SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK COUNTY OF NEW YORK ---------------------------------------------------------------------DIANE I.

DUA, JOEL KAYE, BRYAN CLOSE, TENZIN WANGDU, JACK DIAMOND, BAYO IRIBHOGBE, ROBYN WOHL, GEORGE MORAN and ARTISTS UNINITED. Plaintiffs, v. NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF PARKS AND RECREATION (as a Municipal agency); ADRIEN BENEPE (in his Official Capacity as the parks Commissioner) CITY OF NEW YORK (as a municipality); and MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (in his Official Capacity as the Mayor), Defendants. ------------------------------------------------------------------REQUEST TO INTERVENE

Index No. 110344/10

By this letter and the attached affidavit I am requesting permission to intervene and present new evidence crucial to a fair resolution of this lawsuit. HON. MILTON A. TINGLING 60 Centre Street, Room 512 New York, New York 10007 7/23/2012 To Judge Milton A. Tingling re: City falsifying evidence in Dua et al v NYC Department of Parks 110344/2010 Dear Judge Tingling, My name is Robert Lederman. I wrote an amicus letter to you in May regarding new evidence that had come to light concerning the Parks Departments unequal treatment of visual artists as compared to performers in parks. I am the lead plaintiff in a parallel Federal lawsuit, Lederman et al v Parks Department 10CV4800 (RJS). Judge Sullivan held an hour long hearing on 7/20/2012 in Lederman et al v Parks Department, concerning this new evidence and is preparing to rule on summary judgment. Based on his comments, the Lederman plaintiffs and the members of A.R.T.I.S.T. believe Judge Sullivan is waiting for your ruling with the intention to use it as precedent. I understand that you are also preparing to rule on summary judgment in the Dua case in the very near future. As President of A.R.T.I.S.T. the advocacy group that won the right for artists to sell on city streets and in parks and that has represented the interests of NYC street artists for the past 20 years, including those of the Dua plaintiffs, I feel compelled to

bring more crucial new information that has come to light on this issue to your attention, information that could significantly affect the outcome of your decision. If the plaintiffs were to lose either of these lawsuits the effect on NYC artists generally, not just on the members of A.R.T.I.S.T. or on the plaintiffs, would be devastating. As people who publicly communicate their ideas and opinions, artists understand our dependence on freedom of speech and how it relates to our livelihoods. NYC Parks are the most visible public forum for artists to reach the public and communicate their message, as well as for the public to find the artists and hear their message. The City sees all street artists as nothing more than vendors trying to sell something. In contrast, many of the artists I represent primarily try to display a new painting, print or photograph in order get feedback on their art. If something sells, thats a bonus. Many of these occasional street artists literally set up in a park just a few times a year. Other street artists are communicating overt political messages through their work. In my own case, the art is often time specific to a particular political event or to a public statement by the Mayor or another City official. Making me compete to get into one of a handful of medallion spots, or forcing me to set up in a location where I cannot even be seen, severely restricts my ability to communicate a message. Since June of 2010 when the revised Park rules went into effect, a significant percentage of the artists who regularly sold in NYC Parks have been eliminated. Many others have given up on selling their work altogether and are in a protracted state of depression. Numerous artists, including some of the Dua plaintiffs, have lost their studios, have had to sell their vehicles or move out of their apartments due to the financial hardship these rules have caused. City officials, including the Mayor, have routinely expressed their intention to eliminate street artists from both the streets and parks of NYC on behalf of business interests they are closely aligned with. The Mayor explained this to me personally in an 11/16/2008 recorded conversation, linked to in my affidavit. If either court were to rule for the City in these lawsuits, it would provide a green light for a total purging of independent non-corporate artistic expression from New Yorks public spaces. Such a purging would harm all of the 100,000 artists who live in NYC and as a legal precedent would negatively affect all of the millions of artists who live in the United States. The City has consistently and grossly misrepresented the facts to both the Federal and State Courts throughout the 2 year history of these two parallel cases. I realize that facts are sometimes nothing more than subjective opinions and that two sides can legitimately disagree about what the truth is. I also accept that the City has a right to aggressively defend their interests by making the most effective presentation possible. However, the degree to which the City defendants have attempted to falsify the most basic facts about the rules, the enforcement of the rules, the recent drastic change to the rules concerning performers and their justifications for creating the 2010 revised Park rules for

