Race for DA is too close to call

ABELOVE

The race for Rensselaer County District Attorney will go to absentee ballots.  

According to unofficial results from the Board of Elections, Republican Joel Abelove ended the night with 50.36 percent or 21,857 votes to Democrat Carmelo Laquidara’s 49.58 percent or 21,518 votes.

LAQUIDARA

There were about 2,700 absentee ballots issued and 1,814 were returned to the BOE.

The re-canvass of machine votes generally takes place the day following the election. It’s unclear when the two sides will sit down and go through the arduous process of counting the absentee ballots.

The two are vying for the seat vacated when Rich McNally was sworn in as a Supreme Court judge on Jan. 1.  

Dems send Laquidara's name to governor

LAQUIDARA

The Rensselaer County Democratic Party Executive Committee endorsed Carmelo Laquidara for district attorney, Saturday.

Well, it’s shy of an all-out endorsement in that the Democrats only voted to send his name to the governor for consideration and the whole committee will need to meet to actually nominate him for its formal candidate sometime in the near future. Obviously, that’s a given.

The governor could appoint Laquidara, or anyone else for that matter but odds are he won’t buck the local party, to fill the spot left vacant by Rich McNally, who is now a Supreme Court judge. There will be an election in November for a full four-year term. Right now, McNally’s number two guy, Arthur Glass, is filling in as DA by default.

ABELOVE

If Gov. Andrew Cuomo does decide to appoint Laquidara, the City of Rensselaer judge will have a leg up on any Republican opponent since it’s always easier to run as an incumbent. Laquidara also has decent name recognition and has run county wide, narrowly losing a primary for Rensselaer County court judge to Troy City Court Judge Christopher Maier.

For the Republicans, three names are out there with the frontrunner apparently Joel Abelove, a former assistant district attorney under then DA Trish DeAngelis who lost to McNally in 2012. Others who have either sent a letter of interest to the GOP are Troy attorney Bill Comiskey, who ran for Troy city court judge in the 80s and North Greenbush attorney Kathryn Dell, who ran for DA in the 90s as a Democrat.
 

Court of Appeals: Ariel Myers to get a new trial for Griswold Heights shooting

The state’s highest court Thursday ruled the lower court judge inappropriately allowed testimony into evidence during the 2010 trial of Arial Myers, and ordered he stand trial again for shooting Robert Guynup in the Griswold Heights apartment complex in 2009.

MYERS

The Court of Appeals, in a brief two-paragraph decision, agreed with the dissenting opinion from the Appellate Division, which upheld the conviction of assault and weapons possession earlier this year. In a two-one ruling, the Appellate Division said Judge Andrew Ceresia properly allowed a witness to tell the jury he saw Myers waving a similar type handgun more than two months prior to the Guynup shooting. Meyers was never charged with a crime in that incident.

The Court of Appeals, however agreed with the dissenting opinion written by Judge Elizabeth J. Garry. She wrote that an uncharged crime can only be introduced to help the prosecution establish identity or if the prior bad act had been consistent with the defendant’s unique modus operandi. Assistant District Attorney Keith Muse called Robert Cruz to the stand during the August 2010 trial to tell the jury he saw Meyers waving a .25 caliber pistol at the apartment complex during party where a fight broke out.

“In the absence of clear and convincing proof of either of the two required elements – that defendant perpetrated the earlier uncharged incident or that he used a distinct modus operandi – Cruz’s testimony was so lacking in probative vale that it was necessarily outweighed by its potential for prejudice, and its admission was an abuse of discretion as a matter of law,” Garry wrote in the April decision.

She also pointed to the fact Cruz was the only one to testify despite the fact a number of his family members were present when Meyers allegedly brandished the handgun, that it was impossible to determine if the handguns in each incident were of the same caliber or even which specific caliber gun was used to shoot Guynup and that Cruz admitted to getting his own sentence reduced in exchange for his testimony. She also wrote that the fact Myers was in the area prior to the shooting was not unusual.

Meyers was convicted of shooting Guynup - who survived but was rendered extremely disabled and requires around-the-clock care to provide even his most basic needs - while Guynup was taking photos of a 3:30 a.m. melee, the second of the night, outside his house across the street from the apartment complex on Sept. 13, 2009.

A jury acquitted Meyers of attempted murder but Ceresia sentenced him to the maximum of 25 years in prison for the assault and another 15 years for weapon’s possession which were to serve concurrently.

It’s unclear when Myers will return to court. The Rensselaer County Public Defender’s Office defended Meyers during his trial and Eugene Grimmick handled the appeal.

 District Attorney Richard McNally could not immediately be reached for comment.

Who will run to replace McNally? (UPDATED)

Now that Rensselaer County District Attorney Rich McNally is headed to the Supreme Court bench, chatter is starting about who will run next November. That, and a commenter asked me if I had heard anything is why I write this.

