Ron Kuby

Ronald L. Kuby (born July 31, 1956) is an American criminal defense and civil rights lawyer, radio talk show host and television commentator.

He has also hosted radio programs on WABC Radio in New York City and Air America radio.

Kuby currently leads the Law Office of Ronald L. Kuby in Manhattan.

Kuby was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Ruth Miller, a secretary, and Donald Kuby, a salesman.

In 1973, he briefly attended an accredited alternative high school.

After graduating, he attended Cleveland State University for one year.

Kuby dropped out of college in 1974 and moved to St. Croix, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he worked on a tugboat and developed an interest in West Indian ethnobotany and medicinal plants.

He moved briefly to Maine, then to Kansas in 1975, where he completed his degrees in cultural anthropology and history at the University of Kansas.

Kuby was a free-speech and anti-apartheid activist while at KU, where he graduated with highest distinction, had a 4.0 average, and conducted and published original fieldwork, including the 1979 "Folk medicine on St. Croix: an ethnobotanical study", after returning to St. Croix several times.

Kuby alleged the University of Kansas police intentionally broke his arm when they responded to an anti-apartheid protest during a commencement ceremony.

Protesters were urging the KU Endowment Association to divest itself of investments in companies doing business in South Africa.

Kuby earned his Juris Doctor from Cornell Law School in 1983.

Kuby claims his grades entitled him to a position on the prestigious Cornell Law Review, but he declined the invitation.

He also claims to have graduated as one of the top students in his class.

From 1983 until Kunstler's death in 1995, Kuby worked as a partner in Kunstler's law firm, with both men taking up "the fight for the poor, the oppressed and the downtrodden".

The two men declared they were not only colleagues, but best friends as well.

Kunstler and Kuby never formalized a partnership with a contract or tax filings.

Despite a letterhead that read "Kunstler and Kuby", Kuby was paid as an employee and never shared in the firm's profits and losses.

On this basis Kuby was denied ownership rights to the firm's case files, accounts, and name after Kunstler died, and Kunstler's widow, Margaret Ratner, put her late husband's archives under lock and key.

Kuby, with Kunstler, represented Gregory Lee Johnson, a protester who burned a U.S. Flag at the 1984 Republican National Convention.

Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind cleric who headed the Egyptian-based militant group Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, accused of planning and encouraging terrorist attacks against Americans.

His mother was from a Jewish family and his father, who died in 1990, was a Franciscan friar who converted to Judaism and became a militant Zionist before becoming Christian again.

His parents divorced when he was five years old, after which Kuby lived with his mother and grandparents.

At 13, he joined the Jewish Defense League under the influence of his father, who was a follower of Meir David Kahane.

As a teenager he emigrated to Israel, but returned to the U.S. after being disillusioned by what he describes as "anti-Arab racism"

He returned to Cleveland and lived in a commune for the next several years.

Colin Ferguson, the man responsible for the 1993 Long Island Rail Road shooting (who chose to represent himself at trial).

Nico Minardos, the Hollywood TV and movie actor, accused in an FBI sting operation of conspiracy to ship arms to Iran.

Qubilah Shabazz, the daughter of Malcolm X, accused of plotting to murder Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

Glenn Harris, a New York City public school teacher who absconded with a 15-year-old girl for two months.

Darrell Cabey, a youth who was acquitted of assault on Bernard Goetz and successfully sued Goetz for shooting Cabey.

Yu Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army, and associates of the Gambino Crime Family.

During the Gulf War, the pair represented American soldiers claiming conscientious objector status.

They also represented El Sayyid Nosair, assassin of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, whom Kuby's father had admired, and the leftist radical turned health care activist Dr. Alan Berkman.

After Kunstler's death, Kuby continued the work of his late mentor.

Kuby filed a complaint against her with the attorney disciplinary committee; the committee dismissed the complaint in August 1996.

In December 1996, a court case brought by Ratner to restrain Kuby from using the name "Kunstler & Kuby" resulted in Kuby's being denied any rights in the Kunstler firm.

On January 23, 2006, Kuby married Marilyn Vasta, a psychotherapist and climate activist, on the 20th anniversary of their first date.

They have one daughter, Emma Vasta-Kuby, who is a lawyer with the D.C.-based Second Look Project, working on de-incarceration.

While in college, Kuby interned with William Kunstler, a senior lawyer with 20 years' experience, notable for many of his sensational cases including the defense of the Chicago Seven.