The Big Race

The contest for district attorney is the leading race in Suffolk County this year.

In a county with a long record of governmental corruption, and with such major criminal issues as illegal drug dealing and, in recent years, the murderous activities of the MS-13 gang, the position of DA is highly important — indeed, some in Suffolk County politics have termed it the most important position in all of county government.

This year, running on the Democratic ticket for DA is the incumbent, Timothy Sini of Babylon, who was elected in 2017 and took office in 2018. He is opposed by Raymond Tierney, who is running on the Republican and Conservative lines.

Mr. Tierney has engaged in a highly aggressive challenge to Mr. Sini.

“DA Tim Sini Has Devoted His Career to Protecting the Safety of Suffolk County,” declares a flier for Mr. Sini, previously the commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department. “Tim has a track record of fearless prosecutions & historic accomplishments.”

Not true, Mr. Tierney holds. His campaign literature describes Mr. Sini as “soft on crime, weak on corruption.”

Mr. Tierney was an assistant Suffolk County DA for 13 years, then a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, and then executive assistant DA in the Brooklyn DA’s office, leaving that post earlier this year to run for Suffolk DA.

Mr. Tierney has lambasted Mr. Sini for being more about appearance than being a hard-hitting prosecutor. He has accused the incumbent of being more concerned with “press releases and splashy press conferences” with “no follow-up,” as he stated in a webinar last month organized by Long Island Metro Business Action.

In the webinar, he specifically claimed Mr. Sini was a “complete failure” in the case of Justin Smith of Smithtown, who was charged with selling fentanyl-laced drugs resulting in overdose deaths on the East End in August. Mr. Tierney said Mr. Sini had opportunities to indict Mr. Smith earlier on drug charges but didn’t. He made a similar allegation of lack of early prosecution regarding Darren Mansfield of Bay Shore, later accused of murdering a 22-year-old Dix Hills woman.

Mr. Sini, in his appearance in a LIMBA webinar two weeks later, said: “He’s just lying about these cases.”

In his presentation, Mr. Sini said “crime is going down” in Suffolk County, spoke of his office having “invested heavily in crime-fighting technology” and his instituting “reforms,” his having “recruited top talent” and having “increased diversity dramatically” in the DA’s office.

Mr. Sini also has a background in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, in its Southern District of New York, starting his career in law enforcement in 2010 and having “prosecuted hundreds of violent gang members, hitmen, drug traffickers … and much more,” says his official biography as DA. He then was appointed deputy Suffolk County executive for public safety in 2014, under County Executive Steve Bellone, who nominated him in 2015 to be county police commissioner.

In his webinar, Mr. Sini spoke about the Suffolk DA’s office bringing an “illegal dumping case” that he said was the largest such case in New York State history, resulting, in 2018, in a 130-count indictment against 30 individuals and nine corporations. Residents who answered an ad offering free clean fill ended up with toxic debris instead. He quoted one defendant, Anthony Grazio, who has since pleaded guilty, saying on a wiretap: “We just dumped plutonium on that guy’s backyard.”

Regarding the MS-13 gang, Mr. Sini said the Suffolk County DA’s office was part of an investigation that utilized “200 wiretaps” and led to 96 arrests in the county in 2019.

Mr. Tierney, in his LIMBA webinar, spoke of investigating and prosecuting scores of MS-13 cases in his 11 years in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. His campaign biography says: “Much of his career was devoted to the trial and conviction of numerous members of the MS-13 street gang for the commission of murders and other violent crimes on Long Island. He drafted and applied for search and arrest warrants, presented evidence to grand juries … and conducted jury trials and sentencing hearings putting hundreds of dangerous MS-13 members behind bars.”

Also, it says, he “met with Department of Justice officials regarding long-term international criminal prosecutions, and briefed the attorney general and president on the status of MS-13 prosecutions both nationwide and in New York.”

In the webinar, Mr. Tierney related that he “grew up” in Commack and now lives with his family “in the Town of Brookhaven.” When I asked for this column about which community in Brookhaven Town, Mr. Tierney said he didn’t want to identify it “because of threats.”