Dick Hubert’s Worldview: Cacace vs. Wagstaff: a crucial County race for Democratic District Attorney nomination

June 12, 2024 at 11:51 p.m.

William Wagstaff

Are you inundated with political flyers in your USPS mailbox in advance of the June 25 Democratic primary?

If you’re a registered Democrat in the 16th Congressional District (that’s our home district), odds are you’ve had your fill—especially in the primary race between incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman and Westchester County Executive George Latimer.

Occasionally, there’s been a flyer from Democratic District Attorney candidate Susan Cacace.

But odds are you are not too familiar (if at all) with her determined primary opponent, William Wagstaff.

So, in this column, I’ll try to catch you up.

One note: Adeel Mirza, the third candidate in the race, ignored my May 28 “ASAP” request for an interview until June 11, when his campaign agreed to find some time. I hope to be able to schedule one for next week’s column. He is still reeling from The Journal News report of Jan. 12 which stated the following information for the voting public:

“A former Westchester prosecutor running for District Attorney was disciplined over his interaction with a female subordinate, eventually losing his job because of it, and still faces a federal lawsuit over the issue.

But Adeel Mirza insists the woman's allegation that he sexually assaulted her was fabricated and he has no intention of letting it distract him from his effort to return to the office as the county's elected DA.

Mirza was docked five vacation days and removed from the DA’s hiring committee in early 2020 after top officials under then-District Attorney Anthony Scarpino deemed rookie prosecutor Bianca Brown’s claims about Mirza’s conduct were credible. Mirza, a 17-year veteran at the time, remained deputy bureau chief in charge of the Greenburgh branch office but was let go when Mimi Rocah became the DA a year later.”

I’ll deal alphabetically first with Cacace and then with Wagstaff. 

Who’s Who

Susan Cacace and William Wagstaff both announced their candidacies for District Attorney after first term Democrat D.A. Mimi Rocah decided she’d had enough with local politics after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israeli citizens prompted her to reconsider how she was spending her time in public life and announced 2024 would be her last year in office.

Cacace went from law school to being an Assistant District Attorney (ADA) in Westchester and then to a lengthy career on the Westchester judicial bench, having been elected as a Democrat in 2005 with every party putting her name on the ballot, and re-elected in 2015. She retired in December to seek Rocah’s soon to be former job.

As her campaign biography states:

“Judge Cacace’s unique qualifications and expertise in the areas of crimes against children and sex offenses committed against the most vulnerable victims, our children and our elderly, led to her assignment to preside over the Sex Offense Part in 2010—a position that she has continued to hold for the ensuing 14 years. In this capacity, Judge Cacace was responsible for handling all felony sex crimes throughout all phases of their prosecution in the County Court, including many, many trials of such cases. In addition, Judge Cacace handled the hearing required for those cases falling within the scope of the Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA), and further monitored the level of mandated compliance by sex offenders with the terms and conditions of their probation supervision while at liberty in the community, all of which were designed to provide the greatest level of protection to the community.”

As for Wagstaff, here’s how he introduces himself to prospective voters in his online campaign biography:

“William was born and raised in Westchester County, is a Pace Law School graduate, and has an MBA from Fordham University. He is raising two great kids with his wife Christina, and he's asking for your support to make him the first Black District Attorney in Westchester County history.

William became a lawyer because he wanted to make an impact. Just like many of you, he’s become frustrated with the lip service given to criminal justice reform and how the system doesn’t work to keep our communities safe, families intact, and rehabilitation an option.

William’s practice concentrates on Civil Rights Litigation, Criminal Defense, and Municipal Law. He is admitted to practice in New York, New Jersey, and several Federal Districts. His cases have been covered in the New York Law Journal and The New York Times and on CNN, MSNBC, and ABC, among other media outlets.”

I’ve interviewed both candidates for this column. They are articulate and bring life stories and professional experience in vastly different areas.

So Democratic Party voters have an interesting choice.

Perhaps some of what they told me for publication will help you decide which one earns your vote.

Cacace vs Wagstaff
 in their own words

Her time both as an ADA and judge in Westchester have given Cacace a unique insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the District Attorney’s office, local courts, and the 44 different police departments that comprise County local law enforcement, not including New York State Police and Metro-North Police. Here’s some of what she told me she would do if elected:

“Part of my campaign position is to put more resources into the sex crimes unit and moving them around. I have some strong opinions about people in the office.”

