Ron Kuby - Notable Cases

Notable Cases

Kuby, with Kunstler, represented Gregory Lee Johnson, a protester who burned a U.S. Flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention; Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric who headed the Egyptian-based militant group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, accused of planning and encouraging terrorist attacks against Americans; Colin Ferguson, the man responsible for the 1993 LIRR shootings (who chose to represent himself at trial); Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, accused of plotting to murder Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam; Glenn Harris, a New York public school teacher who absconded with a fifteen year-old girl for two months; Darrell Cabey, a youth who was acquitted of assault on Bernard Goetz and successfully sued him for shooting Cabey; Yu Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army; and associates of the Gambino Crime Family. During the Gulf War, they represented American soldiers claiming conscientious objector status. They also represented El Sayyid Nosair, assassin of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whom Kuby's father had admired.

After Kunstler's death, Kuby continued the work of his late mentor. In 1996, he won a judgment of forty three million dollars for Darrell Cabey against Bernhard Goetz. He also won nearly a million dollars for members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, who were wrongfully arrested by the New York City Police Department. He won the 2001 release of two men imprisoned 13 years for a murder they did not commit, winning a judgment of 3.3 million dollars for the pair. He secured a reversal of a murder conviction for a mentally ill homeless man whose candle accidentally caused the death of a firefighter. In 2005, Kuby won close to a million dollars for another wrongfully convicted man who spent eight years in prison.

In 2006, Kuby was subpoenaed by the defense to testify at the second trial of John A. Gotti, the son of Gambino crime family leader John Gotti, which included the charges for the kidnapping and attempted murder of Kuby's then on-air co-host Curtis Sliwa. Kuby testified that in a 1998 conversation, Gotti said he had wanted to leave organized crime. "He told me he was sick of this life", Kuby told the court. "He wanted to rejoin his family and be done with this." Sliwa reacted angrily to his longtime co-host's testimony for the defense, calling him a "Judas", though Kuby claimed he was following the law by answering a subpoena to testify.

In April 2009 Kuby spoke about the capture of Abduhl Wal-i-Musi, a Somali teenager apprehended during the rescue of Richard Phillips, the Captain of the MV Maersk Alabama -- a freighter briefly captured by Somali pirates. Kuby said he was discussing organizing a team to defend Wal-i-Musi, suggesting he was invalidly captured while immunized by a flag of truce.

In September 2009 Kuby appeared on behalf of Ahmad Wais Afzali, an imam accused of lying to authorities in a terrorism related case. Afzali had told Najibullah Zazi that authorities were asking questions about him. Kuby mocked the charges against Zazi as internally inconsistent, and the very idea that Afzali would deny having a conversation that he knew had been taped. Kuby won Afzali's release on bail, and negotiated a plea bargain to a reduced charge of lying to agents, with deportation in lieu of imprisonment.

Kuby currently leads the Law Office of Ronald L. Kuby in Manhattan.