NEW YORK
New York Daily News
With the defeat of Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes after six terms in office, there appeared to be little reason to comment further on his misrule of the city’s largest prosecution office. No such luck.
His last years were shadowed by a long failure to effectively prosecute sex abuse in the insular ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, a powerful voting bloc; by accusations (taken seriously by two federal judges) that top lieutenant Michael Vecchione had railroaded a man named Jabbar Collins for a rabbi’s murder; and by evidence that now-retired Detective Louis Scarcella may have helped the DA’s office win convictions with hyped evidence.
Denying all wrongdoing, Hynes and Vecchione maintained a united, tough front. Now, though, transformed from roaring lions into quacking lame ducks, they are bequeathing a shambles to successor Kenneth Thompson.
Two veteran prosecutors were demoted and booted from a controversial case after, it is said, one nearly came to blows with Vecchione; a third assistant district attorney was fired after reportedly questioning whether the office was meeting its legal obligations in the Collins case, and a judge ordered Hynes’ office to turn over all documents related to the Scarcella allegations.
You almost need a scorecard to keep all of this straight.
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