Goetz Can Keep Story Profits, Board Rules
Subway gunman Bernhard H. Goetz can keep any money he makes from selling his story, the chairman of the state Crime Victims Board said Friday.
The four-member board decided unanimously that the state “Son of Sam” law does not apply to Goetz, Chairman Angelo Petromelis said. The board made the ruling last month, he said.
The board said the crime profits law did not apply because the jury that tried Goetz determined that the four teen-agers he shot were not crime victims. Goetz was acquitted of assault, attempted murder, reckless endangerment and all but one weapons charge.
Under the “Son of Sam” law, which the board administers, any profits made by convicts who sell the stories of their crimes are held in escrow for the crime victims.
The law was created in 1979 to prevent “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz from profiting from book and movie deals about his yearlong string of crimes.
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