Ex-Aide Tells of Myerson Plan to Fire Worker

A former assistant of Bess Myerson testified today that the ex-Miss America told him to fire a longtime employee from the city Department of Cultural Affairs, making room for the daughter of a judge charged in her divorce-fixing trial.

Howard Rubenstein, an assistant commissioner under Myerson, recalled at the time in 1983 that Myerson was trying to find a line on the budget for Sukhreet Gabel and she said she “anticipated” that an old friend and speech writer, Walter Canter, would leave in September, 1983.

“She asked me to fire Walter,” Rubenstein said. He said he pointed out it was her responsibility to inform Canter of her decision.

“I told her she could write a letter,” Rubenstein said under direct examination by David Lawrence, an assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case. Rubenstein added that he told Myerson she should tell Canter personally why he was being fired.

Last week Canter testified how he received the letter, with no explanation.

Monday the jury learned for the first time that her boyfriend committed tax fraud, but the judge urged them to put it out of their minds because it was an unrelated case.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan told the jury it would be “grossly unfair” and “absolutely un-American” to hold the crime against Carl (Andy) Capasso, 43, who is on trial with Myerson and a former state Supreme Court justice.

“He is not on trial here for anything having to do with his taxes,” the judge said of Capasso, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion last year and is serving a three-year sentence in federal prison.

The jury was not informed of his having been sentenced to prison in that case.

Myerson, 64, former commissioner of the city Department of Cultural Affairs, is on trial with Capasso and retired state Supreme Court Justice Hortense Gabel, 75, on charges that she gave the judge’s daughter a job in her agency in order to influence the outcome of Capasso’s divorce case.