John Clifford was found not guilty on misdemeanor counts of attempted assault, disorderly conduct, harassment and attempted petit larceny after an incident on the Long Island Railroad when he yelled at a guy who was talking on the phone.
He also slapped the hand of a woman who tried to intervene.
Clifford admitted cursing at his victim, Nicholas Bender, whom he called "a 19-year-old nitwit."
Clifford has been arrested eight times after being accused of throwing coffee, spewing expletives and getting in the faces of people whom he considered loud and rude on the train. All the other cases were dismissed.
The LIRR said "We will not tolerate aggressive behavior by Mr. Clifford if he seeks to impose his own standards of conduct on others."
Clifford used to work security for HBO but was fired after being arrested several times in connection with his LIRR confrontations.
Clifford is a lawyer and represented himself in this case. According to an old lawyer's joke, "a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client."
When I was a younger man riding the express bus to and from Manhattan from Staten Island I was once on a bus where a loud-talking man on a cellphone was confronted and screamed at by a grumpy old man.
The bus driver pulled off the roadway and sat on the shoulder of the BQE while the fight escalated. It turned into a debate among the passengers (all loud Staten Islanders) about who was right in this argument (the vote was split).
Eventually the guy agreed to stop talking on the phone and we started moving again, but it took 15 minutes (no joke) for our driver to find an opening to merge back into traffic.
I think the point here is that both people are wrong. The asshole who disturbs everyone else with his loud conversation and the belligerent old man who thinks it's his job to clean up this town, as if he's Mayor Goldie Wilson.
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