“My plan is to change the education and training of new assistants. Westchester is very different from surrounding counties. Six weeks of training is not enough. My plan is to bring back the Motions Bureau, learn there, and then go out to the towns, cities, and villages.

I’ve heard the assistants are not held long enough in the local courts. You need a little more continuity. Over the course of five years (as an ADA) I was in Peekskill, Greenburgh, and Mt. Vernon. It works better when the ADA knows who’s who.

Only the felony cases go up to County court. There are thousands of cases that need to be processed locally.”

    Susan Cacace
  

On how new technology and new laws have made the D.A.’s job more challenging:

“It was unfortunate for Mimi (Rocah) to have to deal with new discovery laws and bail reform. There is a discovery bureau to help the assistants. For a while the ADAs were mired in discovery, and cases were dismissed as a result.

The volume is oftentimes difficult to handle. You could have 30 hours of bodycam video in one case.”

Suffice it to say that Cacace has an agenda and the inside knowledge to put that agenda into action quickly and decisively.

Wagstaff’s agenda

The New York State Department of Corrections publishes an annual statistical report.

The website www.datacollaborativeforjustice.org analyzes these statistics, and in its most recent study of the 2023 report, found 73% of the statewide prison population was either Black or Hispanic. While only 10% of the population was for suburban New York City counties, these statistics remain a key concern for Wagstaff.

“I think that we need to take a look at incarceration after we figure out if there are low level crimes where diversion is a better outcome that doesn’t compromise safety. Bottom line: I’m serious about safety. I think I’m the best fit and the person who is positioned to bring us to the 21^st century in the justice system and beyond here in Westchester County.

“I think the current District Attorney (Mimi Rocah) started in the correct direction. The policies that she ran upon are certainly things that I would like to adopt and improve upon and in many instances expand and I don’t think that it’s going to be someone who has been in the system for the last 20 or 30 years (Susan Cacace) that is likely to get these things achieved. It’s going to take somebody (Wagstaff himself) with a fresh perspective and unique background in order to achieve what, I think, Democrats in Westchester have been asking for and they’ve been convinced by their election of the current District Attorney and I look to continue that work and do some more diversionary work—also I’d like to make the office more diversified so that the office is staffed by individuals who are more of a reflection of the community that they’re going to serve.”

Wagstaff’s disagreement with D.A. Rocah

I asked Wagstaff what major changes he’d make in the D.A.’s office if he were to be elected.

“I’d like to implement a Hate Crimes Bureau as well as an Immigration Affairs Bureau,” he replied. “I think you need to look at the diversity in the office. The office does not currently reflect the public that it serves. The fact that there are not at least in every branch one ADA that speaks Spanish is something that needs to be adjusted. I think we need to expand the diversion programs and the opportunities for diversion so that we are giving individuals who may actually be in need of mental health treatment or drug treatment…the treatment that they deserve instead of just looking to write them off and incarcerate them at great expense to the taxpayer without addressing the underlying issue.”

Wagstaff ought to have scheduled a listening tour of D.A. Rocah’s office or read her public reports before running for the office.

He would have found, as the D.A.’s media office reminded me, that a Hate Crimes Unit already exists, that “in an office of more than 250, the Westchester Conty District Attorney’s Office (WCDAO) has bilingual ADAs, investigators, paralegals, victim aides, trauma therapists and staff; seeking bilingual ADAs, investigators and aides has been part of the Office recruitment efforts”; and there’s a grant writing Chief Development and Training Officer assigned to raise money from private as well as public sources.

Now it’s your turn as a voter

News12 devoted its Sunday, June 9 edition of Power and Politics to interviews with the three candidates. You can watch those interviews at:

https://westchester.news12.com/power-politics-meet-the-democrats-running-for-westchester-district-attorney

The Westchester County League of Women Voters staged a debate amongst the candidates for District Attorney in the Democratic primary on June 4.  You can find it on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzoZlYohR28

Now, if you’re a Democrat, go out and vote June 25. Early voting starts June 15. For a list of voting hours and the 25 early voting locations you can vote at in Westchester County (including the Rye Brook firehouse), go to:

https://citizenparticipation.westchestergov.com/voting/early-voting-2024

Dick Hubert, a retired television news producer-writer-reporter living in Rye Brook, has been honored with the Peabody Award, the DuPont Columbia Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Journalism Award.

Editor’s Note: This column, written by Dick Hubert, represents his opinion and not that of this newspaper.