{"id":377043,"date":"2026-10-19T17:30:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377043\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T17:30:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T17:30:12","slug":"saritha-komatireddy-on-public-safety-law-enforcement-and-her-campaign-for-new-york-attorney-general","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/377043\/","title":{"rendered":"Saritha Komatireddy on Public Safety, Law Enforcement, and Her Campaign for New York Attorney General"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The New York Editorial Board spoke with Saritha Komatireddy, the Republican nominee for New York Attorney General, on the morning of October 15, 2026. Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York running for office for the first time, is challenging Democratic Attorney General Letitia James in the 2026 election. (photo by Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez)<\/p>\n

Participating journalists: Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez, Nicole Gelinas, Josh Greenman, Alyssa Katz, Ben Max, Akash Mehta, Myles Miller, Harry Siegel, Ben Smith, Liena Zagare.<\/p>\n

Full Transcript<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Thanks so much for coming in. I always say this, but it is always true, which is politicians don\u2019t have to do this anymore. Politicians or lawyers\u2026.And so we appreciate that you are a friend of the working press here. And I\u2019ll lightly moderate, go around, maybe cut people off if they go too long. Go ahead, Nicole.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
Good morning.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Good morning.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
No Republican has won statewide office in New York State since 2002, and no non-incumbent Republican has won in more than 30 years. In a year where Trump is deeply unpopular in the state, and with you just starting out here with your political career, what makes you think you can break this decades-long trend?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Let me tell you what I hear when I go around New York. I have traveled every single one of the 62 counties in the state. I\u2019m the only candidate that has done that. And when I talk to New Yorkers, political parties don\u2019t come up. I ask them all the same question: \u201cWhat do you think about public safety in New York?\u201d And I ask it as an open-ended question. I don\u2019t ask it as a leading question. I really want to know. And without fail, people talk to me about repeat offenders. They talk to me about the homelessness crisis. Those are the two topics that come up the most, not just in New York City, but across the state.<\/p>\n

And they also talk to me about how they feel ripped off, whether that\u2019s because they\u2019re paying a lot of taxes and they don\u2019t see what they\u2019re getting in return, or because they\u2019ve personally been victimized by scams that are attacking New Yorkers left and right, all ages, and we\u2019re really not doing a good job of going after them.<\/p>\n

I always talk to them about the issues. So when it comes to political parties, I\u2019ll leave the political strategy to the political strategists. I was a career prosecutor. I focus on what New Yorkers are actually concerned about when it comes to safety. Most New Yorkers in this state think the state is going in the wrong direction on crime. And that\u2019s consistent with what I hear when I go around the state and I talk to people, whether it\u2019s in the cities, whether it\u2019s in suburban areas, whether it\u2019s in rural areas. I find that there\u2019s actually a lot of common ground, regardless of political party. I think that if we have common-sense solutions in that common ground, we can make progress.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
You said most people think that things are going in the wrong direction on crime. What do crime numbers say, and if there\u2019s a gap between what the statistics say and what the people think, which is right and why?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So most people in New York feel that New York is less safe than it was pre-pandemic, and the crime statistics confirm that. If you look at total index crimes in New York State in 2019, they were at their lowest point in the 21st century. From 2019 to 2024<\/a>, which is the last year of validated data, there has been a 26% increase in crime. You continue to see that when you look at the different categories of crime. Felony assaults are up. What does that mean? Stabbings, slashings, people being punched, people being pushed onto the subway tracks.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
What about the last couple of years? We\u2019re seeing serious declines in New York in murders and shootings. It\u2019s true felony assaults and other kinds of assaults are stubbornly high, but there are many, many other types of crime that are actually trending significantly down in New York right now.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Actually, only murders and shootings are at lows, and the police deserve a great deal of credit for that. Every other category of crime is up.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
So the police get credit for the stuff that\u2019s down? Is it the police\u2019s fault, the stuff that\u2019s up?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No. I will say that the\u2014 Let me answer that question first.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Are you saying every other category of crime \u2014 I\u2019m sorry, but every other category of crime besides murder and shooting, you\u2019re saying is up this year versus last in New York City?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
If you look at the Vital City reporting on this\u2014<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
That\u2019s where I work.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You have a great multicolored chart on this that was just published a few months ago<\/a> that looks at every category of crime, and murders and shootings are down, and felony assaults are up, hate crimes are up, burglaries are up. Look at your own data, and you see that.
[Note: The chart in question, from Vital City\u2019s 2026 midyear crime report, shows counts of all but one major crime in New York City rising between the first six months of 2019 and the first six months of 2026. It also shows all major crimes other than rape and felony assault declining between the first six months of 2025 and the first six months of 2026.]<\/p>\n

What people are concerned about is the feeling of crime now versus pre-pandemic. And I think when you ask people, \u201cWhy is it that you feel less safe?\u201d \u2014 I understand that month to month, different statistics come out comparing this month to last month, this week this year to this week last year. But when you think about how people feel, they\u2019re looking at how they feel over the course of what New York feels like now versus what New York used to feel like a few years ago. And that does map onto the statistics. Crime in New York now is higher than it was before the pandemic. That\u2019s not because of the virus \u2014 COVID doesn\u2019t cause crime.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
But if I may, that\u2019s happening all over the world in many big cities. We are seeing higher crime numbers after the pandemic for many different issues. And I\u2019m listening to you now \u2014 I listened to the interview<\/a> you gave to Ben Max on Max Politics, and it seems to me sometimes the way you speak about your plans, you\u2019re running for Governor instead of Attorney General. Are you really running for the right office? Because you\u2019re talking about changing the laws instead of enforcing existing laws that you don\u2019t really like, like the bail laws.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m running for Attorney General because what we need is enforcement of the laws. So I\u2019m focused on New York, and I will tell you it\u2019s very clear what changed in New York in 2019 and 2020 that has resulted in an increase in crime. I know what happened because I was a federal prosecutor at that time, and I saw it firsthand. We saw both a change where we have people like Tish James and other progressive politicians who don\u2019t believe in enforcing the law to the fullest extent.<\/p>\n

