Free Republic

Seagram’s liquor heiress Clare Bronfman wept in court Friday as family members signed on to pay her whopping $100 million bond, so she can stay out of jail while awaiting trial for her role in an upstate sex-slave cult. Dressed in a black long-sleeved shirt and baggy slacks, a blubbering Bronfman, 39, wiped tears from under her glasses as Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas Garaufis reminded her mom and brother in law that they’re there to keep her honest. “I think she knows the responsibility as well,” said Basit Igtet, a Libyan entrepreneur who is married to Bronfman’s sister, Sara....

A second federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Nicholas Garaufis, a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, granted a request from 17 attorneys general who sued the Trump administration for a temporary injunction

A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the government must fully restart the Obama-era DACA deportation amnesty and accept brand new applicants as well as renewals, throwing a potential wrench in the ongoing debate over the fate of “Dreamers” on Capitol Hill. Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis said the administration does have the power to revoke DACA, but it must give a sound reason for doing so — and the Homeland Security Department’s September 2017 rationale fell far short of what is required in that regard. He becomes the second judge to rule President Trump’s aides bungled the phaseout...

Nicholas G. Garaufis is the latest federal judge to disrupt President Trump's policy agenda and question his morals. Trump is guilty of "recurring, redundant drumbeat of anti-Latino commentary," Garaufis said in a Brooklyn courtroom Wednesday while hearing a case on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA participants and 16 states have challenged Trump's decision to end the program. "It's extreme, it's recurring, it's vicious," Garaufis added. Colleen Melody, a lawyer for the state of Washington, at one point asked if Trump would have made the same decision on DACA if its beneficiaries hailed from Norway. Clearly,...

A fierce constitutional battle is being waged between an out-of-control federal judge determined to impose racial quotas on New York City’s fire department and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, equally determined to resist race-based hiring. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis appointed himself the city’s de facto fire commissioner last week by enjoining the department from hiring any new firefighters without his approval—and he will give his approval only to the racial hiring schemes he has already tried to foist on the department. Mayor Bloomberg has courageously refused to cave in to the judge’s quota demands—a stance vanishingly rare in today’s politically correct...

In blunt, scolding language, a federal judge on Tuesday criticized the city’s conduct during legal negotiations aimed at diversifying the Fire Department, accusing the Bloomberg administration of shirking its responsibility for redressing discrimination and of exaggerating claims about threats to public safety during the dispute. The judge, Nicholas G. Garaufis, of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, also raised the possibility of imposing sanctions on New York City. In a 20-page decision, the judge, who had previously found that the city administered tests that discriminated against black and Hispanic firefighter candidates, ordered the city not to hire new firefighters. That permanent...