ALBANY COUNTY — Twenty years ago, a leaner David Soares was the upstart who upset the county party’s chosen candidate in a Democratic primary.

Paul Clyne had taken over as Albany County’s district attorney after Sol Greenberg’s retirement. Soares, who had worked as an assistant district attorney under Clyne, was fired when he launched his campaign.

While most of the publicity around Soares’s campaign then focused on his opposition to the drug laws passed during the Rockefeller administration, Soares came to Altamont Village Hall to say he would focus on prevention as well as prosecution.

Now, Soares is being challenged in the June 25 Democratic primary by criminal defense attorney Lee Kindlon, who lost in a similar attempt 12 years ago, and says Soares runs an office, when he is there, that is reactive rather than preventative.

Earlier this year, Soares provoked a media firestorm for giving himself $23,000 in bonus pay with funds from state grants — money he later returned without any admission of wrongdoing. And, for a decade, questions and concerns have been raised about his spending of drug forfeiture funds.

The NAACP held a candidates’ forum on June  11 that drew about 100 people to the Albany Housing Authority on South Pearl Street and included the Republican candidate for district attorney, Ralph Ambrosio, who will run in November against whoever wins the Democratic primary.

The odds are stacked in favor of the Democratic candidate: In round numbers, of Albany’s 211,000 voters, nearly half — 104,000 — are Democrats with 38,000 Republicans, 57,000 unenrolled, and the rest in small parties.

The central tension among the three lawyers at the June 11 forum was between the two Democrats.

At one point, as Soares railed against the reforms that allow defendants to see information on witnesses ahead of a trial and Kindlon responded by defending the practice, the moderator, Corey James of Spectrum News, asked the rumbling audience to “keep it down.”

Ambrosio leaned back from the table, announcing the other two could fight it out.

The reform policies were put in place, Soares said, by “people who live in safe communities with “no worries about bullets flying through the window.”

He went on, “They can share virtue because they don’t have to share in the burden.”

Kindlon responded that discovery makes trials better, allowing investigation.

In 99 percent of the cases, Kindlon said, “everybody involved in the case — the judge, the cops, the prosecutor, the defense attorney and even the accused — are actually doing the right thing and following the rules. Now, do we need to tighten around the margins? Absolutely.”

Throughout the debate, Soares railed against the statewide reforms that he said hamper his job while Kindlon repeatedly said public safety is his priority. Ambrosio said he’d reorganize the district attorney’s office so that there is central booking and early case evaluation.

A summary of the candidates’ comments at the June 11 forum follows.

 

TWO DEMOCRATS

Lee Kindlon

Lee Kindlon said he was born and raised in Albany, served in the Marine Corps, deployed to Fallujah, and came back to raise his family.

He and his wife and their three teenage sons and two dogs live in New Scotland.

He graduated from Williams College in 1998 with a degree in history and from the University of Connecticut School of Law in 2002. He’s a lieutenant colonel, judge advocate in the Marine Corps Reserve.

Kindlon started working for the public defender’s office and opened his own law firm. “I know what it’s like to run a small business in this country, paying bills, keeping employees, being accountable to those clients that come in my front door and ask for help,” he said.

Kindlon said he’s been around the criminal justice system his entire life; his father is a defense attorney. He’s been in small courts to the Court of Appeals, he said, and knows how to work with prosecutors and judges and victims and defendants to find justice.

“I’m running for Albany County District Attorney because it’s time to restore accountability, integrity, and leadership to the district attorney’s office that is in desperate need of all three,” he said.

He went on, “We have a crime problem here in Albany and that crime problem is a legacy of 20 years of inaction by David Soares.”

Kindlon said he knew attempts have been made to criticize his role in the criminal justice system; one of Kindlon’s recent high profile cases was defending ​​Naumann Hussain, operator of the limousine company involved in the 2018 crash in Schoharie.

Being a defense attorney, Kindlon said, has taught him compassion. “It’s taught me how the criminal justice system can affect lives.”

He grew up on Lenox Avenue, he said, and now lives in New Scotland, not high-crime areas.

“I don’t have the same shared experience as a lot of the people I represent,” Kindlon said. “But I’ve done everything in my power because it’s my job, my ethical responsibility to get to know everybody, every family I’ve ever had to help. And that, more than anything else, gave me an education in terms of what’s needed.”