So someone like [Manhattan District Attorney] Alvin Bragg comes into office, issues a memo on day one<\/a>, and instructs all of his prosecutors not to prosecute nine categories of crime. And then beyond that, even in certain categories that they do prosecute, not to prosecute with the top charge, but instead to downplay the charges. Even in those situations, not to ask for jail time. I talk to investigators in the DA\u2019s office that tell me that they have violent criminals who they\u2019re putting into diversion programs<\/a>. It\u2019s unheard of. Diversion programs are usually for low-level, nonviolent offenders. So we have a situation where the prosecutors aren\u2019t actually prosecuting. We have a second situation where the bail laws also limit judges in being able to detain individuals.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
But if I may, because you say that this is not partisan, but you\u2019re talking about \u201cprogressive\u201d politicians or DAs, and you are a lifelong Republican from a family who admired Ronald Reagan, and you worked for three different Presidents: President Obama, President Biden, and President Trump. Who aligns the best with your legal philosophy of those three presidents?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
My legal philosophy doesn\u2019t come from Presidents. My legal philosophy comes from the law.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Yeah, but you worked under the three of them. So I\u2019m sure you had some views about the boss in the White House while you were working under the three of them.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Well, that\u2019s what\u2019s remarkable when you\u2019re a career prosecutor. When you\u2019re actually working as a federal prosecutor in one of these offices, you see firsthand that the policy doesn\u2019t change when the Presidents change. In fact, prosecutors are supposed to follow the facts and the law. And when I started, I was hired by Loretta Lynch during the Obama administration. She believed in enforcing the law. We went on to switch administrations. I worked under Rich Donoghue during the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
With all due respect, we are seeing how ICE is going into communities all over the country. So this President is enforcing the law differently than other Presidents. So the fact that you\u2019re saying that everything is the same \u2014 it\u2019s not the same. What president do you think is the best of those three when it comes to enforcing the law?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I actually think there were a number of consistencies in how we enforce the law under all three Presidents. Under President Obama, we regularly had violent criminals who were here illegally transferred into federal custody at the jailhouse door. That was done consistently. I saw that firsthand. That policy continued under President Trump.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Did you vote for all three of them? Did you vote for Obama, Biden, Trump?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Who did you vote for in each election?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I voted for President Trump.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Both times?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Yes.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
Would all of them have launched an investigation<\/a> against Representative Ilhan Omar, as Trump is doing right now, and do you think that investigation is warranted?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I don\u2019t know. I don\u2019t know the facts of that investigation. I understand it\u2019s unfolding right now. I don\u2019t know the details. I\u2019m not going to comment on something that I\u2019m not tracking.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
On something a little more sort-of up your alley, but in this space: Danielle Sassoon resigned<\/a> under \u2014 well-reported, I\u2019m sure you read about it, you know these folks, they\u2019re in that sort of community of former elite clerks now that became federal prosecutors \u2014 because she said that there was political pressure from the Trump administration [to drop charges against Mayor Eric Adams]. You\u2019ve seen your peers, people you know, resign across the country from jobs like the one you used to have. Would you have resigned if you were in Danielle\u2019s shoes in that moment?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Again, I don\u2019t know. I was not in charge of that prosecution. I do know that the individuals involved\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Well, you\u2019re not in charge of every crime in New York City that you talk about. This is a place you have real expertise. And these are people you know. I guess I\u2019m sort of\u2014 it seems like you\u2019re\u2014 just speaking specifically around the allegations from former Republican prosecutors like you, politicization inside the Justice Department. What do you think of that?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
First of all, I was a career prosecutor, not a Republican prosecutor. I was a career prosecutor.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
These are the people I\u2019m describing. So is Danielle. So are a lot of those folks.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
And in terms of a specific case, you do actually have to look at the facts and the law. That\u2019s not a line. That\u2019s not an evasion. That\u2019s not a slogan. That\u2019s actually how we operate. Danielle had access to the full case file and had a view of that case. And she did what she believed was right. And I respect that. I don\u2019t have access to that case file. I don\u2019t know what was in there. I\u2019m not sure if I would have made the same judgment. It really does depend on the facts and the law.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
So you don\u2019t have a view of how Trump is running the Justice Department right now?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m focused on New York, and I have a view of how Tish James is running the New York Attorney General\u2019s office right now. And you can see that from her own employees<\/a> telling all of us that it\u2019s nakedly political. You have a situation where that employee \u2014 all he did was send an email to his colleagues saying, \u201cWe\u2019re doing cases the wrong way, not based on the facts, but on politics.\u201d And the guy is fired. He\u2019s intimidated at his home. His personnel file is released.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
We\u2019re here to talk about that, obviously, but\u2026you spent a lot of your career in the federal Justice Department\u2026And since you\u2019re running for office in New York, if you manage to only talk about your narrow lane, it will be the first time in the history of New York politics. It just seems surprising that you have no view on the most important story in the American legal profession.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
My views are very case-specific. I don\u2019t engage in sort-of blanket political commentary because that\u2019s not my field. I\u2019m a prosecutor. I\u2019m not a politician. I\u2019m not interested in talking about politics like it\u2019s some sports game. I\u2019m actually focused on trying to get practical results for people in New York, for my own family\u2019s sake, for everyone\u2019s sake, so that we can make New York safer. I find it unproductive to engage in generic platitudes or political commentary when that doesn\u2019t actually make New Yorkers\u2019 lives better.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
You mentioned Alvin Bragg before. So do you think that President Donald Trump shouldn\u2019t have been convicted? Because you said you voted for Donald Trump. You voted for a convicted felon, right?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m not even sure where to start with that question. When you\u2019re talking about a specific legal case, you\u2019ve got to look at the facts and the law of that case. When you\u2019re talking about Alvin Bragg, I think a number of people who live in Manhattan are very disappointed with Alvin Bragg because he\u2019s letting criminals go every single day. And he is letting violent crime be an issue in New York.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
But specifically with that case with President Donald Trump?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Felony assaults in Manhattan have gone up. We see routinely reporting of people being stabbed \u2014 on the train just yesterday, that happened again on the 6 train<\/a> two weeks ago. A man was stabbed to death on the J train<\/a>. These are the things that New Yorkers care about, and those are the things that I can actually improve by being Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Harry Siegel
Hold on. Is Alvin Bragg following the facts and the law as district attorney? You talk about him a lot. And what would you actually do as AG in relation to this prosecutor and others who you think have a mistaken approach?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Well, the problem is that he doesn\u2019t actually charge people with what they did. He\u2019s not honest in charging. Let me give you an example. I had a man talk to me a few days ago who told me that he was pushed onto the ground. The man who pushed him called him \u201ca dirty Jew,\u201d and the case was taken by Alvin Bragg\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Now, that wasn\u2019t charged as assault two. It was charged as assault three. It wasn\u2019t charged as a felony assault, which it should have been, with the hate crimes enhancement. It was charged as a misdemeanor assault. And then a few years later \u2014 sorry, a few months later, it was knocked down and ultimately dismissed entirely. The individual who committed the attack only had to pay the $12 in restitution that it took for this man to dry-clean his shirt. That\u2019s the kind of case where he\u2019s not charging the person with what they did. He\u2019s knocking down the charges, and that results in there being no consequences for this attacker.<\/p>\n

