Include Making Dismemberment and Concealment of Body Bail-Eligible
By Hank Russell
Members of the Republican Assembly and Senate held a press conference at the New York State Capitol on March 12, calling for an overhaul of the bail reform laws after four suspects who were arrested for hiding human remains were let go.
As previously reported in Long Island Life & Politics, four people — Steven Brown, Jeffrey Mackey, Amanda Wallace 40 and Alexis Nieves — were arrested for hiding a corpse, tampering with evidence and hindering prosecution after they were connected to the human remains of a man and a woman that were found in babylon, West Babylon and Bethpage. However, since the concealment of human remains is not considered bail-eligible, the suspects were soon released.
“Dangerous criminals going free without bail is anything but a good idea,” Assemblyman Michael Durso (R-Massapequa Park) said.
The group of GOP lawmakers said this highlights the significant flaws in the state’s 2019 bail laws. As a result, they announced two new legislative proposals to close this legal loophole. The first proposal seeks to classify body dismemberment and concealment of a human corpse as a Class E felony, sponsored by State Senator Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk), while the second bill sponsored by Patricia Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick (R-Valley Stream) aims to enhance the regulations surrounding the electronic location monitoring of defendants.
The fact that these charges were not bail-eligible was a center of controversy surrounding this case. The controversy surrounding this case was further fueled by Governor Kathy Hochul, who accused Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney of not doing his job, saying Tierney’s office should have done a more thorough investigation” by bringing either murder, conspiracy to commit murder or assault charges against the four defendants. Tierney defended the detectives for not giving up on the case and blasted Hochul for commenting on an ongoing investigation. Hochul reeled back some of her comments the next day, saying Suffolk police and the DA’s office are “working so hard to get to the bottom of this.”
Although he was not in office when bail reform passed, Durso said he will “fight like hell to undo broken policies that provide criminals more protection than they provide our communities,” adding, “Our police and prosecutors are expected to do their jobs in a criminal justice system where the deck is stacked against them. The case in Babylon generated headlines not only for the gruesome details involved but because it showed how obviously broken our criminal justice system is. I’m proud to introduce legislation that addresses a glaring loophole in the state’s bail laws and strengthens the tools that prosecutors need to ensure our neighborhoods are safe from dangerous criminals.”
Long Island Life & Politics has reached out to Democratic state legislators about the proposed GOP bills and is waiting to hear back.
“It’s dangerous for our communities, disrespectful to victims and their families and essentially gives criminals a get-out-of-jail-free card,” said Canzoneri-Fitzpatrick, who also co-sponsored Palumbo’s bill. “Do we care more about keeping people safe in this state or coddling criminals to keep progressive Democrats happy? New Yorkers have spoken loudly in poll after poll: bail reform must be repealed. How many more new victims must there be before state Democrats join our calls and do something about this dangerous law?”