Koch Gives Myerson Unsmiling Glance in Court

A subdued, unsmiling Mayor Edward I. Koch barely glanced at former Miss America Bess Myerson today as he began testifying for the prosecution at the corruption trial of his one-time friend and political ally.

But Myerson--the city’s former cultural affairs commissioner, now charged in an alleged divorce-fixing scheme--stared intently at Koch.

Myerson, 64, who was appointed as city cultural affairs commissioner by Koch in 1983, is accused of giving a $19,000-a-year city job to the daughter of the judge who was hearing the divorce of Myerson’s lover, Carl (Andy) Capasso.

The mayor’s testimony was expected to center on a letter he received from Myerson on Oct. 19, 1983, explaining the hiring of former state Supreme Court Justice Hortense Gabel’s daughter, Sukhreet.

In the letter, written the day after a newspaper report about Sukhreet Gabel’s hiring, Myerson contended that nothing improper was done and that most of the decisions in the Capasso divorce case were already made when Gabel was hired.

Asked today whether he knew about the relationship between Myerson and Capasso before they became entangled in the divorce-fixing case, Koch said, “It was common knowledge they were lovers.”

U.S. District Judge John F. Keenan ordered “common knowledge” stricken from the record but elicited testimony from the mayor that he had seen them display “affection” toward each other.