Kindlon concluded, “I might not be some fire-breathing pretend tough guy, but I know what it’s like to be in a courtroom and to see the competing interests going back and forth …. I’ve lost friends and clients and people I’ve known to gun violence and that hurts me personally.”

Public safety, Kindlon said, is his priority.

Kindlon said that, starting on Jan. 2, he would revamp and reorganize major crimes and dedicate as much money and manpower as needed “to take a crack at violent crime.”

“We’ve got to protect the victims of sexual assault,” he went on. “We’ve got to let them know that we’re finally on their side.

Kindlon said pointedly, “I’m going to show up to the office every day …. I lead from the front.”

Long-term, he said, the office would start using intelligence data from the Crime Analysis Center to deal with the “gun pipeline,” bringing in guns from out of state.

“It’s not just going to be this reactive prosecution we have now,” said Kinlon.

Asked about racial disparity in drug arrests, Kindlon said, “We find now that most drug use is an addiction issue.” Alternative treatment courts are needed to provide resources, he said, and not just after an arrest.

He credited Albany County’s progress since the days of the Rockefeller drug laws.

But the current administration, he said, “somehow wants to work backwards.”

Kindlon concluded, “The criminal justice system needs to become more equitable and fairer.”

Kindlon said most litigators in Family Court don’t “really have direction from up on high … When you don’t have a litigator in charge of your office, when your administrator barely shows up to work, there is no rhyme or reason or direction in terms of how the Albany County District Attorney’s Office handles raise-the-age cases.”

“The cynical view,” said Kindlon of Soares, “is that he just can’t do his job and he’s blaming Raise the Age for all these failures.”

On immigrant rights, Kindlon said, “My number-one concern is public safety.”

He said he would offer a “safe haven” to victims of crimes who come forward regardless of their immigration status.

Another more difficult part of the immigration equation, he said, is “these people who have been accused of crimes eventually get convicted of crimes …. Most felony convictions can lead to negative immigration consequences whether you’re here legally or not.”

In turn, Kindlon said that “might affect how the family is able to support itself.” He said, “We want to make sure that, to the best of our ability to keep families together again with that overriding concern of public safety.”

Although bail reform “still needs to be fixed,” Kindlon said, he supported 100 percent locking up and tracking people accused of violent felonies and reiterated his top concern was public safety.

“The goal was to stop punishing people for being poor,” said Kindlon, saying it was an economic issue.

He went on, “There was never a dangerousness standard that existed before.”

While he said New York might move toward what New Jersey does with a point-based system, “one of the things I will not apologize for is my belief that, just because you’re poor doesn’t mean you don’t deserve the same benefits … Regardless of socioeconomic status, you’re entitled to defense, you’re entitled to your rights under the constitution.”

For people with mental disabilities, Kindlon said, “Alternative courts have been a wonderful success.”

He said that veterans who are “near and dear” to his heart often have mental-health issues or addiction problems and there should be “prosecutors trained to help deal with these things.”

Currently, Kindlon said, “They’re kind of handled on a one-off basis and it depends on the judge.”

By way of example, Kindlon said he had represented “a good kid” in Albany County who was carrying a gun because someone was threatening his mother.  State Police found a gun in his car.

“The D.A. wouldn’t budge,” he said but Judge Andra Ackerman offered him the first spot in the U-CAN (United Against Crime Community Action Network) that she founded in which defendants can plead to a misdemeanor and participate in a year-long program, after which the charges are adjourned in contemplation of dismissal if they successfully complete the program. That means if the defendants stay clean, their records are sealed.

Kindlon’s client made it through the program and his record was sealed. He’s now an active duty Marine, said Kindlon

Kindlon said, when he had a similar situation with another young man a few months ago, he was “shocked” the district attorney’s office no longer had the program.

What is said and what is done, Kindlon asserted, are “two very different things.”

On gang warfare, Kindlon said the office needs to be more proactive. Now, he said, the office is reactive, “relying on overworked and overburdened sheriff’s deputies.”

He went on, “I imagine we could go forward and actually stop this pipeline of guns.”

He also recommended “hard conversations” in neighborhoods beset with violence. “I’ll invite everybody to sit around and talk and we’re going to come up with those solutions to finally, finally drive down what is the highest violent crime rate in upstate New York.”

