The judge handling the grand jury hearing in the rape case against Dennis Gallagher, Sheri Roman, today dismissed the grand jury, saying in her ruling that the assistant district attorney handling the case was “improper” and caused not only “a risk of prejudice” to the grand jury, but “created actual prejudice.”

District Attorney Richard Brown said he would bring the case before another grand jury.

Gallagher’s lawyer, unsurprisingly, told me he hoped Brown could be persuaded otherwise since, “there never was a rape to begin with.”

A spokesman for Brown could not immediately tell me how many times in the previous year a judge had made a similar ruling.

Here’s an excerpt from Judge Roman's decision, which Gallagher's lawyer emailed to me:  read more »

Here are a couple of events that got left off our list yesterday.

A new political club in Assemblyman Rory Lancman’s district - which used to be represented by Brian McLaughlin before he was implicated in a contract-rigging scandal - is having its first meeting tonight in Fresh Meadows, featuring as guest speaker Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.

Another event happening tonight, unrelated, is the first in a series of planned New York City fund-raisers for Democratic Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, who defeated incumbent John Sweeney in a Republican-leaning district upstate and has been the target of Republican challenges ever since.

If you've got any others, feel free send them in or plug them in the comments section. Details for the Gillibrand fund-raiser are after the jump.  read more »

Interestingly, the DA said that there was a "watch list" of suspect voters, meaning the office had been monitoring this situation since before the 2004 election.  read more »

What's interesting is that the DA said there was a "watch list" of suspect voters, meaning they had been monitoring this situation since before that 2004 election. So patient these prosecutors.

From the DA:

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the charges, detectives assigned to his Detective Bureau identified thirty-six voter registration filings made by the defendant between May 28, 2004, and August 20, 2004, which indicated that the individuals registering to vote resided within the 22nd Assembly District. In fact, according to the complaint, the individuals either did not live within the district or only worked there. In many cases, the forms allegedly had the original address or phone number whited-out or had been filled out in the defendant's own handwriting. The inserted addresses noted on the forms included 137-27 Geranium Avenue - the defendant's home address at the time - and 135-29 Roosevelt Avenue - the site of Chung Hwa Books, which is owned by Assemblyman Meng. Both addresses allegedly allowed the defendant the opportunity to receive any mailings on their behalf. In most cases, it is alleged, the individuals had signed the registration forms after attending a banquet for a primary candidate or after being approached on the street. The District Attorney noted that all 36 registrations were placed on a watch list before the primary election and that none of the people voted or attempted to vote and that the registrations were subsequently cancelled by the Board of Elections. The investigation did not uncover any evidence that anyone other than the defendant participated in the scheme.