JUDE MICHAEL MIRRA - 8 yo (2010) - / Convicted: Mother, Gigi Jordan - New York, NY

A woman suspected of trying to commit suicide after feeding her young son a
 fatal drug overdose in a five-star New York hotel has been named as Gigi
 Jordan, a city socialite.

Ms Jordan, 49, is in a stable condition in hospital after being found slumped
 on the floor of the Peninsula Hotel on Friday. Her son, Jude Michael Mirra,
 was lying on the bed nearby. Prescription medicines and papers were strewn
 about the room, along with an apparent suicide note.

Police spokesman Paul Browne said the case was being treated as
 murder-suicide, and that Ms Jordan, who is of Belgian nationality, had made
 statements implicating herself in the crime. Unconfirmed reports said that
 she was distraught at the break-up of her marriage.

Police said Jordan's relatives contacted them on Friday, after they had
 received an email from Ms Jordan saying she intended to kill her son and
 herself.

They first searched a Donald Trump-owned apartment complex near Central Park
 and then went to the Peninsula, a Beaux Arts building with a rooftop pool
 whose clientele includes celebrity guests.

Ms Jordan is expected to be questioned further about the incident by
 detectives today.

Gigi Jordan just wanted the pain to end - for her, and for her beloved 8-year-old son.
In
a bizarre message intended as a suicide note, the wealthy one-time
pharmaceutical company executive detailed a life of sadness interrupted
by a single ray of hope: her only child, Jude."I hope Jude is in
a better place," the 49-year-old Belgian wrote in the strange two-page
note left in her 16th-floor suite at the posh Peninsula hotel.
At one point, Jordan suggested her son was a rape victim and "in constant pain." She mentioned speaking with a Wyoming child porn investigator about the sexual abuse of kids.Ex-FBI agent Flint Waters "told me many rich people are involved," Jordan wrote. "Many wealthy guys trade child porn like a hobby."
Waters did not return a call Friday night.
Jordan, once president of a New York-based pharmaceutical company, said she mailed a $12 million donation to Doctors Without Borders and $8 million to the Red Cross for Haiti relief before the murder-suicide try.
The remaining $7.5 million in her estate, she wrote, could hopefully "be used for some better purpose in society."Neither
charity had any record of the huge donations. It was possible Jordan
had mailed the checks before checking into the hotel Wednesday night.Jordan sought absolution before signing off."Jesus
said it's a sin to murder," she wrote. "He also said to follow him you
to have to lay down your life for your brother. I hope he understands."

Emil Tzekov, still reeling over his ex-wife's arrest for killing their autistic son, managed just a single tortured question Saturday: Why?
His son was "an angel," the popular yoga trainer said in the driveway of his California home. And Gigi Jordan, his former wife of five years, devoted her life to their precious child.
"She was not a killer," the haunted father said, his eyes welling up
with tears. "I would love to talk to her to have her explain the
reason. ... I cannot understand."
As Tzekov wrestled with the slaying of 8-year-old Jude Mirra,
police charged the 49-year-old Jordan with murder Saturday, accusing
her of feeding the boy a fatal dosage of prescription pills.

This exclusive photo shows father Emil Tzekov, a popular yoga
trainer, holding son Jude alongside his former wife of 5 years Gigi
Jordan during happier times.

The multimillionaire mom was found babbling incoherently near the
boy's body inside a $2,300-a-night suite at The Peninsula, a ritzy
hotel just off Fifth Ave.
Tzekov said his ex-wife quit her lucrative job as a pharmaceutical
executive to raise the boy, who couldn't speak and battled other health
issues.
"She dedicated her life to him, all of it," Tzekov said. "All she had was Jude, and the idea she tried to kill him is shocking."
Tzekov said he last saw the boy in early 2007, before Jordan cut off all contact and disappeared.
"It was distressing," he said. "She blocked my e-mails, her cell phone didn't work."
Friends and family say he tried unsuccessfully to find Jude - even
hiring a private investigator. But he only discovered the boy and his
mother were living in Manhattan after the botched murder-suicide.
"To take a life for no reason, it's just impossible," he said. "She loved him. Always."
Tzekov said Jordan left everything behind for her son.
"We had no nannies," he said. "She could afford them, but she wanted
to do everything herself. She made sure all his food was perfect, that
he was sleeping so many hours. Everything."
It took a terrible toll on Jordan, Tzekov said.
"She left her work, her partnerships, her social life," he added.
"She used to go to business dinners and go shopping. But she stopped
all that to take care of Jude."
Tzekov said the last time he saw Jude was soon after the boy
underwent a complex transplant to try to strengthen his immune system
at Chicago Children's Hospital.
"He was in pain," Tzekov said. "She maybe saw her son dying. Maybe not physically dying, but he was living with pain.
"It wasn't just misbehavior," he said. "It was screaming, something
that the medication tried to help. For some reason, she felt helpless."
Tzekov said he will return to New York
for his son's funeral to see him one last time. "I have to find out why
she did this. I don't understand how she could go to that place."Jordan remained in Bellevue Hospital, recovering from her suicide attempt after the overdose death of her son on the 16th floor of the five-star midtown hotel.
Police said it was unclear if Jordan would be arraigned in her
hospital bed, or whether she would be turned over for a courtroom
appearance. Authorities were also awaiting a search warrant to examine
Jordan's computer.
In a bizarre two-page note left in her barricaded suite, the
one-time businesswoman said the computer contained an explanation for
the bid to kill the boy and herself, police sources said.
Jordan, a native of Belgium, even provided police with the password to her computer.
The would-be suicide note also suggested her son was a sex-abuse victim, and mentioned a former Wyoming child pornography investigator as a confidant.
But Flint Waters, who now works for a Florida
business, declined to address anything about the case or Jordan,
telling the Daily News, "I really don't have any comments for you."
Police responded to the hotel just before noon Friday after a relative in Belgium notified the NYPD that Jordan was sending e-mails about her deadly plans.
The boy, with foam around his mouth, was found faceup on the bed.
The mother spent the night with his body in a room scattered with
hundreds of pills and prescription bottles.
Jordan, who made her fortune in pharmaceuticals, lived with the boy in an apartment at the pricey Trump International Hotel & Towers on Columbus Circle.
In her note, Jordan said Jude's birth in 2001 was the only "true happy moment" in her life.
"He was the only thing that made me feel life was something of beauty, ever."

