By Michael Virtanen
Associated Press
ALBANY, N.Y. — Elizabeth Fink, a New York lawyer who helped state inmates win a $12 million settlement three decades after the bloody 1971 prison riot in Attica, has died. She was 70.
Fink died of cardiac arrest Tuesday at Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, said her brother, Larry Fink.
Elizabeth Fink sued state authorities over the force used to retake control of Attica Correctional Facility frominmates. Troopers and guards fatally shot 29 inmates and 10 hostages, and prisoners who had rioted five days earlier and taken control of part of the prison were beaten and tortured.
“It took 27 years,” she told The Associated Press last year. “It was not a lot of money.”
The federal class-action lawsuit was tried in 1991 in Buffalo. An appeals court overturned the jury verdicts for the prisoners for violations of their civil rights. The settlement was reached in 2000.
Attorney Jonathan Gradess called Fink’s efforts “heroic.” He represents families of killed and injured hostages who got a $12 million state settlement in 2005. Both groups still seek two more things — full disclosures of what happened and apologies from the state, he said.
“In essence, what she did was bring to light something that the state wanted to bury: that there was torture inflicted on prisoners in the aftermath of the violent retaking.” Gradess said.
Fink worked on other prominent civil rights cases and represented criminal defendants, including difficult cases other lawyers avoided, said former colleague Sarah Kunstler. “She believed standing between a client and the crushing weight of government power was a political act,” she said.
Former colleagues said she was part of a team of attorneys who in 1990 won the release of former Black Panther Party leader Dhoruba Bin Wahad on grounds that the prosecution had withheld evidence of innocence in the 1971 drive-by shooting of two New York City policemen guarding the home of Manhattan District Attorney Frank Hogan.
Larry Fink said his sister had been ill for the last year or so. A memorial service, without too much fanfare as she’d prefer, will be held later, he said.