By Jeff Lipton
Faces jail time after November 3 sentencing
A former psychologist from Atlantic Beach who dated a Suffolk County judge in the mid-1980s now faces jail time after she was convicted of harassing the judge with phone calls to his chambers in 1997.
Bonnee Linden, 55, of Albany Boulevard argues that the calls were made to determine Judge Leonard Silverman's whereabouts because he was stalking her, apparently upset that she had ended their relationship.
Judge Silverman, 69, of Ivy Hill Road in Woodsburgh, said Ms. Linden kept calling him because he was the one who ended the relationship and she would not accept the break-up. Observers of the case call it the classic "he said, she said."
What is clear is that Ms. Linden faces up to a year in prison on each of two counts of aggravated harassment in the second degree when she is sentenced on Friday, November 3, in First District Court in Hempstead. She was arrested on August 1, 1997, and on March 29 of this year a jury found her guilty of the two counts and acquitted her of four other counts. In addition, four other counts of aggravated harassment were dropped before trial or before the case was submitted to the jury.
Judge Silverman has been granted an order of protection against Ms. Linden. She was accused of harassing the judge and three of his staff members by making phone calls and sending a fax to his chambers at the New York State Court of Claims in Hauppauge, where he has been a judge for 25 years. She indicated in those transmissions that she feared him because she thought he was stalking her and that he had connections in the Mafia.
She said the judge and his staff responded by placing numerous phone calls to her Hewlett office. She said she then filed a police complaint against the judge on June 3, 1997, for making the calls to her office, but nothing developed from that complaint.
Ms. Linden said she called his chambers upon the advice of an administrative judge, Christopher Mega, from whom she had sought assistance regarding the judge's alleged "stalking behavior." She said she went to the Nassau County police, the county district attorney's office and the State Attorney General, but none would help her. She felt that her pleas for help were being ignored because she was making a complaint against a judge.
Ed Grilli, a spokesperson for the Nassau County District Attorney, said Ms. Linden's complaints were not ignored. "Her issues have been discussed, investigated, reviewed and put to a jury, who found her guilty of harassment," Mr. Grilli said.
Detective Tom Mazur, a police spokesperson, said Ms. Linden filed a complaint against the judge on May 14, 1997, but did not pursue it. "It looks like the case was resolved to her satisfaction," the detective said. "She no longer wished to pursue it and it was closed."
Scott Limmer, Ms. Linden's court-assigned attorney, said Administrative Judge Mega did give her permission to call Judge Silverman's chambers, but it was never established how often she could do that. The jury, Mr. Limmer said, may have felt that her calls were excessive.
In his statement to police before her arrest, Judge Silverman said Ms. Linden would call his chambers on each business day between June 3 and July 2, 1997, and between the hours of 9:30 and 11:30 A.M., from her office at Linden Collins Associates, 1226 West Broadway, Hewlett, where she worked as a psychologist.
"My staff and I were becoming increasingly concerned for our safety," Judge Silverman said in his statement to police on June 3, 1997. "...Bonnee Linden has made it known, both through phone calls and facsimile transmissions to my office, that she believes I am a threat to her. Based upon her allegations, I am concerned that Bonnee Linden may now be suffering from some sort of psychological aberration, and I cannot help but worry that she may potentially pose some danger to myself or my staff."
A faxed transmission on her company's letterhead that accused the judge of having Mafia connections, among other things, also was received in his chambers, according to statements provided to authorities.
"She called my chambers every day for a month, saying 'I have to know where he is. I have to know where he is,' " Judge Silverman said in a telephone interview on Friday, October 20. "We were all in fear of her. The calls got very upsetting ...We were scared to death."
Where it all started
Ms. Linden said she was introduced to Judge Silverman in April 1985, and shortly thereafter moved into his home. Both were divorced and seeking companionship. Ms. Linden had been divorced in August 1973 and never remarried. She has two sons from the marriage; both now are more than 30 years old. Judge Silverman said that when he met Ms. Linden, "I was divorced and I had three children, I didn't want to get remarried to anyone."