On February 5th, wealthy pharmaceutical executive Gigi Jordan,
age 49, was found incoherent in the Peninsula Hotel next to the body of
her autistic 8 year old boy. The pair were surrounded by bottles of
pills and documents, according to the New York Post.
The police had been notified to look for her by an aunt from Belgium
who notified authorities afer receiving an email from Jordan
threatening suicide.
Jordan was reportedly distraught over an impending divorce, although
she is single. The child's father, Emil Valentino Tzekov, had not seen
his son in over 2 years, and was not aware of his whereabouts. Mr
Tzekov claims his ex-wife was a "very good mom" according to a report
in the New York Post.
Dr. Michael Conant, who has been a friend of Jordan's for over ten
years, said, "The tragedy [of autism] is that it consumes the mother,
they become absolutely devoted to trying to find a relief for their
child. She went to Duke, clinics across San Diego, consulted with every
expert in the United States, her experience would outstrip everyone in
New York. Trying to find some hope and found the hopelessness that
everyone else faces,” according to DNAinfo.com
While parenting autistic children does not usually result in madness
and death, the stress associated with caring for austistic children is
well known. Kogan et al
determined that families with children who have an autism spectrum
disorder experience more financial, time and employment stress compared
with families with other developmentally delayed children. In
addition, parents of autistic children were more likely to reduce or
stop work, spend more than 10 hours per week coordinating care than
parents with other developmentally delayed children.
The conventional wisdom that mothers of autistic children are
emotionally distant from their children, and that this causes the
diseae, is simply not true. Montes and colleague
found that mothers of autisitic children possessed high marks in the
categories of mother child relationship, social support, and household
stability in a high stress and poorer mental health setting.
Jordan was over 40 when her son was born. Older parents are far more likely to have children with autism than younger parents. The reason for this is not entirely clear.

Gigi Jordan quit a high-powered job as a pharmaceutical company
executive and abandoned her social life to devote all her time to her
severely autistic son.
For most of his tortured life, Jude Michael Mirra repeatedly banged
his head on the floor, screaming and unable to speak, writhing in pain.
His mother, trained as a nurse, went to exhaustive lengths to help the
8-year-old, desperate for a cure.

But nothing worked. Her only child is dead now — by her own hands, according to police.

After years of struggling — with his autism and her inability to
help him — Gigi Jordan gave up. To those who knew her, she was a
loving, overprotective single mother who snapped under incredible
strain. To prosecutors, she was a killer.

Jordan, 49, twice-divorced and living in New York, brought her only
child to the Peninsula Hotel on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Feb. 3. She
paid cash for two nights in a $2,300-a-night suite. After posting a "Do
Not Disturb" sign on the door, she double-locked it and jammed it with
a chair.

Inside, prosecutors say she fed Jude a fatal overdose of various
prescription drugs and took pills herself. Two days later, police
alerted by a concerned relative burst in and found her semiconscious on
the floor, "babbling incoherently," with a faint pulse. Her son lay
dead in his pajamas, face up on the bed.

Hundreds of prescription pills were strewn around the bedroom, police said.

In what was meant to be a suicide note, Jordan suggested she was
driven by mercy: Jude was "in constant pain," she wrote. "I hope Jude
is in a better place." A person familiar with the investigation who
wasn't authorized to release the note publicly spoke of it to The
Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

As an ambulance rushed her to an emergency room, she asked for an attorney.

From the jail ward of a Queens hospital, Jordan was arraigned via
video link on Feb. 16 on charges of second-degree murder. She pleaded
not guilty.

Her attorney, Gerald Shargel, told the court there was a "very
viable psychiatric defense" for Jordan, saying she shouldn't be held
criminally responsible for her son's death because of her mental state.
He declined to elaborate.