“Over the years,” Kindlon said, “I’ve developed relationships with police officers who tell me some of the most rewarding days of their life is the ability to walk through neighborhoods and make friends with people.”

He thinks police presence in neighborhoods is important. “You need to increase the actual number of units,” he said, noting Albany is down 70 or 80 cops. Police are there to break up domestic violence incidents and investigate crimes as well, he said.

“How many of us, when we were little, wanted to grow up to be a cop because they’re respected members of our community?” Kindlon asked. “And now these men and women are out there overworked and overburdened.”

Albany County once had “legendary prosecutors,” said Kindlon, stating that he’d shoveled Sol Greenberg’s driveway when he was a kid.

“They’re all gone,” he said.

Prosecutors, he said, don’t work for the money but because they’re “making a difference.”

“You’ve got to rebuild the ranks …,” he said. “We train the next generation of great men and women who are there because they understand that they’re making that difference.”

Kindlon concluded, “I actually care about your concerns. We’re going to prosecute bad guys. We’re going to keep people safe.”

 

David Soares

David Soares, who has been district attorney for 20 years, said, “The thing that I’m so proud of is the fact that I have seen this community rise. I have seen the absolute best of times.

But, he went on, “We are experiencing the absolute worst of times.”

In the first two weeks of summer, he said, nine people were in a trauma center and three were in a funeral parlor. “That says all you need to know,” said Soares.

He went on about state criminal-justice reform, “There’s no one at this table more qualified … and there’s been no one who has been more vocal than me in the entire state of New York about these laws.”

He concluded, “This is so much more than a campaign of candidates. This is the future of New York state.”

When he started as district attorney, Soares said, prosecuting street crimes was a central focus. “We were literally believing that we could prosecute drug sales one case at a time,” said the Albany Law School graduate.

Now violent crimes is the largest unit, dealing with “people who are shooting at one another.”

He went on, “The unit deals with 16- and 17-year-olds that are shooting at one another, who go to Family Court for juice and crackers.”

The police officers and the prosecutors are not the problem, said Soares. “The problems that we have is this disastrous, disastrous series of reforms.” The “biggest experiment” for the reforms, he said, “happens to be Black and Brown communities.”

He urged those in the audience not “to be fooled by talking points” that deny “the lived experience of people of color in this community.”

Violence, he said, has quadrupled “in very specific ZIP codes.”

Soares went on, alluding to Ralph Ambrosio’s comments, “Let’s not talk about the fantasy of central booking; I don’t even understand what that is … Let’s talk about where 70 percent of violent crime is taking place, which is right here … and then let’s talk about the unindicted co-conspirators, which happen to be the legislators ….”

Soares, referencing his childhood in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, said, “There is a difference, ladies and gentlemen, between being dumb and being dangerous.”

Soares said he and his friends did “dumb things” as kids. “They do the same thing here in this community,” he said of youth in Albany. That’s where “restorative justice” can be used, he said, to divert those cases “so that you can focus on the most dangerous offenders.”

He railed that “judges cannot consider dangerousness and kids that are out there with loaded firearms get to go to Family Court and they are released back to mom and dad right after the proceedings.”

He again said it isn’t a police or prosecutor issue but “a state legislature issue.”

Soares said it is the conditions in Black and Brown communities “that draw young people of color to the corners. The corners are always hiring.”

He went on, “We have to change the conditions in our communities where our young kids can actually feel like they have hope.”

On juvenile justice, Soares said, “The juvenile justice system is broken beyond repair.”

Raise the Age, he said was built on three elements: that young kids shouldn’t be in prison with adults and that a child should not be judged for the rest of his or her life based on one crime — both of which he agreed with as did prosecutors across the state, he said — and finally, that kids should get needed counseling and treatment.

What we got, he said, is a kid with a loaded firearm “about to commit a drive-by” but who does not “display the gun” “gets to go to family court to be released and get milk and crackers and then be right back out on the street.”

Half of the cases in Albany County are violent crimes, Soares said, and half of those crimes involve carrying a loaded firearm and one third of all gun crimes involve the discharge of a firearm.

On immigration rights, Soares said that Albany has become “incredibly diverse” in the last 20 years. “And the beauty of our community is its diversity,” he said.

Soares said he does not allow an individual who comes forward as a victim to be punished for their immigration status.

“We will not allow for any government entity to come into our jurisdiction to punish an individual for coming forward with their victimization,” said Soares.

