Former Garner family lawyer will not face rape charges

By Karen Freifeld NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York lawyer who represented the family of Eric Garner, the unarmed black man killed last July in a police chokehold, will not face criminal charges that he raped a woman at his penthouse apartment, Manhattan prosecutors said on Monday. The prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to pursue a criminal case against the lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, 70, whom a woman accused of rape, possibly after she was drugged. The prosecutors interviewed him, the alleged victim and 46 other people. "Given the available evidence, the degree of the complainant's recollection of what occurred at the suspect's apartment, and the results of the toxicological testing, neither the provable facts nor the applicable law support a prosecution," a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a statement. The alleged victim filed a civil case against Rubenstein on Monday in New York state court in Brooklyn over what the lawsuit describes as a "violent, perverted and cruel attack." In the lawsuit, she claims she woke up to find Rubenstein sexually assaulting her and said that she began bleeding profusely. She said she felt she had been drugged. "We find Cy Vance's office to be incredibly inept in their investigation and refusal to arrest our client's attacker and present this case to a grand jury," said the accuser's attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, in a statement. "The office didn't have the decency to inform the complainant of their decision not to go forward. However they did inform Mr. Rubenstein and his attorney first as well as numerous press outlets." The decision not to prosecute Rubenstein came three months after the alleged rape. He is accused of attacking the 43-year-old woman, a board member at the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network, after a 60th birthday party for the civil rights activist on Oct. 1. The high-profile lawyer, a long-time adviser to Sharpton, also has represented Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant sodomized with a broomstick by police in Brooklyn in 1997, and the fiancée of Sean Bell, an unarmed black man shot dead by police in Queens in 2006. Sharpton cut ties with Rubenstein because of the rape accusation. Rubenstein said he was "pleased" the district attorney closed the case after a thorough investigation. "I maintained from the very beginning that I did not violate the law," he said. Benjamin Brafman, who represents Rubenstein, said his client and the woman had engaged in consensual sex. Brafman said a lawsuit would be "vigorously defended with a counterclaim for defamation." Garner's family in October chose a new attorney for its planned $75 million wrongful death case after the rape allegation. Captured on video, Garner's repeated cries of "I can't breathe!" as an officer holds him by his neck have become a slogan for protesters at rallies across the United States who accuse police forces of using excessive force on blacks. (Reporting By Karen Freifeld; Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Nick Macfie)