"This is one of the saddest cases I've ever seen," Shargel said outside the courthouse.

Assistant District Attorney Kerry O'Connell argued that Jude's death
"was completely premeditated." She cited Jordan's "articulate" written
explanation for what she did, a document which "took her obviously a
long time."

A dermatologist and longtime friend, Dr. Marcus Conant, said Jordan
confided in him as she tried desperately to fight Jude's autism.

Her life became "an obsession with her inability to help the child
she loved. It literally drove her crazy," said Conant, who couldn't
imagine her ever harming the child. She was "brilliant," Conant said,
going to "incredible ends," studying the latest medical literature and
consulting with leading experts.

That obsession with finding a cure even drove her to Children's
Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where Jude underwent a rare umbilical
cord blood stem-cell transplant on April 30, 2007. It didn't work.
Jude's pain and screams persisted.

About one in 110 U.S. children have autism, a spectrum of
neurological disorders that affect communication and social
interaction. While there are no medications that can cure autism,
studies show that early identification and intervention can improve
long-term outcomes.

With her wealth, Jordan could have hired expert care for the boy but
"we had no nannies," Jude's father, Emil Tzekov, told the New York
Daily News. "She could afford them, but she wanted to do everything
herself. She made sure all his food was perfect, that he was sleeping
so many hours. Everything."

At one point, she considered sending him to a school for autistic children in California.

Instead, Jordan moved, Conant said.

"Perhaps she was overprotective," he added, not fully entrusting her son to anyone.

"She was looking for a cure, for a miracle," said Conant.

Jordan was convinced two years ago that members of a
devil-worshipping cult were violently abusing the boy. She sought out a
Wyoming sex-crimes investigator she saw on television, Flint Waters,
and brought the child to see him — even though Wyoming authorities had
discouraged her visit.

Cheyenne police detective Tom Hood said authorities placed her in
emergency detention there for a psychiatric evaluation "to make sure
she was not a danger to her son, herself or other people." When she was
determined to be no threat, Hood said, she was reunited with her son.

Autistic children often "cannot express pain or discomfort through
speech," says Dr. Timothy Buie, an autism expert at Harvard Medical
School who works at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital for
Children. Many suffer a sensory processing disorder, Buie said, so that
even an earache or an upset stomach "is profoundly magnified." They
communicate distress by screaming, head-banging, even harming
themselves, he said.

"Some people can't stand a child who cries for an hour," said
Conant. "Can you imagine living with a child who's been screaming for
eight years?"

Some parents of autistic children who try everything and still fail
to improve their child's condition reach a breaking point, said Cammie
McGovern, an Amherst, Mass., author with a 13-year-old autistic son.
Some take their distress to the extreme, she said, ending their child's
life and taking their own.

That was Jordan's goal, police said.

"It's so lonely to love a child who is unable to express that back,"
said McGovern, whose novel "Eye Contact" examines the relationship
between a mother and an autistic son.

"You are driven to the loneliest place on earth, facing what feels
like a failure with a child you haven't saved — and you've believed
with all your heart that if you worked hard enough you could," said
McGovern.

Conant, who said he never thought Jordan could hurt Jude, believes
her obsession was "a control issue, the feeling that she would be the
one to save that child, almost a salvation quest."

He said he met Jordan 15 years ago through pharmaceutical industry
mogul Raymond A. Mirra Jr., managing member of the RAM Capital Group
and other health care ventures. Jordan and Mirra, whom she married in
1998, amassed a fortune running their companies.

While still married to Mirra, Jordan became pregnant by Tzekov, a
Bulgarian-born yoga instructor in Santa Barbara, Calif. Mirra adopted
the baby, promising him financial security and in return, Tzekov signed
away custody rights.

Jordan divorced Mirra in November 2001, according to public records in Nevada.

Six days later, she married Tzekov. A photo from that time shows a
happy threesome, with a curly-haired, smiling Jude sitting between his
smiling mother and beaming, handsome father.

But in 2005, Jordan and Tzekov divorced, and by 2007, she forbade him from seeing Jude.

Tzekov's next contact with his son was in a Manhattan morgue.

When he heard about his death, Tzekov was stunned.

"I cannot understand," he told the News, his eyes welling with tears. "Gigi was a loving mother. She was not a killer."

