The Golem's legacy
Michael Bergoine of Hawley, Pa., was on his way to work one night in 2001 when he got stopped by a cop in the Village of Kiryas Joel. The cop claimed that Bergoine had rolled through a stop sign
Kiryas Joel is a village of about 18,000 Hasidic Jews. It doesn't employ any cops. Which is exactly why Bergoine is suing the village
He's claiming that the guy who stopped him, Patrick McGrath, had no business stopping him, notwithstanding that McGrath was wearing a police uniform
It turned out that McGrath was 6 foot 4 and 260 pounds of convicted felon and that Kiryas Joel's chief constable at the time, Mendel Greenberg, didn't do any kind of background check on McGrath before approving him to "patrol" the village back in November 2001. Greenberg lost his job over this
Based on size alone, McGrath could qualify as a modern-day golem, the clay giant of Jewish legend who was brought to life by a medieval rabbi
Bergoine is suing the village in state Supreme Court, claiming that the traffic stop made him late for work and cost him his job at Hackensack Medical Center in New Jersey. The village says that McGrath was an "independent contractor." McGrath is now in state prison, serving a term for grand larceny unrelated to KJ. The aggrieved parties are all due in Judge John McGuirk's courtroom May 31 to talk things over
The golem of legend had to be destroyed because he went out of control
The golem of Kiryas Joel could wind up wreaking a more modern kind of havoc: litigation
