(JTA) — Federal Judge Kimba Wood agreed to recess a fraud trial so that the Orthodox Jewish defense attorney could attend his grandson’s brit.
Wood, in Manhattan District Court, ordered the recess of the trial Monday after learning of the birth of Bennett Epstein’s grandson. Epstein had filed a motion last month asking for a "writ of possible simcha" in order to attend a brit in Philadelphia if his daughter gave birth to a boy.
The judge previously had agreed to the request in which Epstein said that "Should the child be a girl, not much will happen in the way of public celebration. However, should the baby be a boy, then hoo hah! … My presence at the bris is not strictly commanded, although my absence will never be forgotten by those that matter."
Wood had replied to the request, which she filed into the public court docket, that "If a daughter is born there will be a public celebration in Court, with readings from poetry celebrating girls and women."
Epstein said in court Monday, in announcing that a boy had been born, that "all the poetry readings I prepared are moot."
Wood gained national attention in 1993 when, as President Bill Clinton’s nominee for attorney general, she withdrew her name from consideration because she had employed an illegal alien as a nanny.
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