They're the ravings of a madwoman.A Manhattan mom
gripped by paranoid delusions insisted in a would-be suicide note that
she killed her autistic son to save the 8-year-old from sexual abuse by
his dad and stepdad.Both men denied her wild, unfounded
allegations and cops dismissed them - but they provide a window into the
mind of Gigi Jordan and
a warped motive for the Feb. 5 slaying of son Jude Mirra."He
... told me he was raped every day, sometimes more than once a day,"
Jordan wrote in rambling 20-page missive made public in court Friday.
"You could see the pain."She described the boy - who couldn't
speak - recounting bizarre sexual scenes from the past, "and believe me
you don't want to hear it," she wrote."How long could you watch
your child ... knowing the abusers might take him again and do more of
this to him."The manic note also included unsubstantiated charges
that her ex-husband used the boy in pornographic movies and menaced her
to the point where she feared for her life."I feel his final
revenge will be to kill [m]e and use Jude in the sex trade," the
49-year-old multimillionaire wrote.The boy's biological father, Emil Tzekov,
and Jordan's ex-husband Raymond Mirra
were appalled by the rantings they dismissed as irrational and false."It's
clear to me now that she was totally insane. It doesn't make any
sense," Tzekov said. "It's so scary that Jude was with her when she was
like this."The police, they know better. They talked to me
afterward. They know it's not true."A pair of NYPD
sources echoed Tzekov, saying there was no proof of molestation.Mirra's
lawyer, Patrick Eagen,
said there was "no factual basis for any of this. It's disturbing, and
completely denied."Jordan survived her suicide attempt inside a
$2,300-a-night suite at a tony Fifth Ave. hotel after she had fed her
boy an overdose of prescription pills.

More than a year before she allegedly murdered her son with an
overdose of pills, millionaire Gigi Jordan was
diagnosed with Munchausen by proxy syndrome for "medical abuse" of the
boy, prosecutors revealed Friday.The mental illness causes
parents to invent ailments for a young child or make them sick - and
then seek treatment for then."Professionals have diagnosed her as
[having] Munchausen syndrome by proxy," Assistant
District Attorney Kerry O'Connell said in court."She was
seeking unnecessary treatment of her child," O'Connell said, adding that
hospital staffers saw that as "medical abuse."She provided no
other details, including what illness Jordan claimed afflicted
8-year-old Jude Mirra, who
was also autistic.The discussion came up during a hearing on
whether Jordan should be released on $5 million bail from a hospital
jail ward and sent to a psychiatric hospital or allowed to live in her Trump
International condo under 24-hour guard.Prosecutors said
that aside from the Munchausen's diagnosis in 2008, "we don't have any
idea what her mental illness is.""You're being asked to buy a pig
in a poke," O'Connell told Manhattan
Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon.Defense lawyer Gerald Shargel
says a psychiatric report from Elmhurst
Hospital, where Jordan is being held, isn't ready yet.But he
says the fact that she tried to commit suicide when she killed her son
Feb. 5 at the Peninsula hotel is proof she's sick in the head.He
dismissed the prosecution's claim of a Munchausen diagnosis, but
acknowledged that his client "traveled through this country from
hospital to hospital" hoping to find a cure for autism.Outside
court, Shargel said that during an involuntary mental-ward commitment in
Wyoming
in 2008, his client was initially found to be suffering from the
syndrome - but then it was withdrawn."That diagnosis wasn't
found, she was released." he said, adding that prosecutors "are cherry
picking the medical records."

The millionaire mom accused of killing her autistic son in a Midtown hotel
was denied bail Friday.
A Manhattan judge refused to let Gigi Jordan put up $5 million cash bail to live
under house arrest in her luxurious W. 77th St. brownstone.
Jordan, 49, has been on suicide watch in the jail ward at Elmhurst Hospital since Feb. 5, when cops busted
into a hotel suite and found her 8-year-old boy, Jude, dead from a pill
overdose.
"I find that no amount of bail is sufficient to insure defendant's return to
court," Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon
wrote in his decision.
"In the court's opinion, the risk of defendant's flight is extremely high."
He cited the harsh sentence - 25 years to life - Jordan faces if convicted and
her "mental condition as evidenced by her bizarre behavior over the last few
years."
He said that March 2008 Jordan was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric
ward in Cheyenne, Wyo., where she told doctors she and her
son had been "on the run" for months and that he'd had been sexually tortured by
a Satanic cult.
The judge also noted that Jordan told New
York cops her son had been "sexually, mentally and physically abused by
someone her ex-husband hired and that she wanted to kill herself and her
son."
In addition, he said her "vast" financial resources made it impossible for
him to release her. Jordan, a former pharmaceutical executive, is worth an
estimated $40 million, including an upper West Side townhouse and three
apartments at the Trump International Hotel and Tower.
Prosecutors allege that Jordan medically abused the boy before killing him by
traveling around the country for years in search of a cure for his autism.
Jordan's lawyer, Gerald Shargel, agreed Jordan needs psychiatric
treatment.
He says she took the boy to specialists across the country out of her love
for him.

Dershowitz advising mom charged in son's NYC death


(AP) – 1 day ago
NEW YORK (AP) — Harvard University law professor and celebrity defense attorney Alan Dershowitz is advising a former pharmaceutical executive charged with killing her autistic 8-year-old son in a New York luxury hotel.
Dershowitz joined Gigi Jordan and her other lawyers at a court appearance Tuesday. Attorney Ron Kuby says Dershowitz was there as a "constitutional consultant." The lawyers won't elaborate on his role.
Jordan has pleaded not guilty to murder in son Jude Mirra's February 2010 death.
Authorities say she wrote a letter saying she planned to kill herself and her son. They say she gave him a deadly overdose of prescription pills and apparently took some herself.
Dershowitz' clients have included Mike Tyson and O.J. Simpson.
Jordan made a fortune in the drug industry before leaving it to devote herself to her son.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkJatuhGxjC0c0E9Jx-hHvO1UWwQ?docId=8175fc0017e5451aa5ac6798c83e0aeb

