Big Apple prosecutors are lining up behind Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in his legal scuffle to get a suspected slaying suspect back to New York to face murder charges — saying an Arizona prosecutor’s refusal to extradite the accused killer is “beneath our profession.”
“In our thirty years of collective experience as district attorneys, we have never seen a fellow prosecutor refuse an extradition request via a press conference, especially in a matter involving a murder,” the DAs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island said in a joint statement released Tuesday.
“A patent and public refusal to extradite a defendant to New York before the [district attorneys’] offices engaged in the merits, and without considering the victims and survivors in each case, is beneath our profession and is something we seek to avoid as district attorneys,” the statement said.
Signing off on the statement were Bronx DA Darcel Clark, Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, Queens DA Melinda Katz, and Staten Island DA Michael McMahon.
The release marks the latest chapter in the legal kerfuffle between Bragg and Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell over who gets first dibs at Raad Almansoori, the main suspect in the Feb. 7 beating death of Queens mom Denisse Oleas-Arancibia inside the Soho 54 Hotel.
Almansoori, 26, was later picked up in Scottsdale, Arizona after police said he went on a violent two-day crime spree there and faces attempted murder, assault and sexual assault charges there for allegedly assaulting two women in Phoenix and Surprise.
Mitchell fired the first salvo in the political brouhaha at a press conference last month, when she said she would block Bragg from getting his hands on the accused killer.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan DA there, Alvin Bragg, I think it’s safer to keep him here,” Mitchell told reporters.
Bragg fired back by accusing Mitchell of “grandstanding ” and “playing politics.”
He suffered a setback Monday when Court Commissioner Barbara Spencer said in a Phoenix courtroom that Almansoori had decided to fight extradition and remain locked up in Arizona.
With the battle still undecided, Bragg at least now has his New York City colleagues backing him up — and they weren’t the only prosecutors in the Empire State to chime in.
“A refusal to extradite Raad Almansoori, who is accused of murder in New York City, would compromise the integrity of and trust in the criminal justice system of our entire country,” Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, president of the District Attorney’s Association of the State of New York, said in a release.
“The investigation and trial of an alleged homicide should be everyone’s top priority,” Flynn wrote.
“Instead, politics are being prioritized over justice for a victim and a victim’s family and loved ones. I hope that the political grandstanding can be put aside so that justice and accountability can prevail.”
