Our Readers Respond...

Dear Editor:

Why Jeanine Pirro is not good for New York. Like a bad script from Desperate Housewives, Jeanine Pirro’s personal life seems more volatile than a bottle rocket of baking soda and vinegar. Aside from her starring role in this unending saga of domestic woes, Ms. Pirro plainly lacks the professionalism to be our state’s highest law enforcement officer.

She paints herself as a strong woman. But her involvement in the recently reported Deskovic case does not support true strength of character. The DA’s office had DNA samples that excluded Deskovic as the murderer.
At any point while she was Westchester DA, Ms. Pirro could have verified that his DNA did not match that found on the murder victim; she failed to do so. After having served some ten years in jail for a crime he did not
commit, she curtly refused his request for an interview for new DNA tests and in 2000, opposed his attorney’s petition for a new hearing and new DNA tests. Even on his release just last month, more than 16 years after his
wrongful incarceration, when the real killer was finally identified through his matching DNA, while serving jail time for a murder that occurred after Deskovic was in jail for the earlier homocide, Ms. Pirro offered no apology
for this prosecutorial atrocity.

For all the Pirro’s wheeling and dealing to display high-on-the hog living, including pet pigs, a big beautiful landscaped home, furnishings and cars – elaborate business expenses, as the Feds finally established from the
Pirro’s fraudulent joint tax returns. Yet, Ms. Pirro managed to escape her husband and her brother-in-law’s jail fate and took no responsibility for her own complicity in their fraud on the government. That’s strong?

Jeanine’s claim that her tenure in the Westchester DA merits higher elective office as NYS Attorney General. Yet, her behavior reflects a continued self-serving, politico-sociopathic path, for which she has never been held
accountable, and has never been strong enough to admit mistake.

No, it’s pretty clear why Mrs. Pirro won’t serve the citizens of NY State well. Candidly, I don’t think she gives a fig about the state’s voters. It’s all about Jeanine. Representation of We, the People, doesn’t start by eating
thumbtacks for breakfast and plotting vengeance on your cheating husband or your close friends, blaming federal prosecutors, or those from opposing parties for leaks to the press, wildly condemning them, rather than acknowledging her current troubles as self-created. Representation of We, the People, starts with accountability, and respect for law, ethics, and common decency for the citizens of New York.

Jeanine Pirro has demonstrated through countless interviews she’s a street fighter, with language to match. I’ll give her that. Inasmuch as I’d love to see the first woman Attorney General, there’s been too much grandstanding, too much fluff, too much time in the spotlight, and not enough hard work in the courtroom or in-the-trenches as Westchester D.A., while NYS taxpayers footed the bill.

Andrew Cuomo may be a little “wet behind the ears,” but I’ll vote for him any day of the week before I rally to the side of this self-annointed “strong” woman. Better she run for a job on TV soap opera.

T.L.Vicedomine
New York


In Our Opinion...

Given last week’s discovery of 33 under-aged partiers at a house on Pleasant Ridge in Harrison, followed by Police Chief David Hall’s inconsistent statements, we feel compelled to ask, “Will the real David Hall please stand up?”

When interviewed on Sunday, the 22nd, by CBS NEWSRADIO 880, regarding the police discovery that led to 26 arrests around midnight Friday, Chief Hall’s response was, “They’re good kids who just made a mistake.
We’ll give them some streets to sweep so they remember next time.” However when questioned the next day by NEWS 12 , in a piece that featured a photo of the late Robert Viscome, Jr., whose life was lost at such a party
in Harrison, in April of 2002, Hall responded, “We’re not going to tolerate it. It’s a serious crime.”

The circumstances of this latest under-aged drinking episode in Harrison are remarkably similar to those that cost young Rob Viscome his life. In each case the parents of the “host teen” were away, and apparently without
a clue as regarded their youngster’s intention to have a drinking party. In the present case, police were called around midnight, and came out to discover 33 teens, 26 between ages sixteen and eighteen, all of whom were
charged and arrested, and, 7 aged fifteen, sent home.

Since the Viscome incident, more than four years ago, involving some 25 teens, there have been numerous under-aged drinking parties in the Town of Harrison. Perhaps contributing to the repeated incidents is the
fact that no one was charged, or held accountable, for their failure to summon emergency medical assistance for their friend Rob, who lay dying on the patio of the Porzio Family home, a few doors from DA Pirro’s house.

In fact, Pirro, not only let more than two dozen youths ‘skate free’ of that incident, but also attempted to let Patrick Rukaj, the boy whose punch sent Viscome crashing to the concrete patio, off without punishment as
well, by over-charging him with felony, First Degree Assault, and predictably failing to indict him. Only after extreme pressure from the West Harrison community, particularly Rob’s friends, was Pirro compelled to go
back and recharge Rukaj with misdemeanor assault, resulting in a pre-arranged probation sentence.

None of the other teens present, including Pirro’s own daughter, Christine, were ever charged, or held accountable for their indefensible failure to call for help for their dying friend. In the years since that tragedy
there have been repeated rumors that the police shredded statements taken from several of the youths involved, including John Porzio, Jr., who instructed the others present, when he came rushing home from the Rye Country Day School, “This didn’t happen here.”

In an interview, two years after the tragedy, with a reporter for a local weekly newspaper, Police Chief Hall took serious issue with then-District Attorney Pirro. Referring to the two dozen teens who had let Rob Viscome
lay unattended for more than half an hour as they cleared away all drug and alcohol evidence, Hall declared, “They should have been given community service in the emergency room of a local hospital.” He expressed
concern for the fact that letting them off without being charged, as DA Pirro did, had “sent the wrong message to other teens, and left those involved with unresolved guilt, without closure.”

Loss of one precious life was one too many. Will the real David Hall please stand up?