Related: Goetz Gets Got
"Marijuana case vs. Bernie Goetz dismissed" Associated Press September 11, 2014
NEW YORK — A low-level marijuana case against 1980s subway shooter Bernie Goetz has been dismissed after a judge concluded the clock ran out for trying it.
Goetz was busted in December on charges he sold $30 worth of marijuana to an undercover officer he’d been flirting with in Union Square park.
He was offered a plea deal involving 10 days of community service. Goetz rejected it for a host of reasons, saying he felt coerced into taking the money from the undercover officer and that police are too aggressive nowadays.
His lawyer, Danielle Iredale, had asked a judge to dismiss the case for lack of a speedy trial. On Wednesday, Judge Laurie Peterson concluded that prosecutors missed the window by 14 days.
The district attorney’s office had no comment.
In 1984, Goetz was branded the ‘‘subway vigilante’’ when he shot four black teens with an illegal handgun on a No. 2 train in Manhattan. At least one had a screwdriver, and they were asking him for $5. Goetz said it was self-defense and the youths intended to mug him. One of the teens was paralyzed.
Goetz was cleared of attempted murder charges and spent 250 days in jail in 1987 for a weapons conviction.
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