His office has “an incredible crime advocate unit” that works directly with immigrants, Soares said. People who were being human trafficked, he said, were given a “most reasonable and sympathetic journey.”

Soares called bail reforms “utter failures.”

He gestured to the City Mission down the street and said, “Most of the people are coming out of corrections.”

Someone will drive by the City Mission, he said, and talk the people “hanging out” there into “jumping in the car.” They are driven to Crossgates Mall and are told to run in and grab “the most expensive items,” he said.

“Every day, around three o’clock, it’s gladiator school,” said Soares.

“So, if they happen to be arrested or brought to the station, they’re given an appearance ticket,” which Soares termed a “disappearance ticket.”

“We’ve taken all the risks away from stealing, which is why we have stores closing,” said Soares.

He called advocates of bail reform “daydream believers.”

Soares suggested doing a switch as in “one of those television shows” where people change places and have “people who live in communities that support bail reform but don’t have to share the burden” switch homes for a couple of weeks to a place where a 10-year old is shot in his bedroom through the window.

He went on to say the reform affects how police interact with suspects, giving the example of a man urinating outside of a restaurant, stopped by police, who after being processed at the station is back urinating “before you’ve had desert.”

People who live in communities with crime, Soares said, want more police. “Don’t say ‘Defund police,’” he said.

On mental illness, Soares said that “individuals who have no ability to form intent” are not prosecuted.

Crimes are mapped in Albany County, said Soares, recommending that the department of mental health use those maps to deploy services where they are needed.

Soares said the most important document in the criminal justice system is the pre-sentencing report. It is frustrating, he said, for prosecutor to get that report at the end of the process after a plea bargain

“We have changed that process in Albany County with very specific cases,” he said, “because you can’t do it with everyone; the volume is just far too much.”

On gang violence, Soares said the gang activity in Albany dates back generations, calling it “an uptown, downtown civil war.”

“You take that ongoing civil war and now you place these ridiculous reforms over the top of that and what you have are increases in Albany that you don’t find in other places.”

Other places, Soares asserted, don’t have generational gang civil war like Albany.

The Albany Police along with the county sheriff’s deputies, he said, “are running from one fire to the next because those are the things that are happening right now,” said Soares, calling Kindlon’s notion of stopping a gun pipeline “fantasy.”

“Some people have the time to do that,” he said. “But right now it’s saving lives right now.”

Soares said witnesses can be protected by removing them from a community and putting them up in hotels outside of Albany until the day of the trial.

“We have deeper issues in this city and in our communities than you can just thrust upon the criminal justice system,” said Soares.

He concluded by saying, “I have never lied when I’m running for my position.”

He blamed reforms for problems he has had in doing his job. “We can’t do it if most of the people who are participating in this insanity keep being released …. If the judge can’t consider dangerousness, you can’t argue dangerousness.”

 

ONE REPUBLICAN

Ralph Ambrosio

Ralph Ambrosio said he has worked in the criminal justice system for 47 years, first as a state trooper.

 He served in the United States Navy from 1970 to 1976 and then worked for 13 years for the State Police. Ambrosio has also been assistant district attorney in Greene and Columbia counties and was assistant attorney general under Dennis Vacco.

The Albany County Attorney General’s Office, he said, needs to be reorganized so that there is central booking and early case evaluation.

The technology exists, he said, to talk to arresting officers in real time.

“Early case evaluation has been used in this state for decades,” said Ambrosio. “It’s time to bring it to Albany.”

Ambrosio said he was the only candidate who has prosecuted a felony case in the state court.

“I hold people accountable,” he said. “As a New York State Trooper, I’ve arrested people … I’ve also helped a lot. And I know the difference. This isn’t about braggadocio. It’s about knowing what the job is.”

He described representing a 21-year-old Marine accused of raping a 14-year-old girl. 

“I proved that he was innocent,” Ambrosio said, likening himself to the character Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He added that, while the fictional lawyer Finch didn’t have DNA, Ambrosio did.

Ambrosio said, “We’re looking for a brand new system …. I know if we get control of our streets on the smaller crimes, the bigger crimes will take care of themselves.”

He credited mayors Ralph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg for the “broken-window policy” in New York City “where they paid attention to the little things that New York City turned around.”

“He had it right,” Ambrosio said of Bloomberg.

