Mourners remember famed judge Burton B. Roberts

Just before he started giving a eulogy for his old friend Judge Burton B. Roberts Wednesday, writer Tom Wolfe started acting like he was hearing voices.

"What? What?," said Wolfe, glancing over his right shoulder and looking heavenward from the podium at some invisible interlocutor.

But what might have seemed like a weird mental lapse was really a masterful set up for Wolfe's punch line.

"Not now, Burt," answered Wolfe dismissively.

The line brought laughter from the hundreds of mourners who remembered the way Roberts and his overpowering personality would always take over a conversation.

Though it was a sad occasion, there were plenty of laughs as family and friends, including those from the highest ranks of the judiciary and court system, gathered for Roberts' funeral. One of the last outsize personalities of the criminal justice system, Roberts died at 88 on Sunday. He left a wife, Gerhild, a brother, Charles, and nieces and nephews.

Among those present at the Riverside Memorial Chapel in Manhattan were former Mayor David Dinkins, New York's Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, as well as his two predecessors, Judith Kaye and Sol Wachtler, who chatted and sat near each other. Plenty of present and former judges, lawyers and prosecutors also attended.

"It would have only been better if Judge Roberts were here to see it," said court spokesman David Bookstaver.

Everyone had a story about Roberts, who was a force of nature as the chief Bronx administrative judge. Wolfe was so taken by Roberts' larger-than-life personality that he used him as the model for the irascible jurist Myron Kovitsky in the novel "The Bonfire of the Vanities." Also present was celebrity attorney Ed Hayes, the inspiration for the book's lawyer protagonist, Tommy Killian.

"Burt was an honest, totally honest man, who opened up so much of the world for me," said Wolfe.

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson also spoke and reminded the crowd that Wednesday was the day former Bronx top prosecutor Mario Merola died in 1987. Merola and Roberts often quarreled.

"Later on today, if you hear thunderstorms that will be Burt meeting Mario," said Johnson to more laughs.

Rabbi Richard Jacobs related a story of how Roberts once sat on a state commission and was asked by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to get him some coffee.

Get it yourself, shot back Roberts, according to Jacobs.

" 'I can see now you will never be a judge in the state of New York,' " Rockefeller answered, said Jacobs.

In the end, Roberts served 25 years as a judge, retiring in 1998.