She said they dated "infrequently" until July 1986 and said she broke off the "dinner-date relationship" and only wished to remain friends with him.
Judge Silverman said it was he who broke off the relationship, after he began to notice a strange behavior in Ms. Linden. "I felt that those months I spent with her was enough. I started to see things that got me upset," he said.
He said he didn't see or hear from her until about seven or eight years ago, when she contacted him one day and asked if he could recommend an attorney for a civil matter. "That was the first time I saw her in all these years," Judge Silverman said.
But Ms. Linden tells a different story. In 1989, she said she decided not to have any further contact with the judge. And then she said she started seeing him everywhere she went.
She said, "It appeared that he was engaging in a pattern of intimidation, driving slowly past me on the street where I was walking; at times, his car was only inches from my person, cutting off my car with his car while I was driving or driving past me while I was crossing the street in front of my office at a high rate of speed."
She said last week, "I think people this out of control are crazy. I was really, really scared. I started to call the DA on May 12, 1997, screaming for them to protect me. I got increasingly afraid."
Judge Silverman said of her statement, "I don't know why she did the things that she did. It was nothing but a woman scorned ... I'm not a stalker."
"She attempted to have me removed from the bench," said Judge Silverman, who expects to retire from the bench on December 31, when he reaches the mandatory retirement age of 70. "She has said my real name is Galvano or Gambino and I'm in the Mafia, involved in killings for hire, and that I'm a child molester and that I've raped and attacked women.
"She is not a balanced act. To put it mildly, she is very strange," he said.
An uphill battle
Ms. Linden feels she has been facing an uphill battle in a court case against a powerful judge. A statement that she says she never authored or signed but which helped convict her was submitted into evidence at trial by the district attorney's office. "The DA filed a phony confession with my signature on it," she said. "...I'm telling you that it's a kangaroo court. It's a kangaroo set-up."
As for such allegations, her lawyer, Mr. Limmer, said, "I can't believe anyone in the DA's office would be party to forged documents."
Mr. Grilli said, "I know there have been a volley of complaints from her over the years. All of those complaints have been addressed and investigated and a jury of her peers have found her guilty. They believe that she was culpable of aggravated harassment."
In an attempt to prove her innocence, Ms. Linden retained Ron Rice, a nationally-known forensic handwriting expert. Mr. Rice said she paid him between $1,500 and $3,000 to examine statements submitted into evidence. He said he could have asked her for three times what he received but stuck with the case because he believed her and realized she did not have the resources to pay him the regular rate.
Ms. Linden reached out for Mr. Rice's help shortly before trial, but the defense decided against using his expert testimony at trial. "It was a decision between Dr. Linden and myself," said Mr. Limmer, adding that he could not comment on their strategy.
"I thought we had a decent case," the attorney added.
According to Mr. Rice, "I submitted three affidavits in relation to a document that, in my professional opinion, there is evidence of alteration and the signature was authored by someone other than Dr. Linden," the latter reference being to the doctorate which Ms. Linden holds. "It was quite apparent the document was altered."
Mr. Rice added, "She was dating a very powerful man. What's happening here with the judge is, Hell hath no fury like a scorned guy."
When her legal troubles began, Ms. Linden stopped working as a psychologist. She is now co-owner of a company that leases medical equipment and autos.
"In my opinion, this is the worst case of vindictiveness and harassment against this woman that I have ever seen," Mr. Rice said. "Based on all of the correspondence that I've seen, and I've reviewed thousands, this is the ' War of the Roses.' He's got the power to cause her untold grief.
"Everything that she's told me, and from the documents I saw, she's got a big mouth and they are trying to shut her up. It's a scary thing," Mr. Rice added.
Ms. Linden said she was offered a plea bargain before the case went to trial but she declined the offer because it included therapy.
At one time before the trial in 1998, a psychiatric exam determined that she was unfit to stand trial, calling her delusional and paranoid, but a follow-up exam later deemed her mentally competent to proceed with trial.
Mr. Limmer said that from all indications, Ms. Linden will appeal the case, even if on sentencing she gets only probation, which he said is likely.
"She wants to be vindicated," he said.
