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Bragg’s chief prosecutor boasts about letting violent offenders off easy: ‘That’s a default in our office’

April 5, 2023 | | Print Article

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s chief prosecutor Meg Reiss, who is known for letting off felons and murderers, reportedly boasted about doing so using her woke “racial equity” restorative justice approach to help them avoid jail time.

“We know incarceration doesn’t really solve any problems,” Reiss declared during a Peace Institute event in May 2021, according to Fox News Digital. Reiss also allegedly said that criminals are not “bad dudes” while tearing into juries for believing police officers facing misconduct allegations deserve the “benefit of the doubt.”

She then bragged that she helped a murderer get out of serving jail time in connection to the homicide of a victim who had very few family members. Reiss called it “extraordinary” that a man who was facing a manslaughter charge after killing another person during a violent incident was able to escape prison time.

“It was an incident between two people that knew each other very well. And it was sort of… a fight that ended up with one person dying and the person who was charged had substance misuse issues and other things. And going through the outcome in the case, it just seemed appropriate for restorative practice rather than a carceral sentence,” she crowed.

Reiss went on to point out that the victim had only one relative, whom she claimed he didn’t know. She asserted that the daughter “never met her father,” as if that had anything to do with him being murdered. She claimed that the Manhattan district attorney worked with the daughter to ensure that restorative justice was implemented instead of sentencing the killer to time behind bars.

“‘Restorative practices’ is the antidote, so to speak, to the ‘systemic racism’ that critical race theorists claim plagues America,” Mike Gonzalez of the Heritage Foundation commented according to Fox News Digital.

Reiss contends that many violent criminals are given referrals to avoid imprisonment.

“So we’re really trying to shift to restorative outcomes being the real default to the work that we do,” she commented. “So there’s some things where that already happens… for people that are charged with causing harm, actual violence… where they actually cause actual harm to another person.”

Reiss says they use an organization called Common Justice to screen and divert violent criminals facing felonies in adult courts. Those offenders range in age from 18 to 26.

“That’s a default in our office,” she stated.

“In New York City, we operate the… alternative-to-incarceration and victim-service program… that focuses on violent felonies in the adult courts,” Common Justice said in a statement.

The organization helps its partners to “develo[p] and advanc[e] solutions to violence that… foster racial equity without relying on incarceration.”

Reiss also seems to believe that criminals in New York illegally possessing firearms should not be incarcerated. She claims her office has a “gun diversion” program for criminals who get caught illegally possessing firearms.

“We do gun diversion that has a restorative component to it as well. In New York State, there’s a mandatory minimum for just straight gun possession, no acts of violence, straight gun possession of three and a half years,” she noted.

For average citizens in New York, possession of a firearm is a Class E felony. It can get you up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine. But if you are a criminal, you evidently get a pass.

As all of this comes to light, it makes the 34 felony charges against former President Trump filed by Bragg appear even more politically motivated. He has morphed a misdemeanor charge into multiple felonies which could get Trump over 100 years in prison if convicted.

Reiss founded the Institute for Innovation on Prosecution (IPP), to bring about racial equity reforms rooted in Critical Race Theory.

According to Fox News, “The institute believes in an ideologically driven approach to prosecution that takes into account historical factors. For example, the Institute argued in a report, signed with Reiss’ name, that prosecutors must focus on ‘acknowledging our nation’s shameful history of slavery and racism which continues to cloud the criminal justice system.'”

As part of IPP’s ideology, it allegedly pushes prosecutors to intentionally undermine charges police officers bring forward.

“Your charging authority gives you the power to check and counterbalance some police actions,” IIP advised prosecutors. “Recognize the systems that are upstream from your office that may perpetuate racial disparities in the justice system, and take steps in your own office to resist those trends.”

“Meg Reiss is a former homicide prosecutor who has worked collaboratively with all stakeholders throughout the criminal justice system and has been in public service for decades. She is a widely respected attorney who ensures every case is evaluated based on the facts and the law,” a spokesperson for the DA’s office laughably told Fox News in an interview.

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