Still No Trial For Socialite Gigi Jordan, Accused Of Killing Her Autistic Son


June 1, 2011


NEW YORK (WCBS 880) - Fifteen months after a socialite was accused of murdering her 8-year-old autistic son in Manhattan’s Peninsula Hotel, she still has no trial date.
Judge Charles Solomon voiced a suspicion that Gigi Jordan’s frequent change of attorney is all about delay.
The latest team of three has not even revealed whether they plan an insanity defense or not.
Attorney Ron Kuby told the judge that the new team consists of himself, a lead attorney from Washington, and star attorney Alan Dershowitz.
The movie “Reversal of Fortune” was based on Dershowitz and his successful appeal in the case of Claus von Bülow, who’d been convicted of attempting to murder his socialite wife Sunny – who survived in a coma for 28 years.
Judge Solomon informed Kuby that he just wants to set a trial date for Jordan without working around the schedule of the famous Dershowitz.
Kuby told the judge not to worry because Dershowitz would just be there for cameo appearances.
The judge seemed less than thrilled.
Jordan is accused of feeding her son an overdose of prescription pills.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/06/01/still-no-trial-for-socialite-gigi-jordan-accused-of-killing-her-autistic-son/

MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — The only blood sample taken from Gigi
Jordan the day she allegedly murdered her child before trying to kill
herself with a drug overdose has gone missing, prosecutors informed her
lawyers in a letter last week.
The sample, one millimeter of Jordan's blood in a vial taken Feb. 5, 2010 during her treatment
at Bellevue Hospital, had been held by the hospital pending her trial,
prosecutors said in the letter sent to Jordan's attorneys on Friday.
"It has come to our attention that Ms. Jordan’s blood, which had been
continuously stored at Bellevue Hospital, cannot be found," Assistant
District Attorney Kerry O'Connell wrote in the letter.
Prosecutors said the sample went missing because of a series of delays caused by Jordan's replacement of various lawyers.
Jordan, a wealthy former pharmaceutical
executive, allegedly forced an overdose on her 8-year-old autistic son,
then pretended to try to drug herself to death, prosecutors say. They
say she was aware of the number of pills it would have taken to kill
herself and took took less than the required amount.
But Jordan's attorney, Ronald Kuby, blasted prosecutors for misplacing a
key piece of evidence that was the only scientific way to prove whether
Jordan, 50, had real intentions of committing suicide.
"There has been a series of disastrous episodes of misconduct with respect to this blood sample," Kuby said.
They also should have gotten a court order to take a sample of blood from
Jordan that night to be used specifically for testing in her criminal
trial, but because they failed to do so, all that was left was a
residual amount of blood left from her medical treatment, he said.
Prosecutors said they did not have a
vial of blood drawn for the criminal case because there was no basis for
a court order at the time.
Kuby said he and the rest of Jordan's
legal team plan to make an issue of the missing piece of evidence if the
case goes to trial.
"Certainly we would seek to show the jury the
sloppy way this evidence was dealt with and the various lies told by
the prosecution with respect to it," Kuby said.
Jordan is accused of killing her son, Jude Michael Mirra, at the Peninsula Hotel last
year. She penned letters prior to the incident expressing her fears that
she was being targeted for death and that the boy would face a life of abuse and torture at her ex-husband's hands.
Her lawyers have suggested they will argue a psychatric defense when the case goes to trial.
Jordan is due back in court Aug. 11.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20110801/midtown/prosecutors-lose-key-blood-sample-gigi-jordan-murder-case#ixzz1Tq9ZUTbZ

Mom charged in death of son to stay jailed

Thursday, August 11, 2011

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Gigi Jordan, the multimillionaire mother charged with killing her 8-year-old son desperately wants to tell her story, her attorneys say, but while Ron Kuby and Alan Dershowitz can't say if she will testify, they are hoping to present a defense rarely used.

"As a mother who loved her child she engaged in what is called altruistic suicide filicide," said defense attorney Alan Dershowitz.

Little Jude Mirra, who was autistic, was found lifeless in a posh suite at the Penninsula Hotel back in February of 2010. His mother says she had then tried to commit suicide.
"She inevitably had to choose between horrible evils, that is a lifetime of abuse of her son or painless death," Dershowitz said.
She reportedly felt justified in killing Jude to save him from people she feared.

"A mother who loved her child was forced by desperate circumstances into a situation of choosing what she regarded as a lesser evil," Dershowitz said.

"This woman knew exactly what she was doing, and she was acting in the greater good for this child. Do I think it will fly? Absolutely not," said legal expert David Schwartz.

Schwartz, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn and now a defense counsel, not with this case, also believes it's not been used without an insanity defense. And Jordan's attorneys say she is sane.

"She has a mild neurosis. There is absolutely no thought disorder," said Defense Attorney Ron Kuby.

The judge though will decide whether that defense is allowed.

