Daily News, January 31, 2007
HEADLINE: NORMAN WOULDN'T SUPPORT MY BID, SAYS JUDGE
A JUDGE WHO rose to surrogate by crusading against Brooklyn's Democratic machine took the stand against ex-party boss Clarence Norman yesterday, telling jurors he had refused to support her 2002 Civil Court bid.
Surrogate Margarita Lopez Torres, a former Legal Aid attorney, was backed by the Brooklyn Democratic Party when she was first elected a Civil Court judge in 1992.
But her supporters have said she fell into the party's disfavor when she refused to hire a law secretary demanded by Assemblyman Vito Lopez, now the Brooklyn party chairman. Prosecutors were barred from asking her about that inci-dent.
When she sought Norman's backing for her 2002 reelection campaign, he refused, she said.
"The endorsement of the party is critical. They have tremendous power. They can make or break you," Lopez Tor-res said of her attempts to get Norman's backing.
Her failure to get his support led her to run as a reformer.
Norman is on trial for allegedly forcing two other 2002 candidates, Karen Yellen and Marcia Sikowitz, to pay fa-vored vendors in exchange for his support.
Lopez Torres testified that Norman, then the local Democratic leader, didn't care about her credentials or status as an accomplished Latina jurist.
His aide, Jeffrey Feldman, instead told her he didn't like her "lifestyle," she said.
But defense lawyer Anthony Ricco suggested the party couldn't have been omnipotent because Lopez Torres and another rebel candidate beat Yellen and Sikowitz. nkatz@nydailynews.com
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