Criminal Justice: Talk Tactics

The Manhattan district attorney's office calls Harold ("Kayo") Konigsberg "one of the biggest loan sharks in the country," but Kayo deserves more notoriety than that. Singlehanded, with consummate gall, he has been carrying on a blatant attempt to make a travesty of U.S. criminal justice. When he went on trial last December on ten counts of conspiracy, extortion and assault, he deliberately attempted to turn his hearing before New York County Judge Abraham Gellinoff into such a circus that he could later claim a mistrial.

Two years ago, he arrived in court for a preliminary hearing seated in a wheelchair, his...