Not so Gigi Jordan learned when the judge decided she will not be released on bail after spending 18 months in jail since the murder. Her attorney's offered 24-hour in-home armed guards and a six-million-dollar bail and bond package to no avail.

"He obviously wants to keep Ms. Jordan in jail. He thinks it's appropriate that she should start to serve her sentence now. And he intends to keep her in jail," said Kuby.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8301801

At murder hearing, animosity between lawyers takes center stage
9/19/2011
NEW YORK, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The last time Kerry O'Connell, an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, had a conversation with Ron Kuby was more than a month ago.

Under normal circumstances, that might not be remarkable. But O'Connell is in the middle of prosecuting the socialite Gigi Jordan for allegedly killing her autistic 8-year-old son at the Peninsula Hotel in February 2010. Kuby, along with famed Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, is defending Jordan against the charge.

Over 20 months of litigation, which has been heated enough on its own, relations between the prosecution and the defense have soured so extensively that they may start to overshadow the case itself.

There have been spats over unauthorized phone recordings and missing blood evidence, and even some good old-fashioned name-calling. In state Supreme Court in Manhattan on Friday, Kuby and O'Connell traded barbs, calling each other "childish."

But it was an impolitic email from the outspoken Kuby -- a longtime criminal-defense lawyer and radio talk-show host -- that apparently led to O'Connell's decision, expressed last month in court, to cease all off-the-record communication with the defense team. "Off-the-record" refers to anything other than communication during court hearings and written letters that are copied to the judge.

This sparked a fresh round of theatrics Friday, as Dershowitz argued to Justice Charles Solomon that O'Connell's refusal to speak to the defense constituted a violation of his client's right to equal protection.

According to Dershowitz, O'Connell's decision could hinder his ability to hire additional lawyers to defend Jordan, since he would be forced to explain to prospective counsel that they would have no opportunity to confer with the district attorney's office.

"It's a right that every defendant in the state of New York except Gigi Jordan has," Dershowitz said.

But Solomon disagreed. "I won't order a prosecutor to speak to any lawyer off the record," he said. "Why does she have to speak to you outside of the courtroom?"

Monroe Freedman, a professor at Hofstra Law School who specializes in legal ethics, said he could not recall another high-profile case where defense lawyers and prosecutors stopped talking.

The office would not comment on the issue Friday. The two sides are still able to communicate through written correspondence filed with the court.

'YOU KNOW WHAT'S CHILDISH?'

While O'Connell will not say why she stopped speaking with the defense, Kuby said it was likely because of a "snotty" email he sent after he learned that a blood sample taken from Jordan had apparently disappeared from Bellevue Hospital Center. Defense lawyers and prosecutors had spent months debating how to test the sample.

Certainly it was clear to observers in court that there is little love lost between the two sides. O'Connell frequently shook her head during Kuby and Dershowitz's lengthy discourses.

At one point, Kuby complained that he couldn't hear O'Connell. "The only worse thing than not being able to speak to her is not being able to hear her," he said to Solomon.

O'Connell responded by telling Solomon that Kuby's behavior was "childish."

"You know what's childish?" Kuby retorted, before criticizing her for waiting until Friday to file a response to his discovery motion regarding the blood.

Despite the rancor, Solomon did manage to make some progress in the case, denying a defense motion to suppress any recorded phone conversations Jordan made from Rikers Island jail, where she is currently being held without bail.

Kuby said the defense would appeal the decision.

Jordan has been accused of killing her son by feeding him prescription pills. Her lawyers plan to argue that the killing was justified to protect him from sexual abuse at the hands of his father.

The next court date in the case is scheduled for Oct. 21.

http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2011/09_-_September/At_murder_hearing,_animosity_between_lawyers_takes_center_stage/

http://www.thetriallawyermagazine.com/blog/viewtag/557

Tag: Gigi Jordan

Andrew Findley Blog

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2011.12.27 21:32:42 Animosity Between Lawyers in Murder Case Won’t Be Fixed by Judge

Andrew Findley Thomson Reuters, December 23, 2011 NEW YORK, Dec 23 (Reuters) - Faced with lawyers who simply won't play nice, a judge on Friday ruled that he cannot force prosecutors to speak with defense lawyers for accused murderer Gigi Jordan outside the courtroom if they choose not to do so. Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Kerry O'Connell, who is leading the prosecution against Jordan for allegedly killing her autistic 8-year-old son at a hotel in February 2010, has refused to communicate "off the record" with defense lawyers Ron Kuby and Alan Dershowitz since late summer. In practice, that means the two sides only can discuss the case through written letters -- with copies to Acting State Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon -- or in court, with the judge acting as a mediator. The lawyers haven't spoken outside the courtroom or emailed each other for months.

http://articles.boston.com/2012-02-03/news/31022352_1_jude-mirra-gigi-jordan-rikers-island-jail

Mom charged in NY death fights jail call recording
A pharmaceuticals multimillionaire charged with murdering her autistic 8-year-old son at a hotel has lost a bid to stop jail officials from recording her phone calls and turning them over to prosecutors.

