Hynes Is Target Among Candidates In Brooklyn Debate
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The three candidates looking to unseat Charles “Joe” Hynes as Brooklyn’s district attorney piled on to him in a vicious debate last night, accusing the four-term incumbent of ignoring corruption, coddling violent criminals, and relying on campaign money from staff members. With his arms folded and a look of disgust, Mr. Hynes said he wouldn’t sit back “like a potted plant” and submit to what he called false charges hurled against him by his opponents, Mark Peters, John Sampson, and Arnold Kriss.
Mr. Hynes’s bitterest retorts were reserved for Mr. Peters, 40, who served as Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s chief corruption prosecutor between 2001 and 2004.The incumbent mocked Mr. Peters as someone who “acts like Eliot Ness” and “who would like to be Eliot Spitzer.” Mr. Hynes, 70, freely interrupted Mr. Peters, who has focused his campaign on corruption issues, and called him an “irresponsible young man.”
Turning to Mr. Sampson, a state senator from East Flatbush who is the only black candidate, Mr. Hynes said he has “no experience I’m aware of” that would make him qualified for the job of district attorney. Mr. Hynes repeatedly accused Mr. Kriss, who is now in private practice, of exaggerating the number of homicide cases he tried when he was an assistant district attorney. Mr. Kriss said he tried “countless” cases, then revised the description to “more than 20.”
Mr. Kriss criticized Mr. Hynes for offering a convicted judge of Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Victor Barron, a plea deal that allowed Barron, who was sentenced to three to nine years in a bribery case but did not lose his government pension, to “take his money with him.”
Mr. Sampson, who seemed the most poised of the candidates and referred to himself in the third person, said Mr. Hynes had allowed hate crimes to flourish, while the district attorney said crime had fallen sharply under his watch. Accused of impropriety for accepting contributions from employees, the incumbent said he stopped doing so in 2002.
The televised debate almost went out of control at times, with the moderator, Dominic Carter of NY1, pleading for the candidates to calm down. The primary is September 13.