Harry Siegel
But he\u2019s either following the facts and the law and his discretion, or he\u2019s not. What would you do about this as Attorney General if you think a local prosecutor\u2019s analysis of the facts and the law is wrong? That\u2019s the question.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Sure. So in that situation, the Attorney General has special jurisdiction to step in to prosecute a hate crime when a District Attorney is not effective in doing so. Executive Law 63<\/a> provides that power. So that\u2019s a situation where the Attorney General\u2019s office can step in, take over the case from Alvin Bragg, and prosecute it itself.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Would you review every prosecution and see if you think he followed the facts and the law, or would you only look at the ones that kind of made a splash in the media, or would you take complaints and figure that out? How would it work?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Yeah, so this is where it really does come down to restructuring the AG\u2019s office and creating a culture where the AG is actually a partner in criminal law enforcement in the state. That means we have about 700 Assistant Attorneys General in the New York Attorney General\u2019s office. It\u2019s one of the largest law firms in the state. It\u2019s bigger than Skadden. Currently, a fraction of those attorneys are assigned to prosecute crime, less than 100. I would change it so that 350 of the 700, half the office, is assigned to prosecute crime.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Coming out of what divisions?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Well, I would actually recruit into the office and make sure that we have \u2014 I don\u2019t think they have 350 criminal prosecutors right now, but we know that hundreds of criminal prosecutors have left the Manhattan DA\u2019s office, the Queens DA\u2019s office, the Bronx DA\u2019s office over the last five years because they\u2019re disappointed that they no longer get to prosecute crime. And so we\u2019re going to bring talent in.<\/p>\n

And then we\u2019re going to use that in two ways. First, New York Court of Appeals has held that AAGs in the Attorney General\u2019s office can be cross-designated as special ADAs in any DA\u2019s office in the state. There have been DAs I\u2019ve spoken with all across the state who have said, \u201cI would love extra manpower. We\u2019re going after this particular organized crime ring. We\u2019re going after this drug trafficking ring. I could use another few attorneys.\u201d We\u2019ll actually be an office that provides that help. And in situations like that, when we need to override prosecutors not doing the job, then we\u2019ll send an attorney to do it.<\/p>\n

And you\u2019re asking a good question: How does that get on your radar? And I think there\u2019s a couple of ways. First of all, being a leader in criminal law enforcement means keeping in touch with the trends. One of the things I\u2019ve done during the course of the campaign is I\u2019ve held law enforcement roundtables county by county across the state. I\u2019ve sat down with sheriffs and police chiefs and the DAs and public defenders and probation officers to talk about what are the crime trends. That\u2019s an important part of leadership: understanding what\u2019s going on in your state, getting ahead of the issues and preventing crime.<\/p>\n

So part of it will just be having an increased awareness and having a culture of cooperation and information-sharing in the state. The other will be to have an open line with crime victims. The victim in that case was outraged. He has had no one to call. And we need to make sure that there is an open line of communication with crime victims. If a crime victim is dissatisfied with their local DA, that they have someone to call.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
Out of New York City\u2019s five DAs, do you think one of them is doing a good job?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You know, generally I have heard and seen good things from Queens DA Melinda Katz. That\u2019s consistent with my experience when I was a federal prosecutor as well. I saw that from her office. I thought that they were trying to do their best in going after gang violence. And so of the five, I would\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Max
If the AG\u2019s not doing her job, if a lot of the DAs aren\u2019t doing the job, if the bail laws are so broken, the only reason that crime has come down over the last couple of years in a number of categories, especially gun violence, is the policework? I mean, it seems like, again, going back to where we started, when the crimes are going down, it\u2019s because of the police. When the crime\u2019s going up, it\u2019s only because of the AG and the Manhattan DA and the bail laws?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No, it\u2019s because of the consequences. So when you look at the way that they\u2019re policing, you have Police Commissioner Tisch conducting targeted policing on murderers and trigger-pullers, people who are shooting illegal guns and committing acts of violence. In those situations, you do have bail laws that permit detention, and in general, judges do impose severe sentences.<\/p>\n

