BY SOPHIA CHANG
Newsday
NEW YORK — Driven by anger and frustration, an East Northport man asked a fellow inmate for a gun to kill the Suffolk County judge who awarded his ex-wife ownership of their home, prosecutors said yesterday.
Brian Orkiszewski, 49, of 10 Acorn Dr., was arraigned on conspiracy and criminal solicitation charges yesterday in District Court in Riverhead. He was held on bail of $250,000, and State Supreme Court Justice Robert W. Doyle set the next court date for Sept. 4. Doyle also issued a temporary order of protection for the judge, whose identity was not revealed.
Orkiszewski had been arrested and jailed in May for nonpayment of child support, prosecutors said. While in jail in Yaphank, Orkiszewski wrote a letter May 9 to another inmate asking for “directions to ‘the hardware store,’ a code word for a person” he could buy a gun from, according to the grand jury indictment that was unsealed in district court.
He wrote a letter on May 14 asking about “the hardware store” again, and another letter June 30 asking for the phone number of someone who could give him a “good plunger,” or a firearm, the indictment said.
Orkiszewski was angry that his home was awarded to his ex-wife, Lynda Orkiszewski, in the divorce proceedings that began in 2003, according to assistant district attorney Robert Kerr.
“He was upset that $300,000 from the sale of the marital home was not given to him,” Kerr said during the arraignment.
Orkiszewski was rearrested on July 22, his scheduled release date, and held in custody at Rikers Island to keep him away from witnesses at the Riverhead jail, said his lawyer Anthony Grandinette of Mineola.
Orkiszewski had gone through a long spell of tough luck, Grandinette said. A bitter divorce and a severe work injury while employed by Verizon had impaired his ability to work and make the child support payments, Grandinette said yesterday after the arraignment.
“We believe the allegations are completely blown out of proportion,” he said.
Grandinette said his client was merely blowing off steam in jail and there was no evidence he would actually try to harm the judge.
“He’s frustrated, he’s angry, he’s depressed,” Grandinette said.
“No inmate who finds himself in jail is a happy man.”
Copyright 2008 Newsday, Inc.