Catalfamo joins call for special session of Legislature to address bail reform | Politics

Catalfamo, who is challenging Assemblywoman Carrie Woerner, D-Round Lake, announced Wednesday that he is joining New York City Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, in urging Gov. Kathy Hochul to immediately call the Legislature back into special session to discuss criminal justice issues.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Catalfamo challenged Woerner also to join Adams’ call to bring the legislature back into special session to discuss bail reform, but said he doubted that she would.

“I think that she deserves a chance to prove me wrong,” said Catalfamo, an economic development official and writer from Wilton.

Woerner, in a telephone interview on Friday, reiterated her position that the success of changes to the 2019 bail reform law enacted as part of the state budget in April need to be evaluated before additional repeal measures are discussed.

“These are substantive changes that happened in April,” she said.

Woerner said legislation should be based on “data,” not emotion.

By the time the Legislature reconvenes in January, the state Division of Criminal Justice will have compiled enough statistics to make an accurate analysis of the effectiveness of the changes made in April, she said.

Adams, in calling for the special session, has said that there has been a year-to-year 37% increase in violent crime in New York City.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy thinktank at New York University, however, says there has been no evidence that bail reform is the cause of increased crime.

“Many have argued that bail reform is responsible for rising crime in New York state, both in an out of New York City,” the Brennan Center said in a March 22 report. “But crime rates rose all across the country in 2020, making it unwise to look for explanations that are confined to New York.”

Catalfamo contends that bail reform has left would-be criminals with a sense that there will be no punishment for their actions.

He points to the July 21 shooting of two plainclothes Rochester police officers who were ambushed while on duty.

Both officers were wounded, and one died as a result.

A 15-year-old girl at a nearby home also was shot and wounded, according to the Associated Press.

The alleged shooter, a 21-year-old Boston-area man who had committed previous crimes, was arrested and charged.

Also, in the Rochester area on July 21, David Jakubonis, a 43-year-old Army veteran, climbed on stage during a campaign rally and confronted Zelden, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, and extended a keychain with two sharp points toward Zeldin, before the two wrestled each other to the floor, according to news reports.

Local police initially arrested Jakubonis and released him, sparking a new wave of controversy over bail reform.

Jakubonis later was arrested on a federal charge of assaulting a member of Congress, and detained.

Zelden, and many Republican state legislators, have joined in Adam’s call for Hochul to call a special session of the Legislature to address bail reform — a call Hochul has, thus far, dismissed.

Catalfamo alleged that Woerner has been oblivious to the situation.

“There are bipartisan pleas to repeal these dangerous laws before any more people are hurt or killed, but Carrie Woerner sits in silence, afraid to buck her party bosses,” he said.

Woerner said she is not ignoring the situation, but has been studying the effectiveness of the changes made in April and has been speaking regularly with local police officials and district attorneys in preparation for the regular session of the Legislature in January.

“I continue to pay attention … and I’m not taking my eye off this task,” she said.

Woerner said she has been following local news reports since April, and that there is anecdotal evidence that judges have been able to set bail more frequently since the recent changes to the law.

“My qualitative analysis … is these changes have made a difference (locally),” she said.

Woerner said Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has agreed to review Mayor Adams’ research about crime rates in New York City.

Woerner is running for re-election to a fifth consecutive two-year term.

Catalfamo is making his second run for Assembly, after losing to Woerner in 2020.