In the same case where someone has not shot someone dead, but rather has threatened to cut someone\u2019s head off with an axe while holding an axe, that case has involved the individual being released, not detained pretrial, and suffering no consequences. But really the difference is the consequences. When the harm has been done and someone is dead, they go to jail for a long time. When the person has been caught before they could actually commit an act of violence, our current system doesn\u2019t impose any consequence. As a result, we\u2019re waiting for someone to get hurt in order to do something.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
So when gun violence was spiking, the police were not doing that job well?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m sorry?<\/p>\n

Ben Max
When gun violence was spiking, the police were not doing that job well, and those consequences weren\u2019t there?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
When gun violence was spiking in 2020, you mean?<\/p>\n

Ben Max
Yeah, 2020, 2021.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You know, I remember when that happened. I was telling you before, the reason I saw a lot of this is I was in the federal prosecutor\u2019s office. I was a supervisor in the intake unit in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office. And that unit traditionally brought in cases related to transnational smuggling and other transnational crime. But after bail reform, we basically became a local DA\u2019s office. The PD would come to us and say, \u201cWe\u2019ve got a guy who\u2019s robbed a bank four times, or been caught with an illegal gun four times, or carjacked a car four times, and they keep getting released in the state. We need you to do something.\u201d So they federalized the case.<\/p>\n

Myles Miller
Well, that\u2019s mainly because of the federal enhancement, just because if you\u2019re a criminal who\u2019s committing a crime with a gun, then you can easily be charged federally, more than \u2014 if you talk to Bob Boyce<\/a> or any other Chief of Detectives. That sort of squarely lies there.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
That has always been true, but the influx we had in gun cases in 2020 was because there was a spike in gun violence, the state wasn\u2019t prosecuting it effectively. I actually came in during COVID and reopened the grand jury so that we could indict as many illegal gun cases as possible in a day, which we did, in order to decrease the gun violence in the state. The feds took a much bigger role.<\/p>\n

Myles Miller
I wonder if you can just talk a little bit, some of the proposals that you\u2019ve mentioned \u2014 it\u2019s kind of weird the way that the Attorney General\u2019s office works in New York State. It\u2019s a function of the executive branch, chief legal officer, and obviously the Governor can make referrals. But how do you get some of this criminal justice stuff done when it sort-of requires the Governor to ask for it, or a referral, just based off the way the office is structured?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m really glad you asked that question. So the office has vast powers and original jurisdiction to prosecute crime. There\u2019s an organized crime task force under Executive Law 70-a<\/a>. The law provides the attorney general jurisdiction to prosecute any cross-border crime. When we see what people are suffering from, when we talk to small business owners across the state, they\u2019ll say that retail theft is on the rise. Retail theft is in large part committed by organized retail theft rings. After I made a video<\/a> about that phenomenon and it went viral online, I had someone reach out to me who used to work in the Attorney General\u2019s organized crime task force and who said to me, \u201cI\u2019m so glad you shined light on this issue. I used to prosecute exactly that organized retail theft when I was in the AG\u2019s organized crime task force, and we need to be doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The AG\u2019s office has a hate crimes unit. The AG\u2019s office has a financial crimes unit. The AG\u2019s office has a Medicaid fraud unit with criminal jurisdiction. The reason the word \u201ccrime\u201d is in all of those units, it\u2019s not an accident. The AG\u2019s office has the jurisdiction to prosecute crime.<\/p>\n

When it comes to referrals, that referral can come from the Governor, it can come from the comptroller, it can come from state agency heads. There have actually been so many instances across the state of people asking for help from the AG, and she doesn\u2019t help them.<\/p>\n

Just recently, the Ithaca Common Council voted unanimously<\/a> to ask the AG to investigate NYSEG [New York State Energy and Gas] and RG&E [Rochester Gas and Electric] because they have a reason to believe that there\u2019s a fraud involved. Fraud is well within the jurisdiction of the AG\u2019s office under Section 63(12), but the AG didn\u2019t respond to that request. I did. I said I would open that investigation on day one.<\/p>\n

Out in Chautauqua County in western New York, there\u2019s a city of Dunkirk that suffered a $16 million deficit. They have to raise taxes on local residents because of the mismanagement of their local government. So the county legislature voted and passed a resolution<\/a> asking the Attorney General: \u201cPlease investigate whether there was fraud, embezzlement, or whether this was just neglect or something else.\u201d And the Attorney General said she can\u2019t do anything about it. Again, people are asking for help in New York, and she is not actually answering that call.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
On the issue of people asking for help, how do you square the unhappiness that you see across the state with the fact that voters continue to vote for someone like Bragg, for example, elected by large margins<\/a> twice now? Why would Manhattan voters vote for him twice if they were so unhappy with the work that he\u2019s doing?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You\u2019ve got to ask them. I\u2019ll tell you, I talk to Manhattan voters. When I talk to them and explain what the AG can do to make their lives better, they\u2019re very excited to vote for me.<\/p>\n

Akash Mehta
You talked about voters\u2019 top priority. I think something like 5% of likely voters say crime is the top issue, a fraction of the portion that say the economy is the top issue, the cost of living. But you talked about areas of crime beyond violent crime. Could you talk about how you would approach enforcing antitrust law, consumer protection law and, more generally, holding powerful corporations accountable?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Of course. Well, I believe in holding everyone accountable. When I was a federal prosecutor, I went after the worst of the worst. My colleagues prosecuted El Chapo. I prosecuted the man in the Mexican government who made it possible for El Chapo to operate with impunity. I do think you have to go after people whether they are powerful or not.<\/p>\n

