(adapted from The Times Herald Record, 07/02/99)

By Oliver Mackson
The Times Herald-Record

CHESTER: Why would a heavy hitter who spent 12 years in the biggest of big-city prosecutors’ offices place his fate in the hands of a lawyer from Chester, NY?

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Ben Ostrer came home from a bat mitzvah Saturday afternoon and got a call from Chester village Police Chief Michael Farrell. “He told me he had Paul Harnisch there. I didn’t believe him. I told him to stop B.S.-ing me and go to his daughter’s graduation party,” Ostrer recalled yesterday. “ He said, ‘Mr. Harnisch told us you’re his attorney.’” Harnish had been charged with running down Ed Quirk of Sugar Loaf as he rollerbladed with his wife. She suffered minor injuries, but Quirk later died. His accused killer was an Orange County assistant district attorney who spent 12 years in the Manhattan D.A.’s office before moving north.

Within two days, Harnisch had been fired. He is now charged with second-degree murder and faces 25 years to life if convicted. One of the men seeking his conviction is George Bolen, who won the 1981 conviction of Westchester County socialite Jean Harris. Ostrer isn’t a celebrity defense lawyer. He isn’t even one of the best-known lawyers in the mid-Hudson. But Harnisch knew this: Ostrer was a worthy opponent. At the time he was arrested, Harnisch was still handling the Orange County district attorney’s appeal of an overturned guilty verdict in a homicide trial.

Ostrer had won freedom for Michael Maragh of Middletown, who was charged with beating his girlfriend to death. Ostrer proved to a judge that a juror acted improperly as a medical expert during the trial.

When he was 12, Ostrer saw his 6-year-old brother dying in the street outside the family’s home on Long Island. He had been struck down by drag racers. Ostrer said, “I think that gives me a perspective of compassion for the Quirk family, for their loss and what they’re going through.”

Peter H.X. Neuman of Newburgh, one of the region’s best-known defense lawyers and a past president of the American Board of Criminal Lawyers, said of Ostrer, “I’ve been against Ben on numerous occasions and I’ve worked with him on occasions, and I find him to be extremely competent and well-prepared. His research is terrific, and he’s a formidable opponent.”

In another 1997 homicide case, Ostrer represented Tommy Browne of Wallkill, who was charged with flattening Karl Ritter with a single punch that sent him tumbling to the pavement outside a bar.

A grand jury vindicated Browne, saying he had been defending himself from Ritter. This was no ordinary victim, either: Ritter’s father is a state judge and had also served as Orange County’s district attorney.

“In the last two years, I’ve had two homicide cases in Orange County. Both my clients are home,” Ostrer said matter-of-factly.

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