Soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is quietly rolling out a publicly-funded program to help his own staffers traumatized by the cases they handle, The Post has learned.
The woke prosecutor, slammed by critics for villainizing victims while going easy on suspects, is shelling out $40,000 in taxpayer cash to develop a so-called “Vicarious Trauma and Well-Being Plan” for his more than 1,300 assistant district attorneys, paralegals and other employees, according to city records.
The nine-month contract will involve conducting focus groups and interviews with frazzled staffers about on-the-job secondary traumatic stress as well as supervisor-training sessions.
The initiative is a “slap in the face” to crime victims and their families, said Jeffry Alba, whose bodega clerk dad, Jose, was notoriously charged with murder by Bragg in 2022 after defending himself from an angry customer.
“He’s worried about his own team, but he’s not worried about the victims,” said Alba, whose father is now suing Bragg for racial discrimination after the charges were dropped amid public scrutiny.
“It’s heartbreaking because he didn’t offer my dad anything — [Bragg] didn’t offer him any emotional support,” he added.
The left wing Democratic prosecutor – who has seen a borough-wide surge in felony crime since taking office in 2022 while making it a mission to downgrade many of these cases to misdemeanors – is among dozens of progressive district attorneys and DA candidates nationwide who’ve received backing from far-left billionaire kingmaker George Soros.
“The [staff trauma] program is a bunch of hogwash because you have victims who are getting their asses whooped on a regular basis and he doesn’t prosecute,” barked one veteran cop of 25 years.
“They need the counseling, but you have money for your f–king attorneys who don’t even prosecute.”
In Manhattan, there’s been 27,122 reported felony crimes this year through Nov. 10, up 16.9% from the same period in 2021, NYPD records show.
Under Bragg, rape has jumped 7.4% across the borough, robbery 8.9%, felony assault 16.8% and grand larceny 29.8%.
Bragg’s new program caters to a staff of predominantly “snowflakes,” said Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island).
“How about the well-being of the thousands of crime victims who see their perpetrators out on the street thanks to let-‘em-loose Alvin’s soft-on-crime policies?” Borelli barked.
“I imagine the public expects that the people we trust to confront and prosecute our most violent criminals don’t need therapy dogs and comfort blankets at their desks.”
The initiative is also an unfair expense for the public, said Jennifer Harrison, executive director of the Victims Rights Reform Council.
“These people have insurance benefits that can cover the cost of their counseling already if they need trauma counseling,” she said. “[Taxpayers] are already paying for their benefits.”
The new program is “just another waste of our tax dollars,” said Madeline Brame, whose US Army veteran son Hason Correa was beaten and fatally stabbed inside a Harlem apartment in 2018.
Once Bragg took over the case against Correa’s alleged assailants, he struck plea deals with two of them, letting one off with time served and enraging the Freeport, N.Y., mom.
If any of the DA’s staff is traumatized it’s because their “integrity is compromised,” she told The Post.
“They believed in [Bragg’s] restorative justice theory, but they’re seeing the same defendants, the same criminals, coming like a revolving door,” said Brame, 62, who was offered bimonthly, 30-minute grief counseling sessions through then-DA Cy Vance’s office.
“They’re seeing these violent felony offenders getting more violent by the day. That’s the only thing I could see they would need trauma support for,” she said.
In January, Bragg launched a pilot program in his office’s Survivor Services Bureau that added a ticketing system to connect victim advocates with cases almost immediately after arrests are made. The bureau provides safety assessment, counseling, relocation assistance and other services to violent-crime victims as their criminal cases proceed.
“Is this to gaslight voters and pretend he cares about victims, even though he’s downgrading half the felony cases that come before his office?” Harrison said. “I don’t believe this is well intended by any means.”
Emily Tuttle, a Bragg spokeswoman, declined to say which company was selected to run the new program or when it will begin, but insisted the services are warranted.
“We will never apologize for or shy away from providing much-needed support for our skilled staff who must handle horrific crimes, she said. “The need to address trauma in law enforcement is research-based, supported by the National District Attorneys Association, and proven to improve retention, helping make New York City safer.”
“Our prosecutors and professional staff guide young children through rape trials, help women take the stand against their traffickers, fight in court for the families of grieving homicide victims, and far more.”