As near as I can tell, the position of DA goes to the number two in the office, who is now Arthur Glass, until the governor appoints a replacement, which may or may not happen. Regardless of if that happens or not, there will be an election in November 2014 for a full four year term. obviously, the Dems, through McNally, can appoint who they want and then that candidate can run as an incumbent which is a near-automatic advantage in any campaign. 

ABELOVE

LAQUIDARA

While there are no solid candidates as of yet, on the Democratic side it appears Carmelo Laquidara is the front runner. He is a well-respected jurist in the City of Rensselaer who narrowly lost a primary for Rensselaer County court to Troy City Court Judge Christopher Maier.

Amy O’Connor was also mentioned as a candidate but she had a mishap involving the Lucas Confectionary wine bar, prescribed pharmaceuticals and parked cars over the summer so running for the county’s top law enforcement officer is a tough go, for a while anyway.

I’ve really heard of no other candidate outside of Glass, but he’s a longshot at best.

On the flip side of things the names who immediately come to mind are attorneys Joe Ahearn (left), Greg Cholakis (Right and Joel Abelove.

Ahearn said he is keeping his options open but I don’t think he’ll run and I feel the same way about a possible Cholakis candidacy. So, I at this early point in time it’s Abelove, who McNally beat by a sizable margin last year.

I know it’s early and we haven’t even celebrated Christmas yet but I’m predicting this race will be hotly contested and fun to watch. The Democrats have had a tough time county-wide yet McNally beat Cholakis in a tight race that went to absentees in 2007 – a race brought into question two years later after voter fraud broke and one of McNally’s most loyal operatives, Bill McInerney, admitted to forging hundreds of absentee ballots.

DA McNally's curtain call

McNALLY

I supposed I have to weigh in on John Halacy, the Rensselaer guy charged with sexually assaulting two young teenage girls who was sprung from jail because of a procedural error by an assistant in the office of District Attorney Rich McNally.

Some background: A defendant is afforded a right to a speedy trial, which means prosecutors are required to take some sort of action within 90 days unless the defendant waives that right while the two sides try to work out a deal. In Halacy’s case, there was evidently a verbal agreement to waive the provision but it was never formally filed. As such, both felonies were dismissed and they can’t be brought again thanks to double jeopardy. Halacy walked out of jail basically a free man. Yes, he is facing new, but lesser, charges and is looking at a year in jail rather than decades.

It’s not a flattering way for McNally to exit the office he’s held for six years. As you know, he was elected to the Supreme Court and will don the robes on Jan. 1.

A couple things. McNally told The Record it was the first time such an incident has happened and I have no reason to believe the reporter got it wrong so I’m going on the premise McNally said it. But, I know it has happened before and I dare say more than once. To be fair, the exact quote is it’s the first time it has “come up with this particular team in my administration” so technically he might be right, but in reality it’s a misleading statement at best.

He also said the ADA in charge of the case, Laura Kruegler, is a “fairly new” ADA, but I know for a fact she has been there since Patricia DeAngelis’s tenure. Kruegler’s Facebook page says she started in the DA’s office in 2000, a long time for an attorney to work in any DA’s office since private practice is where they make the big bucks.

She has, though, had some health issues to navigate and McNally is correct in saying that the ADA’s are swamped and that he’s been repeatedly denied requested help. That was in response to a letter by the Republican majority on the county Legislature looking for answers regarding what happened in the Halacy case - a legitimate request, and one that is infinitely more substantial than patting the Hoosick Falls volleyball team on the back for coming in third place.

McNally has had a tough go of things as DA, maybe even a tougher than his two Republican predecessors … and that’s saying something.

While nobody suspected it at the time, his 2007 election was brought into question during the 2009 voter fraud scandal. Former City Clerk Bill McInerney testified to forging hundreds of absentee applications and ballots in 2007 and 2009. And McInerney worked for McNally in 2007 when the race went to the absentees.  

Then, once taking office in 2008, he allowed a grand jury hearing evidence regarding political extortion charges against Democratic Party Chairman Tom Wade to expire without finishing the job by issuing an indictment or a no bill. It just expired.

Then, according to court room testimony and his own admission, McNally had a conversation with McInerney (photo to the right) about which attorney the latter should hire after he was charged in the voter fraud scandal. That conversation came after McNally recused himself. It was never pursued but it smacks of a conflict of interest.

Then, McNally failed to recuse himself in a DWI case brought against Wade’s daughter after Wade was instrumental in getting him elected in 2007 and again in 2011. The disposition of the case might not have been out of the norm, but the appearance of impropriety is certainly ugly.

Now, we have a man who skates on charges of sexually assaulting a 13 and a 14-year old girl.

One of the teen’s moms, obviously upset with how things went, said she is out for some street justice. I can’t condone it, but I can’t say I blame her either. She certainly didn’t get any justice here.