In terms of consumer protection, again, when I speak with voters, they tell me about what they\u2019re dealing with. People are getting scammed. I talk to folks who are on food stamps, and they say that their food stamp card is getting hacked into, and the entire balance disappears. I talked to someone the other day. He said his brother lost $400. That\u2019s his entire grocery budget for the month, and he doesn\u2019t know what to do. That\u2019s because there\u2019s cybercriminals hacking into our food stamp cards, and no one\u2019s going after that cybercrime.<\/p>\n

I know that well. I used to prosecute cybercrime in the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office. I helped build up the cybercrime practice. I did the first cybercrime trial in the EDNY, and I teach cybercrime at Columbia Law School. That kind of crime is being committed often by out-of-state or overseas cybercriminals, and we\u2019ve got to, one, do our best to hold those people accountable. I\u2019ve done that. I\u2019ve actually extradited Russian\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Max
You\u2019ve quickly gone back to your focus area of organized street crime. He was asking about corporate\u2014<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Sure. Well, when it comes to corporations and antitrust, you\u2019re talking about the larger targets. We have to police all of that, too. If you remember, there was a time when the AG\u2019s office was actually known for aggressively policing Wall Street. That\u2019s not the case anymore, but it can be.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Was that good \u2014 was Eliot Spitzer a good AG?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I think it\u2019s important to go after fraud, whether it\u2019s being committed by large actors or small ones. I\u2019m not afraid of anyone, and so I will actually prosecute, whether it\u2019s someone on Wall Street or someone who\u2019s an overseas hacker. I\u2019ll prosecute both.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re talking about consumer protection. That can come in the form of criminal prosecution. It can come in the form of civil fraud prosecutions. But I think it\u2019s important to revive all of this because people are being scammed. People talk to me about contractor fraud. Actually, I was speaking with some union members at an event the other day telling me about this. All over the state, there are folks who engage in a contract. They\u2019re expecting some work to be done on their property, and the person takes the money and runs. And there\u2019s two folks who lose out on that, and it\u2019s both the homeowner and also the subcontractors who never get paid.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve told me that they\u2019ve called the AG\u2019s office. This is a consumer protection matter. They\u2019ve called the AG\u2019s office, and the AG\u2019s office does nothing.<\/p>\n

These are the kinds of things that used to be that you could call the regional office of the attorney general, and they would respond. If you\u2019re scammed by a \u2014 treated unfairly by a corporation, they would call the corporation. They would call Target or Home Depot and say, \u201cYou know what, you need to fix this situation.\u201d Or if it was an individual or a small business, a contractor is repeatedly engaging in fraud, well, that can be dealt with civilly. If it\u2019s repeated intentional fraud, it can be dealt with criminally.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
I guess another way to put Akash\u2019s question is, are there major practices that large corporations are engaging in that specifically trouble you, that you think they\u2019ve gotten away with with impunity over the years, that you would want to focus the AG\u2019s office on combating?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You know, I do think one area that I think we should be looking at, and they actually have taken some action on, is surveillance pricing. I don\u2019t think that anyone should be paying a higher price because of their race or their socioeconomic class or other factor of that kind. And so the AG\u2019s office has taken some action on this. What I\u2019ve heard from Albany is that the law that was passed is not sufficient and will need to be amended further. And I\u2019ll be making sure that I do that, to make sure that we actually ensure that prices are equal for everyone, regardless of what they look like or what their background is. So speaking of\u2014<\/p>\n

[Crosstalk]<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Another answer to your question, by the way, is what I just mentioned about the Ithaca Common Council has asked the Attorney General to investigate the incessant rate hikes from NYSEG and RG&E. That\u2019s a large corporation. They\u2019ve pointed to a particular transaction that they believe is improper. I\u2019m not going to take a view on whether it is improper or not, but it is something that I will look into, and we\u2019ll see what happens.<\/p>\n

Akash Mehta
Republican Attorneys General have gone beyond Democrats across the country in pursuing legal action against frontier AI labs<\/a>. So Attorneys General in Florida, Iowa, Arkansas, and Idaho have all asked courts to halt the development of advanced AI until it can be done safely. No Democratic Attorney General, to my knowledge, has done the same, including Letitia James. If you were elected, would you seek to halt AI development?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
That\u2019s a really good question. I think about AI in two ways. One is, AI is a means of committing another action. And just like with computers when they first came out, and the internet, and when we saw the development of cybercrime prosecutions and crypto, when the new technology is used as a means to commit an old crime \u2014 someone\u2019s hacking, now they use AI to do the hacking in a more efficient, effective way \u2014 then you go after that crime, and you go after that victimization even when it involves AI. That makes sense.<\/p>\n

So I hear about this all the time, because the phone scams that people are falling for often are supercharged by AI right now. An elderly citizen will get a phone call. It will sound like her grandson\u2019s voice. That voice is being mimicked by AI. There will be personal details. Those details will have been obtained by AI, and the grandmother will be convinced into wiring $100,000 out the door that she never sees again. So in a situation like that, it\u2019s not that you\u2019re going after the AI, but you\u2019re making sure that AI is not being used to victimize people. And I think that\u2019s important, to be tuned in to when that\u2019s happening and to get ahead of it, because that\u2019s moving very fast and we need to move faster.<\/p>\n

AI as an end \u2014 just going after the technology because it\u2019s a new technology \u2014 is a different situation. And I have seen firsthand, again, with crypto, we saw the same dynamic, where it\u2019s one thing for it to be used as part of a larger crime. It\u2019s another to go after the technology because we think the technology itself is dangerous. These technologies can be used for good or bad.<\/p>\n

