It didn’t take long for the assault on Rep. Lee Zeldin at a campaign event to become the latest flashpoint in the political battle over New York’s bail laws.
Hours after the attack last week, Mr. Zeldin, the Republican candidate for governor of New York whose criticism of Democratic-led changes to bail status was a key issue in his campaign, said on Twitter that he expected the man arrested in the attack, David Iakubonis, to be released.
He then spoke at length when his prediction came true, emphasizing in press conferences and television appearances how Mr. Iakubonis’ release without bail exemplified the problems with bail law.
But almost immediately, the involvement of Mr. Zeldin’s political allies raised questions about the incident. Many Democrats have seized on the connection between the candidate and the Monroe County district attorney, Sandra Doorley, who as recently as this week was listed on Mr. Zeldin’s website as a campaign co-chair. They noted that the sheriff who prosecuted Mr. Iakubonis, Todd C. Baxter of Monroe County, was also an outspoken opponent of the bail law.
Finally, they wondered why Mr. Iakubonis was charged with attempted second-degree assault, a non-bailable charge that effectively ensured he would be released, as Mr. Zeldin had foreseen.
“I have no idea why a prosecutor would not prosecute the more serious crime,” said Charles D. Lavin, a Democrat who chairs the Assembly Judiciary Committee and is a former criminal defense attorney. “Here’s a situation where someone assaults an elected official with a weapon. Could it be that – as some have suggested – the indictment was framed in such a way as to allow Zeldin to appeal New York State’s bail laws? I do not know that.”
State Assemblyman Demond Meeks, Democrat of Rochester, went even further, saying he was surprised by the “lesser” charge given Ms. Doorley’s reputation as an “aggressive” prosecutor, and said, that the affair was “definitely a political stunt.”
No evidence has emerged to suggest that the indictment was chosen to secure Mr. Iakubonis’ release, which served to amplify Mr. Zeldin’s campaign message. Several Monroe County criminal attorneys say the charge is appropriate given the details of the July 21 attack.
And in an interview, the sheriff’s office investigator who brought the charge, Jeffrey Branagan, said there was no information from the district attorney’s office other than to tell him the charge was ineligible for bail.
Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sergeant Mike Zamiara said Tuesday that the Sheriff’s Office is “aware of some controversy surrounding this case.”
However, he insisted that “the Sheriff’s Office has no dog in this fight and we want no part of it. There was no attempt to influence anything here.”
A spokeswoman for Mr. Zeldin’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The episode began at a campaign stop near Rochester on Thursday, when a man identified by the police as Mr. Yakubonis approached Mr. Zeldin while he was giving a speech. In the video of the meeting, Mr. Yakubonis appears to put his left hand on the candidate’s shoulder, then move his right hand, which was holding a pointed plastic key ring shaped like a cat’s head, in the direction of Mr. Zeldin’s chest, saying several times “You’re done.”
Mr. Zeldin seemed to easily restrain him and the man was quickly knocked to the ground, taking the candidate with him. Mr. Yakubonis was arraigned by the Baxter Sheriff’s Office later that evening; Mr. Zeldin is unharmed.
Sheriff Baxter has openly opposed changes to the state’s bail law, which took effect in early 2020 and has since been amended twice. Democrats passed the changes that prevented people from being held in jail for relatively minor crimes. (More serious crimes, including violent crimes, remain eligible for bail.)
Opponents of the law have said the changes have led to an increase in crime, but the data do not show that is the case, and researchers say that given the law coincided with the start of the pandemic, it will be years before its full effect to be able to Be decisive. But as some categories of crime rose, more people were charged, released and rearrested, providing ammunition for the law’s critics.
In November 2019, Sheriff Baxter wrote an opinion urging the state to repeal the statute before it goes into effect, and argued that “the public will be shocked by the negative impact this law will have on the safety of our communities.” And the day after Mr. Iakubonis’ attack, the sheriff announced on Twitter that he had cleared his calendar to discuss “fixing” criminal justice reforms with any interested state legislators.
Mr. Branagan said he did not speak with the sheriff before determining the charge to be filed against Mr. Iakubonis.
He said he drove to the scene of the attack and questioned Mr. Zeldin and some of his employees about what happened. He had not previously spoken to Mr. Zeldin, a congressman representing Suffolk County on Long Island, and said he did not know who the candidate was.
After completing his investigation, Mr. Branagan made three calls to the district attorney’s office. The first two were of Perry Duckles, Ms. Doorley’s deputy, whom Mr. Branagan informed he planned to charge with attempted second-degree assault.
During their second call, Mr. Duckles had just been informed that two police officers had been shot in Rochester. So he asked Mr. Branagan to direct further conversations about the case to Matthew Schwartz, the chief of the district attorney’s major crimes unit.
During a conversation with Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Branagan confirmed with Mr. Schwartz that the charge was not eligible for bail.
Mr. Branagan said it is not unusual in Monroe County for the sheriff’s office to file such charges without a prosecutor present, and lawyers who practice in criminal court there agreed.
Still, the district attorney’s ties to Mr. Zeldin are under scrutiny in Mr. Yakubonis’ case. Callie Marianetti, a spokeswoman for Ms. Doorley, said the district attorney had not been personally involved in any conversations about charging Mr. Iacoubonis and had decided to withdraw from the case as of Friday. (Mr. Zeldin on Monday said Ms. Doorley had resigned in an “immediate decision” after the attack, according to the Albany Times Union.)
Ms. Doorley, Mr. Duckles and Mr. Schwartz could not be reached for comment.
Ms. Marianetti added that Ms. Doorley stopped advising Mr. Zeldin’s campaign in the spring. She said that because there had never been any documents formalizing Ms Doorley’s role, there had been no “official withdrawal” from the campaign. In an emailed statement later Thursday, Ms. Doorley’s office said it had informed Mr. Zeldin of her decision not to participate in his April 28 campaign.
Defense lawyers and former prosecutors who practice in Monroe County said the attempted assault charge was appropriate given the specifics of Mr. Iakubonis’ attack on Mr. Zeldin and that they saw nothing overtly suspicious about the circumstances in which he raised.
Jill Paperneau, who worked as a public defender in Monroe County for 35 years before leaving for private practice in the spring, said the attempted assault charge makes sense given that the sharp keychain that Mr. n Yakubonis held, he did not appear capable of causing the “serious physical injury” that would be necessary for a charge of a higher degree of assault. (In New York, serious physical injury means that a substantial risk of death or possibility of disfigurement or damage to a bodily organ is created.)
Donald M. Thompson, a partner at Easton Thompson Kasperek Shiffrin in Rochester and a criminal defense attorney, agreed that the charge accurately reflected the charges, that it was not particularly lenient and that it was not unusual for the two agencies to discuss the fee beforehand.
Asked if it could have been coordinated in Mr. Zeldin’s favor, Mr. Thompson was thoughtful.
“As a political consideration, is that possible to happen?” he said. “I don’t think we can rule it out. Is there evidence for this? Not to my knowledge. But surely people so inclined in that direction could make that argument. Because we can’t pull back the curtain, you can’t say why it happened or why it happened.”
Mr. Yakubonis has since been charged federally with assaulting a member of Congress with a dangerous weapon. He has been held in federal custody since Saturday; a detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
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