candidly disclose to federal authorities the content of any communications she may have had with any senior Akin Gump supervisors or attorney managers, including Dennis M. Race, Esq. (whom I expressly designated as a job reference in the employment inquiry to Fried, Frank), 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.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
_____________________________
1/ Ideas of reference is a psychiatric term of art, defined as "the assumption by a patient that the words and actions of others refer to himself." Dorland's Medical Dictionary at 814 (27th ed. 1988). Presumably, Akin Gump's managers were concerned that my ideas of reference might dispose me to do more than simply rip-off the purse of a little old Jewish lady from Brooklyn.
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7 comments:
Martin Ginsburg, Esq. -- husband of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (originally from Brooklyn, NY) -- used to be a tax partner at Fried Frank. The letter is addressed to a tax partner at the firm, who I assume Martin Ginsburg would know.
I wrote this letter a few days after I read that Brooklyn-born Justice Ginsburg's purse was snatched from her arm as she and her husband were leaving a restaurant in DC. She had ordered an onion tort, if I remember correctly. But maybe my memory is playing tricks.
When Fried Frank would have received this letter, I picked up angry vibes from Brian P. Brown at the Cleveland Park Library.
By the way, I meant "tart" when I said "tort." Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I think, had an onion tart.
Excuse me, I'm not Martha Stewart.
Alan Kaden, Esq. was a tax partner of the late Martin Ginsburg, Esq., who practiced tax law.
This item was posted a week before the USMS interviewed me on 1/15/10.
The USMS did not ask me any questions about Justice Ginsburg. Check the audio tape.
The USMS did ask me what I would say to Dennis Race if I happened to see him in a men's room. (A men's room? Why a men's room?)
One of my posts from 2009 mentioned that I worked at Hogan & Hartson at the same time (in the fall of 1985) as DOJ IG Glenn A. Fine, and that Mr. Fine had an office near a bathroom on the 2nd floor.
At the end of the USMS interview the officer asked who I talked to in my apartment building. I mentioned that I sometimes talked to an elderly lady named "Miss Fine." When I said the word "Fine," the officer reflexed.
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