I think when it comes to AI regulation, we need to work together with as many people as we can work together with. I would like to collaborate with other states to come up with a framework where we can make sure that technology is used safely and is not \u2014 there are guardrails in place to ensure that it is not used for criminality. I think that has to be a collaborative process. In general, regulation by enforcement tends to be spotty and ineffective. It\u2019s better to have regulation by regulation. And that\u2019s something I saw firsthand\u2014<\/p>\n

Akash Mehta
In advance of those sufficient guardrails being instituted, is AI, as currently being developed, safe enough to release to the public?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Listen, when I was chief of staff of the DEA, I actually was involved with\u2014 when the Biden administration was circulating its executive order on AI. And so there were a lot of conversations about exactly how do we do this. We have a rapidly accelerating technology. We need to make sure that it\u2019s not being used for criminal purposes. We need to make sure that its development is safe.<\/p>\n

What the Biden administration came up with as a framework was guardrails, was people who serve as checks and balances, review requirements, approval requirements before technology is released. This is a very consequential and nuanced area. I don\u2019t think you can just say, \u201cMe, as a New York Attorney General, I alone will be the one who decides whether AI goes forward or not.\u201d I do think you have to have a conversation with everyone involved \u2014 that includes the Governor, that includes other Attorneys General \u2014 to figure out how to let the technology be used for good but not have it be used for bad.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
How do you use it yourself?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I use AI in place of Google for research.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Not writing your briefs?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
Speaking of fraud and abuse, you would like to direct the Charities Bureau to look into homeless service providers, mental illness service providers. Can you say, are you looking for systemic fraud? And what do you see as the evidence for that systemic fraud? And how do you know the difference between providers that are doing a bad job because they\u2019re committing fraud and providers that are doing a bad job because the government is sending very mixed signals about what it wants?<\/p>\n

For example, through the process of democracy, we still haven\u2019t figured out in New York City and State, do we want people to be in long-term mental institutions, or do we want the hospital to stabilize them and let them go to an outside housing provider? How much of that is bad acting, and how much of that is confusion about what the mission is here?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019ve read the reports<\/a> of the New York State Comptroller, Tom DiNapoli, the New York City Comptroller<\/a>, Mark Levine. There\u2019s actually been wide-ranging reviews of the homeless shelters in New York, and those reviews have shown a number of red flags related to misuse of funds, fraud, embezzlement, outright corruption and kickbacks. If you read those reports, you\u2019ll see that. You have homeless shelter CEOs making a million dollars a year while New Yorkers are dying on the streets. Recently, we had a murder in a homeless shelter<\/a>, and that same shelter got a contract for half a billion dollars for 40 years. So in those reports, the comptrollers call for investigation. The Attorney General hasn\u2019t answered that call. I have said that I will.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s important to take a look. Some homeless shelters are doing a good job. I\u2019ve spoken with the homeless shelter CEO here in the city who told me that 93% of the people that she brings into her shelter move on to stable housing. I visited homeless shelters in Rochester who are able to provide substance use treatment through peer counseling and have 66% success rate, which is actually quite high for substance use treatment. So there are some people who are doing a good job.<\/p>\n

Those same people have told me there are gaps in the system. The Rochester mission that I visited said, \u201cListen, we can handle this type of population, but what I can\u2019t handle is the severely mentally ill, and there\u2019s no solution for them right now, and I can\u2019t be everything to everyone. So I\u2019m excited about your proposal, because we need to solve that gap in the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spoken with nurses at hospitals who tell me that hospital ERs have now become de facto shelters, de facto psych wards, de facto jails sometimes, because they have violent people coming in. That\u2019s why assaults at New York City hospitals have increased 46%. That\u2019s why nurses are speaking out about workplace safety. And they want a solution that doesn\u2019t involve just dumping everyone into the ER.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
Mamdani just recently said he would continue working with a homeless provider that has indeed had systemic problems. Should that be his choice, to continue working with this provider despite these known problems, or should the AG step in and say, \u201cNo, you cannot operate in this manner anymore\u201d?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I think the AG\u2019s role is to identify when fraud or corruption is occurring and to stop that. That depends on the specific facts. So if that\u2019s one person in an organization that we need to take action against, then that\u2019s one person. If it\u2019s the entire organization committing that fraud or corruption, then we need to take action against the entire organization. It\u2019s going to depend on what the facts show.<\/p>\n

But my goal is to have shelters, but to have them be safe and effective. It\u2019s not my goal to shut down every homeless shelter in the state. To the contrary, I want to make sure that we have homeless shelters where the homeless feel comfortable going there. I\u2019ve gone to the encampments here, Syracuse, elsewhere. I\u2019ve talked to the homeless. I\u2019ve asked them, \u201cWhy do you choose to sleep out on the street in 5-degree weather instead of go to a shelter?\u201d And they say it\u2019s not safe.<\/p>\n

And you look at the reports, and that\u2019s substantiated. Homeless shelters have become hubs for crime and drugs. Homeless shelters have documented cases of physical and sexual abuse. This is a real problem. It\u2019s not fair to the homeless. It\u2019s not fair to the communities. It\u2019s not fair to the taxpayers who are actually paying taxes, as New Yorkers are compassionate people and want to take care of others.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
To follow on Nicole\u2019s question, you have said not only that you want to audit and investigate homeless services organizations, you want to investigate all of them, which I think is what you said, including, I suppose, the ones that you\u2019ve said are doing good work, as far as you know. The Charities Bureau is very powerful, very important, and this will clearly largely fall under their jurisdiction. How do you justify, one, putting those really significant resources to audit and investigate all of them? I mean, what else would you do with that bureau, with whatever men and women power you have left over?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So there\u2019s about 104,000 charities in New York, and the Charities Bureau currently receives financial filings from every single one of them, or is supposed to. It also has the authority to review conflict-of-interest transactions, dispositions of assets and other parts of their operations.<\/p>\n