Phones at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex have signs and play messages warning inmates that their calls can be monitored and recorded. But lawyers for Gigi Jordan, who’s been held without bail since her son’s February 2010 prescription drug overdose death, argue that jail officials have no authority to record calls without a warrant because city Department of Correction regulations mention only listening and monitoring, not recording.

While inmates’ calls to lawyers are off-limits, Jordan’s attorneys say recording her conversations with friends and relatives invades her privacy and prosecutors could mine the calls for insights that could give them an advantage at a future trial. Jordan, who was found incoherent alongside her dead son in a luxury Manhattan hotel suite, acknowledges killing him but says she was justified in ending his life and trying to kill herself to save them both from people she feared were after them.

“(Prosecutors) can find out everything about her sex life, about her attitude toward her mother, about everything they want to find out. There’s no basis for that in law,’’ one of her attorneys, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, said at a civil court hearing Friday.

Jordan, who’s from Belgium, made a fortune as a pharmaceutical company executive before quitting her work to dedicate herself to her severely autistic son, Jude Mirra. She sued jail officials and prosecutors in civil court after the judge in her criminal case said that she’d implicitly consented to the recording by using the phone but added that criminal court wasn’t the right place for a broader argument about the legality of the recording.

The Department of Correction notes that other courts have said prisons can record inmates’ calls, and the agency says Correction Board members’ comments during a November 2007 hearing made it clear that they understood “monitoring’’ to entail recording, since it would otherwise be impossible to keep tabs on roughly 13,000 inmates’ calls.

“This argument is sublimely frivolous, to suggest that the Board of Correction didn’t intend the Department of Correction to be able to record 13,000 inmates a day for security purposes,’’ city lawyer Martin Bowe said at Friday’s hearing.

The jail agency and the Manhattan district attorney’s office also argued that the civil court judge couldn’t rule on an issue a criminal court peer had already decided. The civil court judge, state Supreme Court Justice Anil C. Singh, agreed and added that while “the regulation does not expressly authorize the recordings,’’ the agency has to be “given deference’’ to interpret its own rules.

Jordan plans to appeal, said her lawyers, Dershowitz and Ronald Kuby.

Wealthy woman accused of killing her disabled son adds two more lawyers to legal team
Norman Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Earl Ward, a prominent criminal and civil rights trial attorney, will also be representing Gigi Jordan, who allegedly killed her 8-year-old autistic son in 2010.
BY SHAYNA JACOBS NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Friday, March 21, 2014, 3:58 PM

The legal “dream team” for a wealthy woman accused of giving a fatal pill overdose to her disabled son has added two civil rights experts.
Norman Siegel, the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Earl Ward, a prominent criminal and civil rights trial attorney, officially signed on to the case Wednesday when they filed notices in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Gigi Jordan was arrested on Feb. 5, 2010 after her 8-year-old autistic son Jude Michael Mirra was discovered unresponsive in a $2,300-a-night suite at the Peninsula Hotel.
Siegel told the Daily News there are “compelling circumstances” that are part of Jordan's defense. The case has been marred with litigation and delays for over four years and there is no firm trial date in sight.


Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/wealthy-woman-accused-killing-disabled-son-adds-lawyers-legal-team-article-1.1729710#ixzz2zXCDS65W

Mother charged with murdering 8-year-old autistic son transferred $125,000 out of his trust fund after death: prosecutors 

Gigi Jordan, 54, allegedly left "fresh bruises" on her son, Jude Michael Mirra, after she stabbed him with a syringe filled with a deadly cocktail inside the five-star Peninsula Hotel in February 2010.

BY Shayna Jacobs

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 2:22 PM
Updated: Wednesday, September 10, 2014, 5:10 PM



Gigi Jordan, charged with killing her child in a Midtown hotel, is seen with defense lawyer Norman Siegel on Wednesday, the first day of her trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.

Wealthy pharmaceutical exec Gigi Jordan left “fresh bruises” on her doomed 8-year-old autistic son after plunging a syringe filled with a deadly cocktail into the boy, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Jordan’s deadly act was “chilling and horrifying scenario” in which the non-verbal child, Jude Michael Mirra, slipped into a slow death with gradual organ failure inside a posh Manhattan hotel room, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos argued in his opening statement.

The prosecutor told a rapt jury how little Jude slowly succumbed to the pills over several hours on Feb. 5, 2010 inside the five-star Peninsula Hotel.

“In that room were the instruments of death, not just the pills ... but a pill crusher and syringe... the kind you use to force liquids down someone’s throat," Bogdanos said during the opening statements of the long-awaited trial.

“Next to the bed were an empty bottle of Grey Goose vodka and a glass that had some of this poisonous concoction in it, the same poisonous concoction that was found in the syringe, the same poisonous concoction that killed him,” Bogdanos said.

In the boy’s stomach were “four undissolved pills,” an indication that he was still conscious when he was forced to take them, the prosecutor added.

And there were unsettling signs of physical abuse — “fresh bruises” on the child’s body that were identified by the medical examiner.

