It’s not the most conventional opening question, but the man I’ve come to talk to, Equan Yunus, is in a pretty unusual predicament. So I ask it anyway.
“Are we about to get arrested?”
Yunus fidgets a little in his chair. As do his two attorneys sitting beside him, Andrew Celli and David Berman. We’re gathered in their law offices in the bustling heart of Manhattan, and after a pause they admit that they have not the faintest clue as to whether or not we are in breach of
New York statute.
Yunus is forbidden under pain of arrest and incarceration from ever coming within 1,000 feet of any school grounds. He is also prohibited from entering within 300 yards of places where children congregate, such as toy stores, parks, pet shops, playgrounds, skating rinks and bowling alleys.
Yunus could be standing on one side of a Manhattan block and on the other side of the building, totally unbeknownst to him, there could be a playground or skating rink that would send him to prison. So are we breaking the law just by sitting in this office?
“It’s impossible to know,” Yunus says, looking distressed. “I do my best to check. I try really hard to be conscious when I’m walking in areas with schools or parks and avoid them. But you try – it’s just impossible.”