So one of the problems that I\u2019ve heard a great deal about is that the Charities Bureau is extremely slow-moving. I hear about this from lawyers across the state and individuals at nonprofits. I think we need to take a look at how they\u2019re allocating their resources.<\/p>\n

I think a lot of this is paperwork requirements that don\u2019t actually make charities more well-functioning. It\u2019s not clear if this is just bureaucracy for bureaucracy\u2019s sake or a unit that has a goal. The goal should be, we need to make sure that charities are accomplishing their mission, particularly when those charities are funded by taxpayer money. Not all charities are funded by taxpayer money, obviously. A number of them are funded by private donations.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ve had a growth in New York of charities that are essentially government agencies outside of the oversight of the government: totally funded by taxpayer money, employees that make more than what government servants make, not subject to the oversight of the legislature, not subject to the background checks that you usually have for when you sign up for government service. And so it doesn\u2019t surprise me that we have this entire sector now that\u2019s not well-regulated. And I do think we need to shift focus to make sure we\u2019re protecting taxpayer money until we solve that problem.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
And why commit to having an audit from the Attorney General when part of the paperwork requirement is that all these charities file audits that are commissioned from independent auditors? Are you saying that those audits are invalid or corrupt somehow?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
We\u2019ll use the audits that already exist, and the Comptroller has audits of some of them. So I think it\u2019s important to use the work that\u2019s there. What I\u2019m saying is, let\u2019s make sure the work is there. There\u2019s also instances, for example, in Buffalo, where it turns out that a particular charity hasn\u2019t filed any paperwork with the AG\u2019s office for seven years, and no one said anything.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
Did you ever look at AG Schneiderman\u2019s investigation<\/a> into the Trump Foundation, speaking of the AG\u2019s office and the Charities Bureau?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Not in detail.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
And what other targets would you be looking at? You mentioned homeless shelters. Just within the charities sector, is there a realm of charity you would be looking at, or is it just kind of, you\u2019re going to be waiting for tips and reports?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I think a priority of mine is to solve the homelessness crisis, and so that is the first area that I would prioritize. And I\u2019m happy to receive any feedback on if there are additional areas where people think that there\u2019s a need to take a particular look. Like I said, there is a charity \u2014 there were a couple of nonprofits in Buffalo earlier this year where there was an outcry from the public about a lack of oversight. They were beloved charities. People want those charities to continue. They don\u2019t want them to shut down, and they\u2019re worried that they can\u2019t continue because of financial malfeasance. The goal of the Charities Bureau should be to help these charities help our communities \u2014 not to shut them down, but to actually help them accomplish their mission. And I want to make sure that the Charities Bureau does that.<\/p>\n

Myles Miller
The state is largely run by Democrats in various places, and if you were to take office, you have to work with them. Can you talk about what it was like to work with Anne Milgram, who is by all accounts a very well-known Democrat, who presided over the DEA?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Yes, I have great respect for Anne. I will tell you that when she reached out and asked for me to be her chief of staff, I was honored to be asked. She reached out for one simple reason. I didn\u2019t know her personally. I didn\u2019t have any political connection. She asked her agents who was a prosecutor that they respected, and her agents pointed her to me. I think it is a great sign of a leader when they hire people based on merit. That\u2019s what I\u2019m asking New Yorkers to do in this election. She wanted to have a well-regarded prosecutor as her chief of staff to help make sure that cases move forward, and that was a large part of what I did as chief of staff.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
\u2026A drug question, since you spent time with the DEA: How\u2019s marijuana legalization going?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
In the state level?<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Yeah, or nationally. However you\u2019re sort-of watching it.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Well, here\u2019s what I would say. We live in a democracy, and if a majority of people want marijuana to be legal, I respect that. I think at the federal level, if that\u2019s what Americans want, we need to do it through an act of Congress, because it\u2019s the most straightforward way to do it. Once you do that, you can also take into account whatever safeguards need to be put in place to make sure that people, to the extent they\u2019re using it, are doing so safely.<\/p>\n

So one of the biggest issues we have right now, we have record levels of ER admissions, people who are suffering from cannabis hyperemesis, cannabinoid-induced psychosis. And the reason for that is because we are seeing marijuana with THC levels that are super high. We have gotten to a place with the synthetic drug crisis where marijuana used to have maybe 3, 4% THC levels. Now you find marijuana with 90% THC levels. It\u2019s extremely potent. It is not the marijuana from the \u201970s, and people need to know that. People need to understand it.<\/p>\n

And there may be a role for the government or a government agency to regulate THC levels, just like people regulate alcohol levels in beer and wine, just like people regulate nicotine levels. And so that\u2019s a conversation. My focus is always safety. Again, we live in a democracy. If folks want marijuana to be legal, I will respect that. I do think that you have to\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Sounds like you don\u2019t love it.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I don\u2019t want my kids using it. But you know\u2026<\/p>\n

Ben Max
New York legalized it. Is that OK? Should that be \u2014 you\u2019re calling for a federal answer, but New York\u2019s approach, would you try to change that law?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
In terms of New York legalizing it, like I said, a majority of New Yorkers want it to be legal, and I respect that. I do think you have to inform New Yorkers about what they\u2019re taking. I think you have to make sure that the materials are labeled with how potent the chemicals are. We should have a conversation about whether we should limit the potency. We should have a conversation about not marketing it to kids. They\u2019re currently marketed as gummy bears, because there\u2019s so many unlicensed vendors that are selling products made in China, imported here, and there\u2019s no understanding or information about what\u2019s actually in those products.<\/p>\n