“The evidence will tell you she got on top of him … using enough force. And then she took that syringe and she pressed the plunger and emptied the poison into his body,” the animated attorney said.

It took “hours” for the life to drain out of the boy with his mother in the high-priced hotel room beside him.

Jordan even suspiciously handled her finances, Bogdanos said — going her laptop to transfer $125,000 from his trust fund to her account through her adviser — as the young boy died in the room with her.

AP Jordan’s defense lawyers argue she killed her son, Jude Michael Mirra, to save him from sex abuse by his father.

“Clearly he would not be needing it anymore,” Bogdanos said of the money.

Jordan, 54, is charged with murder.

Jordan’s defense team argues she tried to end her own life while saving his, that she had been convinced that she was going to be killed by her ex-husband, Ray Mirra, while her son’s biological father, Emil Tzekov, subjected him to a life of sexual abuse.

“She brought him the peace she couldn’t give him during his life. She protected him from the animals that she couldn’t keep from his door before then,” argued on of her attorneys Allan Brenner.

“So she sits here forever broken-hearted, stranded here,” he added.

Testimony in the trial, that’s expected to last into November, began Wednesday afternoon.

Jordan faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The trial is before Justice Charles Solomon.



http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/mother-charged-murdering-son-125-000-fund-article-1.1934985#ixzz3CxhRyFAr

Star pathologist testifies in defense of woman accused of killing autistic son

Renowned pathologist Werner Spitz — who appeared in the O.J. Simpson civil trial and Casey Anthony's case — said the bruises on the body of Gigi Jordan's son were consistent with someone trying to administer CPR. Prosecutors argued that the mom pinched her son's nose, grabbed his jaw and jabbed her elbow into his chest while forcing a deadly cocktail of drugs down his throat.

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, September 29, 2014, 9:06 PM

A star pathologist testifying for Gigi Jordan cast doubt Monday on the prosecution's scenario in which she administered a deadly cocktail of drugs to her 8-year-old autistic son.

Prosecutors have argued Jordan pinched her son's nose, grabbed his jaw and jabbed her elbow into his chest while pushing a plunger full of crushed pills down his throat.

But renowned pathologist Werner Spitz, viewing graphic photos of the body, said the bruises on the nose were “very superficial” and that the chest bruise was not from the point of an elbow.

Rather, Spitz said, the injuries were consistent with someone trying to administer CPR to revive the boy. He also said the boy's body showed signs of prolonged sexual abuse by a male -- a long-held claim of Jordan's never confirmed by authorities.

District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos noted that Spitz's fee is $5,000 per day when testifying on behalf of the defense. Spitz previously testified in the O.J. Simpson civil trial, Casey Anthony's case and the California “Night Stalker” trial of Richard Ramirez in the 1980s.

Jordan's attorney Allan Brenner even got Spitz, 88, to hold his own nose with one hand, his jaw with the other and then attempt to grab a plunger.

“I have no hand to hold the syringe,” Spitz said.

Brenner then asked, much to the judge's consternation: “In your review of this case did you come across any record of someone with three hands?”

"Overruled," Justice Charles Solomon said.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/star-pathologist-testifies-woman-accused-killing-autistic-son-article-1.1957353

New York socialite guilty of manslaughter in death of autistic son




Gigi Jordan appearing in State Supreme Court in Manhattan in August 2011. She is charged with the murder of her 8-year-old son.  



NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) - A wealthy New York socialite accused of killing her 8-year-old autistic son in a posh Manhattan hotel room was found guilty of first-degree manslaughter on Wednesday, said prosecutors, who had sought a second-degree murder conviction.

Gigi Jordan, a self-made millionaire and former pharmaceutical executive, faces a sentence of up to 25 years for the 2010 poisoning death of son, Jude Mirra.

"Gigi Jordan showed no mercy to her son, and should receive none at the time of her sentencing," Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement.

Lawyers for Jordan said they would appeal her conviction but praised the jury's verdict on the murder count.

"We said from the beginning that this was not a murder case, because there were extensive and horrific extenuating circumstances," said Norman Siegel, one of her lawyers. "I think the jury got it."

Jordan was accused of overdosing Mirra with prescription pills at New York City's Peninsula Hotel. She said she acted was out of love and the fear that her son would be tortured and sexually abused if he continued to live.

Jordan's defense team, which included Ron Kuby, an outspoken civil rights attorney and radio-show host, argued that although the boy had difficulty expressing himself he indicated that he was being sexually abused and tortured by his biological father, Emil Tzekov.

Tzekov, a yoga instructor who became Jordan's second ex-husband, has denied the accusations.

Jordan's lawyers said she was afraid that her first husband, Philadelphia businessman Raymond Mirra Jr., planned to have her killed or institutionalized, and that Tzekov would gain custody of her son.

Prosecutors argued that Jordan carefully planned the death of her son after traveling the country to find a cure for his autism. They said that Jordan killed her son because she could not accept that he was disabled and she could not fix his medical condition.

No sentencing date has been set for Jordan.


www.reuters.com/.../us-usa-new-york-autistic-idUSKBN0IP24O2...