A Former Bronx ADA Can't Get the Job Out of His Blood

Twenty years ago regular spectators at trials?"court buffs"?were a common sight in most New York City courthouses. They were generally retired old folks with time on their hands, so they'd come to court to spend the day listening to the cases that were going on. They knew all the players and what court had the best trial that day. n Today, the court buff as a species has mostly died out. After Court TV and shows like Law & Order, the whole idea of a court buff became a quaint relic of the past. There are still a few left, but they're a rare breed.

One legendary Bronx court buff was Mabel Wayne. In 1985 she was a spry 84 and knew all the ADAs, cops, court officers and lawyers who worked in the Bronx Criminal Court building. She had been coming to the court for more than 35 years and knew the place as well as anyone. She would hand out homebaked cookies and legal advice to anyone willing to listen.

On July 3, 1985, Mabel Wayne sat in on a murder trial. During the lunch recess she went to the bank and did some grocery shopping. She then went home to her apartment right behind the courthouse. The police believed she walked in on a burglary. Witnesses saw her being dangled out of her fourth floor window, and then dropped to her death. Her killer was never captured.

Later that year E. 158th St. off the Grand Concourse was named Mabel Wayne Way in her honor. I recently went up to the block, which is next to Franz Siegel Park. Scores of Latino teenagers were hanging out there enjoying the summer night. I asked if anyone knew who Mabel Wayne was and got blank stares. That was the old Bronx; Mabel Wayne is now just another forgotten crime victim.

The next deadly blow to court buffs came on Aug. 30, 1990. That day Assistant District Attorney Sean Healy, a lifetime Bronx resident, was met at his door by his car pool to travel to the Bronx courthouse. Healy, 30, was a rookie prosecutor with a caseload of 50 misdemeanors per day. He had made a name for himself for being a hardworking good guy who brought honor and class to the job. A few years before becoming an ADA he had worked with Mother Teresa.

The car pool made it safely to the courthouse and the ADAs went to work. But every day someone from the Bronx car pool had to move the car at 10:30 a.m. in compliance with the alternate-side parking rules. That day it was Sean Healy's turn. He moved the car, and then decided to stop at the Mark Food Center on E. 163rd St. to buy donuts for everyone in the office.

Healy was in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time. As he was looking through the pastries, Jose Diaz jumped out of a car in front of the store and raked the front of the bodega with a semi-automatic weapon. Diaz, 22 and a drug dealer, was shooting at a rival dealer. The bullets burst through the windows. The only bullet that hit anyone was the one that went through Sean Healy's back. He fell to his stomach. The store-owner turned him over and saw he was bleeding from his mouth and nose. Healy was able to gasp, "Help me. Help me." Those would be his last words. A female cop cradled his head in her lap until an ambulance came and took him to Lincoln Hospital. There he was pronounced dead on arrival.

The Bronx DA's office was in shock. Healy hadn't even been the target. Grown men wept on the church steps and wondered just what the hell was happening in their home borough. Diaz was eventually arrested and copped a plea of 15-years-to-life. In 2008, after serving 17 years, Diaz will be 40 and eligible for parole. Sean Healy will remain 30 forever.

"When I took the ADA job in the Bronx they were literally putting up the plaque honoring Sean Healy," Frank Randazzo says. "You had his shooting, The Bonfire of the Vanities and Law & Order?those were the frames of reference when you walked in that courthouse. They threw you into the mix fast. There is no training for the kind of people you're going to meet as a Bronx ADA. From the victims to the cops who have done it all and seen it all...to them you're just new meat."

I recently met with Randazzo, 33, in downtown Brooklyn, where he was filing a motion. We walked up to a Montague St. diner to talk about his years as a Bronx ADA. He is now in private practice as a lawyer, but he worked in the DA's office 1992-'99.

"I could be out to dinner with, say, a stockbroker, a surgeon, a head chef and a Navy Seal, and all they wanted to hear about was my stories as a Bronx prosecutor. The job was the best and worst thing to ever happen to me. The best because after I got good at it I felt like if I can do this job I can do anything. If you can be a Bronx ADA you could run IBM. The worst because it makes it hard to practice any other kind of law. I miss that excitement."

Randazzo is a Bronx success story. Born and raised in the Throgs Neck section, where he still lives with his wife and two children, he strove for a good life. He went to high school at Mount Saint Michael?Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs' alma mater (Randazzo was two years ahead of Combs). "I remember him but he didn't stand out in high school. He was just another kid. I can't believe how successful he is."

After Randazzo graduated college he enrolled in Albany Law School. With his new JD degree he was $75,000 in debt and grabbed the first job he could get.

"It was hard being in that much debt. I needed that job. It's a tough job because, like a cop, you can be a good worker and make a bad judgment call and then it's your ass," Randazzo says.

I ask him about his first tough case. He shakes his head at the memory.

"I had to be on the job all of a month when I was given Sunday night arraignments. So there I am, all alone in a courtroom, and I can't even reach anyone by phone if something goes wrong. I had no lifelines. I had never worked alone before as an ADA. I get this domestic violence case and I think it's going to be easy. The wife is telling me in broken English she wants to drop the charges against her husband. But something is wrong because she keeps crying and looking to the back of the courtroom. I finally get her to tell me that her in-laws are in the courtroom and they have her young daughter."

Randazzo got the woman out of the courtroom, and she explained that if she didn't drop the charges her in-laws were going to keep her daughter. He had the woman pop her head in the courtroom and call for her daughter. The little girl ran to her mother. The in-laws followed. Out in the hallway the in-laws told Randazzo that he better learn to mind his own business. The brother-in-law was a tough customer and got in Randazzo's face. Finally the court officers broke it up. Randazzo took the mother and daughter to the front of the courtroom but the in-laws were still in the back, watching with glaring menace.

"I felt like I was all alone. No one was helping me. Finally the veteran court officer running the part was told what took place out in the hallway. He was a little guy and he asked me if the brother-in-law was threatening me. I told him yes. He runs out and arrests the guy and throws him in the pen. Now I'm free and clear, only the woman is still crying. I finally ask her what's the matter now and she tells me her daughter is severely asthmatic and her medicine is in the brother-in-law's house and the only one with the key is the brother-in-law."

Randazzo grabbed a legal aid attorney and told him to go back in the pens and tell the brother-in-law that if he gave up the key the charges would be dropped. The guy gave up the key, but before he could be released the police found a warrant on him and kept him in anyway.

I ask Randazzo how it all turned out.

"The wife dropped the charges against her husband. As an ADA in the Bronx, you're assaulted on every side with a complete lack of cooperation. It makes you hard like a combat veteran. I loved the job, even with all the bullshit, but it's the bullshit that eventually wears you down and makes you leave."

I ask Randazzo how he liked working under Bronx DA Robert Johnson.

"He's in a tough spot. Personally he's a genuinely nice and thoughtful man. But when it came down to the job, if you made a mistake your career was on the line. He runs a DA office and a social work office. I'll give him credit that he does more community outreach than any other DA. He's not like [Westchester County DA] Jeanine Pirro where she's out in front of the cameras. He does it and no one sees it, and he should get credit for that."

Randazzo leans back in the booth.

"I love the Bronx, but I'm disappointed by it. It's the one neighborhood that's 20 minutes from the beaches of Long Island, 20 minutes from midtown Manhattan, 20 minutes from the suburbs of Jersey and Westchester, and an hour from the country. But despite all that it has the reputation that it's the last place you want to be. I don't understand why more people don't stay, or more people don't come here to live. To me it's the center of the world."

[sullivan@nypress.com](mailto:sullivan@nypress.com)