Expressive Matter vendors in the first place, appears to be a shameful violation of their obligations as public officials or as officers of the court. I believe it amounts to perjury. I brought all of this information to the attention of the Dua plaintiffs lawyers before bringing it to the State Court. Some of it I brought to them as long as 2 years ago. To my knowledge they have failed to bring it to the courts attention. Based on conversations I have had with the Dua attorneys over the past 2 years and a careful reading of their motions, it seems clear that our interests are not the same nor do we seem to be seeking the same outcome from these lawsuits. My position and that of the A.R.T.I.S.T. group is that First Amendment are for everyone to exercise, not just artists. While I and a majority of the A.R.T.I.S.T. group members are selling our own originally created works, we also recognize the legal right of non-artists to display and sell First Amendment protected materials on public property. This is in harmony with the vending laws of the City of NY (the GVL), and with the previous rulings in our other cases (Bery et al V City of NY; Lederman et al v City of NY). In the attached affidavit I provide a summary and links to evidence for 5 of the more outrageous misrepresentations that the City has made in the course of both current lawsuits, beginning with new facts concerning the abrupt suspension of enforcement against those who perform in exchange for donations in NYC Parks while continuing enforcement against visual artists. Each claim is supported by links to documents that have been uploaded to the internet. Besides the hard copy that is being hand delivered, a disk is also provided that includes a WORD version of the affidavit with clickable links to the supporting evidence. *For added convenience, making it very easy to view the documents and evidence while reading the text, you can immediately access a copy of the affidavit with clickable links online at this address: http://www.scribd.com/doc/100834911/2nd-Amicus-to-Judge-Tingling Due to the few days left before you rule on summary judgment, I am faxing this cover letter to you today, 7/23. Tomorrow I will file the request to intervene letter and the full affidavit with your court. This letter and the affidavit is also being emailed to the Corporation Counsel, the Parks Department Legal Counsel, the Mayor, the Dua attorneys and to City officials and reporters who have expressed an interest in this case. My affidavit of service is attached. I am available to testify or to respond to any questions you have about this letter. In the affidavit I cover five significant factual issues directly relevant to deciding summary judgment. There are many more I am leaving out for reasons of time but it is my understanding that one factual controversy will defeat a motion for summary judgment. I am presenting the following five issues:

A. The recent suspension of enforcement of the 2010 rules against performers. The City has claimed under oath that it was in response to a State Court decision in New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department February 23, 2012 decision In the Matter of New York Skyline. Inc. v. City of New York, 94 A.D.3d 23 (App. Div. 1st Dept. 2012). I have evidence to prove that the policy change took place at least a month before the Skyline ruling was ever issued and that the City made the change so as to avoid a lawsuit by performers. The City has provided 4 totally contradictory explanations as to why they made the enforcement policy change. B. The Citys false claim, repeated throughout both lawsuits that there are, 28,000 acres of park land and 58 miles of pathway available as an alternative venue for artists is directly refuted by the evidence and by the text of the revised park rules. C. The City lied about NYPD and Transit Authority cars using 1/2 of the medallion spots in Union Square Park as a parking lot on a daily basis as per a long-standing contract they have with the City. The City unfairly mischaracterized the evidence that the medallion spots in Union Square Park are virtually worthless for selling art as being, one time, isolated incidents or hearsay. D. The City falsely claimed that its interests in creating these new restrictions were in protecting public safety, eliminating congestion and maintaining park aesthetics. The evidence shows conclusively that the proferred interests are pretextual; that the real purpose was to fill the very areas where artists previously sold and displayed with hundreds of corporate vending concessions and corporate promotions. E. The Citys repeated claims that the rules were necessary because there were no rules in effect prior to 2010 that could be used for enforcement are refuted by the depositions. Depositions and internal PEP documents from 10 Parks Department officials demonstrate that the pre-existing rules were more than sufficient to regulate artists and any other parkgoer. The evidence shows that the real problem they had with the pre-existing rules was that they were not restrictive enough to completely eliminate artists. This was unquestionably the goal as stated by Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe when he emailed Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris to complain that the pre-2010 rules were not sufficiently chilling the artists. If the City loses this motion, or if you grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs, the City will still have more than sufficient restrictions in place to regulate artists while protecting public safety and park aesthetics. Sincerely Yours, Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. artistpres@gmail.com