Kevin Thomas Duffy, a prominent Manhattan federal judge who presided over the trial for the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, reportedly died of the coronavirus on Wednesday. He was 87.
A friend of Duffy’s, P. Kevin Castel, told The New York Times that he died at Greenwich Hospital in Connecticut.
Duffy, who lived in Greenwich, was known for his straight talk.
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He called one of the six terrorists in the WTC blast an “out-and-out” liar when the man continued to profess his innocence after he was convicted, according to The Times. “The others were low, you’re even lower,” Duffy said.
Sometimes, though, he was more controversial than colorful. An appeals court once tossed a verdict against a man whose lawyer Duffy had belittled in front of the jury.
Duffy also presided over the high-profile 1983 Brinks armored-car robbery and murder trial, which led to several convictions.
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That case originated with the 1981 armed robbery of a Brinks truck in Rockland County and a shootout between Black Liberation Army members and police.
Two Nyack police officers and the truck driver were killed.
