In a stinging rebuke to the Bloomberg administration, a federal judge yesterday appointed retired Manhattan DA Robert Morgenthau — who publicly sparred with Hizzoner last year over $83 million in forfeiture funds — to force the city to fix past hiring discrimination by the FDNY.
Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis blasted the city’s stall tactics on his orders to increase the number of black and Hispanic firefighters on the force and devise a new, non-exclusionary FDNY exam.
“For whatever reason — inertia, resource allocation or calculated strategy — the city has been dragging its feet throughout the remedial phase,” Garaufis wrote.
“The city does not appear to understand that it already lost this case, and that its obligation now is not to fight tooth and nail against the possibility of change, but to move with alacrity to cure its illegal practices. Put bluntly, the constitutional rights of thousands of citizens are at stake.”
Garaufis ruled in January that the city must give 300 applicants priority hiring status and retroactive seniority, and compensate 7,400 more who took the tests, because the FDNY exam used from 1999 to 2002 was unfair to black and Hispanic applicants.
In naming Morgenthau, Garaufis ignored other potential candidates submitted by both sides.
Morgenthau said he was “honored” by the appointment. “I look forward to working with the parties to facilitate their carrying out the relief ordered by the court,” he said.
Morgenthau, 90, who retired on Jan. 1 after 35 years as DA, is considered the dean of American law enforcement. But his appointment will nonetheless be a bitter pill for the mayor to swallow.
Mayor Bloomberg and Morgenthau engaged in a public spat last year over $83 million in forfeiture funds that the former DA had collected.
Bloomberg accused the prosecutor of having “two sets of books” and giving money to the state that should have gone to the city.
The former DA had bristled at the accusations, insisting that the charge was “chickens- – .”