Ambrosio also said the district attorney’s office in Albany isn’t “large enough to be compartmentalized,” adding, “I would want to share the information and the expertise of all of the lawyers across the board.”

Asked about racial disparity in drug arrests, Ambrosio said that, as district attorney, he would offer non-violent drug felons once they complete their sentence the chance to seal their records.

“That’s going to help that person not to reoffend. That’s going to help that person to get a good job so they don’t have to take a job application and check a horrible box that says, ‘Yeah, I’m a felon.’”

Ambrosio said he used this section of law in 2007 when the daughter of one of his friends had a 2005 conviction. “I can do a conditional sealing offer … that’s my offer to you … Once they get through their sentence, once they pay their debt back to society, whatever they do, anger management and drug rehabilitation, you come to me ….”

Ambrosio said that the most vicious assault he saw as a state trooper was between two 17-year-old boys fighting over a girl. “Their bodies grow much faster than their maturity,” he said.

Ambrosio advocated returning to New York’s former policy of having the court system treat 16-year-olds as adults. He said he would also advocate for more discretion being given to judges.

On immigrants’ rights, Ambrosio said, “I will prosecute people only for what they have done, not who they are — ever.”

He also said he would meet with any group — gay, straight, Jew, Italian — anytime.

“I have an open door,” he said.

On bail reform, Ambrosio said, “The no-cash bail reform has turned our courts into fast-food drivers.”

He called it a “complete and utter failure” and said, “You simply can’t get defendants to come into court.”

To solve that problem, Ambrosio said he would use the “Parker warning” from a 1982 case, People v. Parker, that, if the defendant doesn’t show, the trial can proceed without him or her.

Although it’s an emergency provision, Ambrosio said, “We’re in an emergency now.”

He concluded, “Defendants are going to come to court.”

He also said, “Bail reform is ridiculous” and likened it to a revolving door.

About prosecuting people with disabilities or mental illness, Ambrosia said, “The entire criminal justice system is based on free will.”

Mentally disabled people don’t have free will, he said, decrying the end of institutions that he said let people get clean and healthy and be treated with respect.

“I think we have to spend a lot more money, a lot more resources on people who are disabled, mentally challenged,” he said.

Ambrosio favors alternative sentencing.

“It is the Department of Correctional Services,” he said. “It’s not the Department of Prevention. It’s not the Department of Retribution.”

Treatment, if needed, should be part of a sentence, he said.

On gang warfare, Ambrosio said, “Violent criminals have to go to prison. Period.”

Every time the district attorney doesn’t hold a criminal responsible, he said, the root ball is being watered and fertilized. “The violent crime that we’re seeing in Albany County today are the flowers of that root ball,” he said.

Ambrosio also said that gang violence comes from kids who don’t feel safe going to a police officer.

Likening Rochester to a shooting gallery, Ambrosio said violence is rampant everywhere, not just in Albany.

“This is happening everywhere,” he said. “It’s a disrespect of our criminal justice system and it has to stop.”

On coaxing frightened witnesses to speak, Ambrosio said he wouldn’t give out personal information on a victim unless he covered it with a code.

“We will prosecute every single charge,” said Ambrosio, again stressing early case evaluation.

A concentration would be put on crime-heavy areas, he said.

The district attorney’s office, he said, needs “to support the police at every phase of their job.”

Ambrosio concluded by reiterating the need for central booking and early case evaluation.

The first time he saw early evaluation, he said, was in the case of a serial murder, who had the pictures of the 40 or so women he'd killed in his duffel bag.

“The D.A. came to my station and we worked with him, and we convicted him …,” Ambrosio said of the serial killer.

“Now that’s the type of emergency response we need in the D.A.’s office. And that’s why I keep pounding on this — case evaluation and central booking where I can talk to the arresting officers in real time.”

****

Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Primary Day, June 25.

Early voting, which began on Saturday, June 15, runs through Sunday, June 23, with voting from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and from noon to 8 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday.

Local early voting locations are at the Berne firehouse at 30 Canaday Hill Rd.; at the Parish Hall of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church at 85 Elm Ave. in Delmar; at the North Bethlehem firehouse at 589 Russell Rd.; at the Guilderland Public Library at 2228 Western Ave.; and at the Lynnwood Reformed Church at 3714 Carman Rd. in Guilderland.