Pace Law School is opening up its entertainment law class to the public Monday night as hip-hop artist Jay Sean and two record label CEOs will “rap” about the music business with Professor Vernon J. Brown’s class from 6 to 8 p.m.

The seminar, called “Where do I sign?” will study the relationship between entertainment lawyers and their clients.

Leading the lecture will be Ronald “Slim” Williams and brother Brian “Birdman” Williams, who founded the New Orleans-based hip-hop label Cash Money, and Jay Sean, one of their top artists.

“The goal is to give my entertainment law students practical knowledge in working with their clients and interacting with label executives,” Brown said in a news release. “What artists expect from their attorneys and what they should expect from their clients. The class is like Inside the Actor’s Studio for lawyers, offering practical advice for the way things actually work in the real world.”

Brown has been Cash Money’s business manager and attorney for 14 years.

According to the news release, from Wolfson Entertainment, the Williams brothers recently marked the 10th anniversary of a distribution deal with Universal Music Group, which has produced hit albums by Lil Wayne, Drake, Juvenile, B.G., Turk, Big Tymers, Mannie Fresh, Hot Boys and Baby/Birdman, two of Bryan Williams’ hip-hop alter egos. Jay Sean is the label’s latest success, with a chart-topping single in “Down” and his debut album, All or Nothing.

A White Plains federal judge has ordered the release of a New York City man who had served 18 years for a murder conviction that was overturned last week.

Fernando Bermudez had a 27-month federal sentence waiting at the end of the 23-year state sentence he received for his conviction of second-degree murder in connection to a shooting near a Manhattan club in 1991.

But a state judge in Manhattan overturned the murder conviction last week, saying one witness lied and others were influenced into pointing the finger at Bermudez, now 40. Not only did the judge toss the conviction – he threw out the charges, saying Bermudez was innocent of the shooting.

Bermudez pleaded guilty in the drug case after he had been charged in the killing. The drug charges stemmed from an arrest by agents from the DEA’s Westchester County Task Force on Feb. 6, 1991, at the Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers.

Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas ordered Bermudez freed on bail until June, 30, 2010, to give his lawyers time to  try and convince the federal Bureau of Prisons that Bermudez has long since served the 27 months in prison as part of the 18 years he wrongly served.

Read the Associated Press account of  the Bermudez case here.

The third floor of the Westchester County Courthouse was lined with prospective jurors today for the upcoming trial of Mark Blue.

Blue, 45, is accused of repeatedly stabbing his girlfriend during a March 2008 argument in Mount Vernon, according to the DA’s office. Blue allegedly held the woman captive and watched as she nearly bled to death, the DA’s office claims.

Blue fled the state, but police found him months later in Portland, Ore. and brought him back. He is charged with attempted murder, assault and unlawful imprisonment.

During a news conference in White Plains today to announce the arrests of 37 people in connection with a Westchester County drug ring, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was asked about the decision by his bosses at the Justice Department and the White House to bring self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused terrorists to New York to stand trial in a civilian court.

“We’re honored and proud that the Attorney General is sending the case to the Southern District of New York and we’ve answered that call,” Bharara said. “And our job is to make the best criminal case that we can and that’s what we do best and that’s what we’re going to do.”

Now this is interesting … and possibly precedent setting.

Here in Westchester County, state Supreme Court Justice William J. Giacomo has allowed a 20-year-old transexual to keep his/her identity private by waiving the requirement that a change of name be published in the local newspaper. Giacomo ruled that publishing the transexual’s name might put him/her at risk for hate crimes. The Nov. 10 ruling seals the case files and identifies the transsexual only as E.P.L.

Click here to read more about this unusual story.

Photo: Justice William J. Giacomo, circa 1998

It looks like the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and others accused of various roles in the plot, are going to be tried in federal court in Manhattan rather than before a military tribunal. Click here to read the latest on this development.

I can’t imagine the jury selection process for this — what New York City resident wasn’t affected by 9/11? How are prosecutors and the defense lawyers going to find fair and impartial jurors? And the security! That courthouse will be on lockdown. It’ll make the 2004 Republican National Convention, where you needed to flash a different badge every 20 feet, where guards snatched glass (potential shards!) makeup bottles from women and where small folding umbrellas were considered dangerous weapons (you still owe me a Totes, GOP), seem like the Wild Wild West. Reporters who want to cover this better get in line for the press passes now.

There is a fundraiser in Manhattan tonight called “Indelible.” Part of the $75 admission fee  ($100 at the door) will be donated to The Innocence Project, whose lawyers take on wrongful conviction cases that can be exonerated through DNA tests.

The event, at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, will feature a performance of Philip Hamilton’s Voices featuring beat boxer Kenny Muhammad, a screening of director Randall Dottin’s award winning film, Lifted, and the premiere of the new trailer for a documentary called Indelible.

The documentary is the story of an African-American female geneticist who races to find a cure for a rare disease that killed her husband and now threatens the life of her teenage son. A majority of the proceeds of the event will go toward the film.

The fundraiser opens at 6:30 p.m. ay 2 West 64th St. (at Central Park West). For more information call (212) 242-4735.

My colleague Jonathan Bandler has an amazing story in today’s paper about how the law allows judges to retire and collect pension while remaining on the bench and collecting a salary. This gives them annual income of more than $200,000, and a loophole around the 11-year wage freeze for state and county judges.

Click here to read more about the completely legal double dipping.

The Times’ Fort Greene blog has a great story about an NYC teenager who was saved by Facebook. Seems Rodney Bradford was collared for a robbery a few weeks ago in Brooklyn. But he claimed he was nowhere near the scene of the crime at the time. Turns out his alibi was a status update he posted on Facebook at the time of the robbery. After issuing subpoena to Facebook and verifying that Bradford posted his update from his father’s apartment in Harlem, Brooklyn prosecutors dropped the charges. Read the entire account here.

Acting state Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Neary delivered some bad news today to Jose Arroyo, a retired NYPD detective who is going on trial for allegedly drugging, kidnapping and raping a woman in a Greenburgh motel last year.

Neary is going to allow the jury to see a lot of potentially incriminating evidence against Arroyo, a 47-year-old from the Bronx. They include statements he made to police (he claims the sex was consensual), surveillance video from the Bronx bar where he allegedly slipped the drug into the woman’s drink, and 16 photos he took of the naked, unconscious woman in the motel bed, posed in several positions.

Arroyo’s defense lawyer wanted the photos thrown out, saying police took Arroyo’s camera illegally, and that the photos serve no purpose except to inflame the jury. Prosecutors successfully argued that the pics go to the heart of their case—that the woman was incapable of consent. Neary noted that Arroyo voluntarily turned over the camera to police and never asked that it be returned. However, Neary will review the photos and determine if some of them should be kept out of the jury’s hands.

The defense also had a video expert testify that the bar surveillance video was unreliable, but Neary said he would let the jury determine that. The jury also will learn about DNA evidence found on the motel sheets that match both Arroyo and the woman.

And no, you’re not seeing double. The mug shots of Arroyo were scanned into our computer system this way, so this is how he’ll appear until our technical gurus at LoHud.com can fix the glitch.