Bloomberg: Crime Stat Manipulations are "Tiny"
Palin: "Absurd" Not To Consider 2012 Run
School Already Canceled Tomorrow for Snowpocalypse!
Wall Street Throwing More Money at Republicans
More Bald Eagles Spotted In Harlem!
The idea of convicted murderer Joel Steinberg going free has sent the NYC press into a frenzy, with the Daily News going as far as editorializing what New Yorkers should do when they see Steinberg on the cover. Steinberg became a symbol of horror when his 6 year-old adopted daugther, Lisa, was found viciously beaten, in the squalor of his Greenwich Village brownstone. Steinberg, a wealthy attorney, and his former lover Hedda Nussbaum were charged with Lisa's death, though Nussbaum received immunity after it became clear Steinberg beat and intimidated her. Also troubling was the fact that the city, after receiving tips from Steinberg's neighbors that there was child abuse, mishandled the investigation and did not find anything wrong. Gothamist vividly remembers the case, because at our young age, it was unthinkable that anyone could do something so horrible, that teachers would see a child thin and bruised and be unable to help, that the sad, battered, broken face of Nussbaum was actually real and not a mask. It also shattered many ideas that just because a home looked good on paper (father a lawyer, mother a former book editor) meant that it was a good home.
Nussbaum has fled her current home in Westchester, as she will probably be inundated with media requets. Newsday reported that Graceann Lamberta, a city councilwoman upstate and the grandmother of Steinberg and Nussbaum's other adopted son (a baby when Lisa died, who returned to his biological mother), asked that Steinberg and Nussbaum "fade into the darkness," adding that Lisa's death helped enact child abuse laws that saved lives.
Court TV has an extensive write-up of the Steinberg case. The Preppie Murder occured a year earlier, and the two murders painted a terrible and telling picture of New York.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
his release from prison tells me that, as far as the state of new york is concerned, he paid his debt to society for his crime. the daily news headline that practically incites vigilantiism (sp?) is – at best – ugly and dangerous and – at worst – criminal.
You forgot to mention, that a very disturbing episode of Law & Order was based on this.
Remember the stories of Joel Steinberg and Robert Chambers playing chess in jail?
Danielle:
As well as back to back episodes of Third Watch.
He paid his debt according to the state of New York. This debt was a year less time than a welfare mom with four kids who was on Fresh Air yesterday, who did 16 years for delivering a small amount of drugs for a dealer in her neighborhood, while her kids grew up without a parent.
That was a great L&O episode!
Oh my god, the Dee Dee Lowenstein episode is one of my favorites.
He got off easy with the sentence to begin with. And he's only served 2/3 of it. I say keep him in jail until he's 72. It still won't be enough in my book.
Yo! While I wholehearedly agree that Steinberg should continue to rot in the deepest bowels of Hell (aka the NY State penal system), I find it odd that the press has focused its laser on this one monster while the daily stories of parents setting their children aflame, boiling them with scalding bathwater and beating their skulls out of poor impulse control get relegated to page 28 next to Gridlock Sam and Asa Aarons consumer tips.
Is it because Steinberg was a nice middle-class lawyer in Greenwich Village??? If so, and that makes it more appalling, then, um...we have a real problem here. I guess what I am saying is that it would be nice if a little of that editorial Old Testament righteous indignation got weighed a little more often and not just for the beaten young of wealthy lawyers. Just saying...
Well, the Daily News editorial (follow the second link in the post) says not to hurt him - just stare.
And yes, countless TV episodes were inspired by it. It was so horrible, I was 10 at the time and I had nightmares about it.
Sooz is absolutely right. There have been dozens if not hundreds of cases of parents murdering their children in NYC since Steinberg went to prison. I suppose it's a good thing that at least one of them is getting publicly branded a "monster" in the NY media, but really, why focus on him and not the others?
I don't think any of us should really be surprised that the media will always focus on the sensational, especially when set against a backdrop of affluence or the idyllic. If the Central Park jogger wasn't raped and beaten in Central Park, she would have been just another statistic. This isn't just the case for violent crime, either. It's the same thing that accounts for why you only hear about the cute little blonde girls from the suburbs who go missing or are kidnapped and not, say, the unattractive Dominican boy from the city. We expect the bad stuff to happen to the poor and underprivileged. It's only when it happens to "the rest of us" that people consider it news.
The best you can hope for from the news media is that they'll do long-running investigative reports or campaigns on these kinds of issues (i.e. recent NY Times coverage of the poor state of state mental health institutions ).
Also, he hasn't shown remorse ... he hasn't shown remorse! That's the most galling aspect of his release, to me. How he could be allowed to go free without showing it ... ugh. Shudder.
Because he has not shown any remorse, he should be kept behind bars, far far away from any child or female until it is proven he knows what he did was sickening. Until he knows remorse he could strike again. And that goes for anyone who committed a crime that takes away a child's life or defiles a woman the way he did.
That evil thing can not be called a man anyone that does that to a small child deserves to be dead themselves what he got was let off for his crime. Once a killer alway's a killer and they should be kept away from the public for life.
I hope that he suffer's when he's out in the real world again.
I, too, was appalled that Joel Steinberg has been let out of prison, but then, I was also appalled that Jeane Newmaker, who took her adopted daughter to some quacks and then watched them kill her, got off with no jail time at all, but only 4 years probation and community service. Why is it that the life of a child is held so lightly?
I am sickened by the fact that Steinberg is out in society.He should never be let out-period.During the years preceeding her death that sweet little child never knew a night without fear. She was starved & beaten,bullied & humiliated.I literally cry everytime I recall her story.
The saddest part of all is that hers is not the only story like this. It happens every day.
I am sickened by the fact that Steinberg is out in society.He should never be let out-period.During the years preceeding her death that sweet little child never knew a night without fear. She was starved & beaten,bullied & humiliated.I literally cry everytime I recall her story.
The saddest part of all is that hers is not the only story like this. It happens every day.
I am sickened by the fact that Steinberg is out in society.He should never be let out-period.During the years preceeding her death that sweet little child never knew a night without fear. She was starved & beaten,bullied & humiliated.I literally cry everytime I recall her story.
The saddest part of all is that hers is not the only story like this. It happens every day.
I am sickened by the fact that Steinberg is out in society.He should never be let out-period.During the years preceeding her death that sweet little child never knew a night without fear. She was starved & beaten,bullied & humiliated.I literally cry everytime I recall her story.
The saddest part of all is that hers is not the only story like this. It happens every day.
I am sickened by the fact that Steinberg is out in society.He should never be let out-period.During the years preceeding her death that sweet little child never knew a night without fear. She was starved & beaten,bullied & humiliated.I literally cry everytime I recall her story.
The saddest part of all is that hers is not the only story like this. It happens every day.
I think this is the saddest story. It has that song dear mister jesus to go with it. I think Joel Steinberg should be very ashamed. I am 13 and had to grow up in a rough childhood and my grandpaw was very abusive to me. we lived with him till i was 9 and he got put in prison because my mom busted him. he is still in there.
We're remembering Joel Steinberg for being released for the murder of an innocent child. How about remembering "Lisa". What a shame that this child murderer has the opportunity to walk amongst the free. What about "Lisa"? This beautiful innocent child will NEVER walk on this earth, neither should HE!