State Attorney General Letitia James dropped the ball on protecting New Yorkers, a group of crime victims and their relatives said Tuesday as they rallied for GOP challenger Sarita Komatireddy.
Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor, vowed to give victims and their families a “direct line” to the attorney general’s office if she’s elected next month.
“In New York today, the reality is, criminals have more of an audience with our elected officials than crime victims,” Komatireddy said during a press conference outside James’ Lower Manhattan office.
Tamara Beckwith/NY Post
Six New Yorkers impacted by violence and drugs gathered with the Republican candidate, ripping the Empire State’s lax criminal justice laws backed by Democrats including two-term incumbent James and Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“They’re all angry,” Komatireddy said. “They’re all tired of being ignored. Each one of them is a victim of lawlessness.
“For the first time… those victims will have a direct line to the attorney general,” Komatireddy said — as she unveiled her plan to establish a “Victims Advisory Council” within the AG’s Office if she unseats James on Nov. 3.
Among those standing with Komatireddy was Tatiana Brahimi, a Putnam County mom whose 18-year-old son was struck and killed by a car during a 2016 Dutchess County brawl.
“I’m not a politician. This is why I believe in Saritha. She is not a politician,” Brahimi told reporters.
“Letitia James and all those cronies before her do not care about us. I buried a child. How many of us are burying our loved ones? The government doesn’t care. We need people like Saritha, who cares.”
Madeline Brame lost two sons — Army veteran Sgt. Hason Correa, who was stabbed to death in Harlem in 2018, and Rayvon Brame, who overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine — and said she was backing Komatireddy because victims and their families “need a seat at the table.”
Long Island mom Teresa Bliss, whose son, 25-year-old David Bliss, was shot to death in broad daylight in Port Jefferson in 2021 by a career criminal on probation, said the system failed her family.
She recalled finding out that her son had been killed through the radio — after authorities told her to wait in her car outside a local police precinct when she went there searching for David.
“These cascading failures — from the judicial disposition of probation, in lieu of incarceration, to lax probation enforcement, to the absence of proper, dignified family notification protocols — demonstrate a complete system breakdown,” Teresa Bliss said.
“This is exactly why victims and surviving families need a permanent voice,” she said. “Because after the most painful, life altering nightmare of our lives, we are asking for one simple thing: to be heard.”
New York’s 2019 criminal justice reforms bar judges from setting bail on most crimes, letting more offenders roaming the streets and in some cases committing new crimes.
“In Kathy Hochul and Letitia James in New York, we’ve seen the consequences of criminal justice policies that, in my view, far too often put offenders ahead of the victims,” said Jennifer Harrison, a Long Islander who founded Victims Rights NY after her boyfriend was murdered outside a New Jersey nightclub in 2005.
“When the criminal justice system fails a victim, where are we supposed to go if not for people like Saritha?” she said.
“We have activist judges, prosecutors whose decisions raise serious questions about public safety, bail reform, a parole board that families believe too often disregards the severity of violent crime, and failures to enforce parole and probation violations,” she added.
But Komatireddy accused James of also not doing enough for the victims, and said her advisory council will give them a voice in shaping office’s public safety and enforcement priorities.
“We will place victims at the center of what we do, and give them the respect and dignity that they deserve,” she said.
In an interview with the independent journalist group The New York Editorial Board, Komatireddy said she would send prosecutors from the AG’s to local district attorneys’ offices when victims raise complaints that their cases are falling through the cracks.
“We need to make sure that there is an open line of communication with crime victims. [That] if a crime victim is dissatisfied with their local DA, that they have someone to call,” she said in the interview published on Substack — also vowing she would re-dedicate half of the AG’s Office’s 700 prosecutors to criminal cases.
Jennifer Driver, the sister of Sarah Patricia Goode, a 21-year-old Long Island woman who was raped and murdered after rejecting a creep‘s sexual advances in 2014, said it’s sorely needed.
“Victims and survivors deserve a permanent voice in the laws, policies, and services that affect their lives,” Driver said. “It would help turn our pain into purpose and ensure victims are treated with dignity, compassion, and the support they deserve.
