Melinda Katz and Mike Gianaris making a go for State A.G.

  

THE CITY

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez is weighing a statewide campaign for attorney general if Letitia James leaves the seat to run for governor, eight people familiar with the matter told THE CITY.

In recent weeks, they say, Gonzalez has been making calls to his top supporters and elected officials to float a possible campaign in the 2022 race.

“He’s looking to run. He’s fishing around,” said a close ally of Gonzalez who has helped him raise campaign cash in the past.

Also sniffing out support are Queens DA Melinda Katz and state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens), according to sources familiar with their activities.

Gonzalez served for years as a prosecutor in the Brooklyn DA’s office before ascending to the top job in 2016 following the death of his predecessor, Ken Thompson. The following year, Gonzalez became the first Latino to be elected as a district attorney in New York.

 Meanwhile, Katz, who secured the Democratic primary win for Queens DA in 2019 by just 60 votes when she was borough president, is also considering a run for the statewide office, according to four sources familiar with the matter.

One source close to Katz told THE CITY Thursday that “she’s certainly going to be ready to run” if James vacates her position to run for governor.

“Melinda is the candidate to run against the DSA and more in alignment with the mainstream Democratic voters,” said the source, referencing the Democratic Socialists of America who backed soon-to-be councilmember Tiffany Cabán in the Queens DA race.

Gianaris, who heads the Senate Democrats’ campaign efforts, is also contemplating an AG campaign, pending James’ decision, according to people close to him. The Senate’s deputy majority leader has amassed a $3 million warchest for past attorney general runs that didn’t materialize and in his state Senate campaign account.

 

Shabby D.A.'s

 

 NY Post

 District attorneys across the Big Apple last year declined to prosecute accused felons at nearly twice the rate of 2019 — letting more than 6,500 suspects off the hook, The Post has learned.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in 16.9 percent of the 38,635 felony cases that were closed in New York City during 2020, according to data compiled by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The year before, that rate was just 8.7 percent and the average for 2016 to 2019 was an even lower 8 percent, the statistics show.

Even though far fewer cases were disposed of last year, the 6,522 defendants whose charges were dropped exceeded the 5,985 who weren’t prosecuted in 2019.

The total number of cases closed in 2020 plunged by a massive 44.1 percent last year amid court closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — down from 69,119 the year before.

A law enforcement source said there were “a lot of layers to the problem,” including veteran prosecutors retiring or leaving for other jobs and “inexperienced [prosecutors] and cops making it harder to do trials,” as well as the political nature of DAs’ jobs.

 “The DAs are worried about getting re-elected,” the source said.

“Plus, you throw in a bucket of ‘woke’ and no one is getting prosecuted.”

The source also pointed to controversial, recently enacted laws governing the disclosure of evidence to the defense, known as “discovery.”

“Now, if someone takes a plea, you still have to provide the discovery information even though the case is closed,” the source said.

“Before, you didn’t have to. If you DP [decline to prosecute] a case, there is no discovery.”

Made Man makes big donations to Brooklyn Machine

 

 

NY Post

He really is “connected.”

The reputed wiseguy behind Brooklyn’s Plaza Auto Mall has been handing out campaign cash to local Democrats — including the borough’s district attorney and its party boss, The Post has learned.

John Rosatti’s Plaza Motors of Brooklyn donated $2,020 to DA Eric Gonzalez for his winning 2017 campaign and the next year gave $2,000 to Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, who in January 2020 succeeded longtime leader Frank Seddio as head of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.

The following month, Plaza donated another $10,000 to the party, records show.

John Kaehny of the good-government group “Reinvent Albany” said pols “should be vetting contributions in order to make sure that there’s no attempt to influence them.”

“What did this guy expect for his contribution — that’s the question the campaigns should ask themselves,” he added.

Before amassing a reported $400 million fortune, Rosatti, 77, was identified by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement as an alleged soldier in the Colombo crime family, according to a 1993 decision by the state’s Casino Control Commission.

The ruling, which rejected a bid to bar Rosatti pal and reputed Colombo family member John Staluppi from the state’s casinos, cited testimony that confidential informants claimed Rosatti became a Colombo associate in 1980 and was sworn in as a “made member” in 1994.

Bail reform law has caused an exodus of prosecutors

NY Post

At least 40 employees in Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez’s office have quit since the start of the year, The Post has learned — and insiders are blaming increased workloads tied to reforms that require them to provide evidence to defendants within 15 days of their arraignments.

Staring down the barrel of a hard deadline to get pages from police officers’ memo books, surveillance footage, phone records and other materials over to defense attorneys, prosecutors are routinely clocking 11 and 12-hour days to avoid losing their cases altogether, multiple sources told The Post.

“Morale is terrible,” one Brooklyn prosecutor said. “People are feeling overworked and underappreciated.”

Sources said that the grind since the reform took effect is so brutal, supervisors have had to order assistant DAs to stop working and go home for the sake of their sanity.

“People are kind of talking about it openly saying ‘I don’t know, should I ride this out?’” one Brooklyn prosecutor told The Post.

Another prosecutor said that the number of their colleagues dusting up their resumes is unlike anything they’ve seen in past years — and that some are blaming their tense new working conditions under discovery reform.
“Almost everyone I know is looking for another job,” the prosecutor said.