Election Day offers hope for ousting soft-on-crime Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg: Republican Maud Maron.
Yes, independent candidate Diana Florence, a 25-year veteran prosecutor, has also called out Bragg’s penchant for letting repeat offenders walk and his failure to protect women from violent criminals.
But Maron, a former public defender and mom of four, is the better choice to head one of the most important prosecutor’s offices in America — a job that Bragg has made impotent during his tenure.
Her 20-year career as a public defender enables her to understand the need to hold criminals accountable, deliver justice to crime victims and hold repeat offenders responsible for their actions — even as she’s aware of the potential for prosecutorial abuse.
Bragg’s conviction rate has fallen every year since he took over in January 2022 — tumbling from 42% in 2021, Cy Vance’s last year, to 35% in 2024.
And those numbers are way down from 2019, the year before the state’s anti-prosecutor discovery reforms took effect, when 64% of felonies resulted in convictions.
It is any wonder why Bragg quietly pulled his office’s data dashboard this election year?
Infamous for his Day 1 memo ordering prosecutors to avoid seeking jail time in most cases, to downgrade serious felonies like armed robbery to misdemeanors and to simply stop prosecuting certain crimes altogether, he has made coddling criminals his No. 1 priority.
When he’s not declining to prosecute even repeat offenders, he’s throwing the book at citizens forced to use lethal force in self-defense when attacked by unhinged thugs.
He went after subway hero Daniel Perry and charged CVS worker Scotty Enoe and deli clerk Jose Alba with manslaughter for defending themselves against crazed thieves.
Leaving Bragg in office is especially perilous when mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani shares his “decarceral” agenda; having both in office promises an all-around criminal justice disaster for businesses, law-abiding citizens and crime victims.
Bragg’s wrongheaded policies — such as almost never prosecuting shoplifters — have done plenty of damage in their own right; he needs to go, whoever becomes the next mayor.
He’s a plague on public safety; Maud Maron is the antidote.
