A Real Race for Suffolk District Attorney

For the first time in a long time, voters will elect someone to be the Suffolk County district attorney who is not named Thomas Spota. Mr. Spota, who is 76, decided not to run this year, after winning four consecutive elections, beginning in 2001. Timothy Sini is on the Democratic, Conservative, Working Families, and Independence lines; Ray Perini is the Republican and Reform Party candidate. 

Mr. Spota’s office has come under fire in the last few years, particularly after the conviction last year of James Burke, the Suffolk police chief, on multiple charges stemming from the beating of a suspect due to a personal vendetta. Mr. Spota had mentored the police chief for many years.

Mr. Sini, 37, graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 2005. He was a law clerk for federal judges in the Southern District of New York and in the Second Circuit. He served in the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District from 2010 to 2014, where he prosecuted gang members and drug dealers. He joined the administration of Suffolk Executive Steven Bellone as an assistant deputy before becoming commissioner of the Suffolk Police Department in late 2015. He is married with three children and lives in Babylon Village. 

Mr. Perini, 70, graduated from Brooklyn Law School in 1973, becoming an assistant district attorney in Kings County. In 1976, he moved to the Suffolk district attorney’s office, where he set up its Narcotics Bureau and founded the East End Drug Task Force. He remained the county’s chief narcotics prosecutor until establishing the law firm Perini & Hoerger in 1989. He is married, with two children and three grandchildren, and lives in Huntington.

In interviews this week both candidates spoke about what their focus would be if elected. Mr. Sini sees the battle against drunken driving, as well the fight against drug dealers and gang violence, as multi-pronged. For example, the current Stop-D.W.I. program is funded, in part, through fines levied in courts upon conviction. 

Mr. Sini believes the district attorney’s office should funnel part of its share of forfeiture money, that is, cash and assets seized from criminals like drug dealers, into enforcement, treatment, and education. He also believes the office should “forcefully argue for stronger sentences” in D.W.I. cases and called for a program to show young people “the impact of just a couple of drinks.”

“D.W.I. enforcement is all important,” Mr. Perini said Monday. Like Mr. Sini, Mr. Perini wants to enhance programs like Stop-D.W.I., which pools various police jurisdictions in an effort to arrest drunken drivers. He believes state legislators could aid that effort by raising the stakes for those involved in fatal accidents while drunk. Instead of trying such a case as vehicular homicide, a B felony, he would like to prosecute such cases at the higher A felony level, as homicide.

Both men were critical of the current practice in Mr. Spota’s office of using forfeiture funds for assistant district attorneys’ bonuses.

In the war against drugs, Mr. Perini pointed to having founded the Narcotics Bureau in the 1970s and his numerous prosecutions of drug dealers. He believes he has the experience to bring down those he calls “kingpin” drug dealers, who earn $75,000 or more over a six-month period. Proving kingpins’ level of income could be accomplished through court-ordered wiretaps and surveillance videos, he said. Upon conviction, the kingpins should face 25 years to life in prison, he said. 

  At the same time, “treatment is important for the users,” he said. With the age of some drug users dropping, education and outreach to youngsters, down to the fifth and sixth grades, is important as well, Mr. Perini said. He said there were 400 deaths in the county from drug overdoses in 2016 and that he expects that number to hit 500 this year. 

Mr. Sini believes that dealers of heroin and fentanyl, in cases where overdose deaths can be traced back to them, should be prosecuted for manslaughter. At the same time,  he said it was important that addicts “not be afraid to go to treatment or to drug court. We have a great drug court.”

 Drug Treatment Court is an alternative to incarceration, with eligibility decided in the district attorney’s office based on the criminal history of the defendant and the nature of the charges, according to the state’s judicial website.

Mr. Sini also believes the Suffolk Legislature needs to revisit the laws regarding the weight of narcotics. Possession of eight ounces or more triggers an A1 felony charge. In his opinion that should be reset at a lower weight, particularly given the increased potency of the heroin being used.

He touted his record in prosecuting dealers of emerging “designer” drugs, such as bath salts, which is not spelled out in current law. He was the first, he said, to demonstrate that their molecular structure was analogous to drugs that are covered when he was a U.S. prosecutor, he said.

Battling gangs like MS-13, which have a foothold in pockets of the county, is a major focus for both men. Mr. Sini would create an East End Gang Task Force. As with the East End Drug Task Force, it would provide for combined resources and take advantage of the knowledge of local officers. 

Both men support term limits for the district attorney and pledged to limit themselves if elected, Mr. Perini to two four-year terms, Mr. Sini to three, regardless of whether limits are created under law.

Each sees the other as the wrong man for the job. Mr. Perini questions Mr. Sini’s  experience, while Mr. Sini believes his opponent is too entrenched in the system to bring about the change he believes is needed.

Mr. Sini pointed to his record as Suffolk County Police commissioner. The department was immersed in scandal after Mr. Burke’s legal troubles came to light. “The district attorney’s office is in a similar situation,” he said. What is needed is “bold, fresh leadership.” 

“If you don’t care who gets the headlines, and you work together to get the bad guys, we can be effective,” Mr. Perini said.