I actually spoke with, I believe, the first woman-owned marijuana \u2014 licensed marijuana vendor in New York City. Wonderful woman. I ran into her in Brooklyn. And she was talking to me about the need for the AG\u2019s office to actually help make sure that if we\u2019re going to do this, let\u2019s do it safely. Let\u2019s do it in a way that everyone understands what\u2019s in those packets. And let\u2019s do it in a way that\u2019s regulated.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you agree with New York City and New York State being a sanctuary city and a sanctuary state?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So it\u2019s really, really important to find a way forward on this issue, because we are in a situation where I think many New Yorkers are upset with how things are currently being handled, and they\u2019re upset for different reasons. I firmly believe that we can find common ground on this, because I\u2019ve lived it. When I was a federal prosecutor under President Obama, we did this in a very simple way. If there was a criminal here who was convicted or arrested for a state crime, and they\u2019re in police custody, and they\u2019re being released, and they\u2019re here illegally, we would hand over custody to federal officials at the jailhouse door. I remember those cases.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
So whether or not they\u2019ve been convicted.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
There\u2019s no presumption of innocence in this context.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
There is always a presumption of innocence in the criminal case. The immigration case is separate, obviously. And in those situations, when I worked those cases, that individual stayed in the country until the criminal case was over.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
But do you agree with the current policies that govern New York City as a sanctuary city and New York State as a sanctuary state? Do you agree with that?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I think we should have policies\u2014<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you agree with it?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m telling you exactly where I agree and I don\u2019t agree. I think we should have policies where if an individual is in local police custody because of a crime, and they\u2019re here illegally, and they\u2019re being released, they should be handed over to federal officials at the jailhouse door. That accomplishes two things. It prevents violent criminals from being released into the community. It also prevents the feds from going into our communities. And that\u2019s what New Yorkers want to prevent. We can actually accomplish both of those things.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you want local enforcement to work more closely with ICE enforcement?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I want the handover of a state criminal to happen at the jailhouse door so that we don\u2019t have altercations in our streets.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you want local police to be enforcing immigration law?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
It\u2019s not the role of local police to enforce civil immigration law, but that\u2019s not what this is about. This is about violent crimes and what\u2019s happening right now in New York. And this is something that New Yorkers\u2026<\/p>\n

Ben Max
But not every handover is over an alleged violent crime, right? There\u2019s a lot\u2014<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No, that\u2019s what I\u2019m talking about. I\u2019m talking actually\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Max
You\u2019re talking only on an alleged violent crime?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
The handovers happen when a crime has been committed in the state. Otherwise, that person is not in NYPD custody.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Well, but\u2014<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
NYPD is not taking people into custody for civil enforcement violations. They never have, and they never will.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
But people are acquitted all the time. People are arrested and released.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Sure.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
I don\u2019t know if anybody here has had that happen to them.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Not in my cases.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
But I guess I think that the thing that people are wrestling with, who probably did like the Obama policy because the Obama ICE operated somewhat differently from Trump\u2019s, was that when you hand over somebody who\u2019s been picked up for jaywalking or murder or whatever and is facing trial, they wouldn\u2019t necessarily be sent to a detention camp in Alabama. You know, that\u2019s obviously the difference here, right?<\/p>\n

Are you comfortable with what happens after someone who is innocent until presumed guilty \u2014 presumably, although usually guilty, etc \u2014 are you comfortable with what\u2019s happening to them after you turn them over? Or is that just not on \u2014 you just feel like that\u2019s \u2014 you\u2019re washing your hands of it?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
No, I think we need to have the criminal case play out. I had cases where this happened. I had a child sex offender who was arrested, and we had him in criminal court, went to the arraignment, and for whatever reason, actually against the law, in violation of the Adam Walsh Act, he was released from criminal custody.<\/p>\n

He was also here illegally, and he was placed in ICE custody. He was in ICE custody until eventually the federal criminal court \u2014 so the federal district judge reversed the magistrate judge and brought him back, remanded him under the federal criminal case. But in either event, he would have stayed in custody until the criminal case was over. We did that criminal case. We went all the way to trial. A jury convicted that individual, and he\u2019s doing his time in federal prison.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
When you hand a person over at the jailhouse door to this ICE, do you believe that their intent is to wait for the criminal case to play out at the state level before they decide whether to deport the individual?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
It should be.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Is that what they do?<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
I mean, isn\u2019t that kind of the problem? That seems like that\u2019s what everyone in your position is wrestling with right now, even if they kind of agree with you on what you ought to be doing.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I think we\u2019ll have to take a look at the cases. I think what people are wrestling with right now is that there\u2019s no handover. If you could actually\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
They don\u2019t trust the people they\u2019re handing them to.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
But on violent crime \u2014 New York City\u2019s sanctuary law has carve-outs for violent crime. There\u2019s 170 crimes where you go forward with the case, and then it\u2019s upon conviction and serving the sentence that would then be that handover.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Two weeks ago\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Max
You can always cite one example of this or one example of that.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
It\u2019s not one example. It\u2019s happening all the time. Two weeks ago, we had two individuals who were here illegally. They were arrested with burglary tools and on other offenses. They were released right away because of our catch-and-release bail laws. Then they go on to try to rob an off-duty cop, and they stab him 10 times. There is no reason that crime should have been committed. Those individuals, first of all, should have been held pretrial.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Burglars should be held pretrial?<\/p>\n

Myles Miller
On burglary tools? Possessing burglar tools?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Depending on their history. Those individuals in particular had a history. And yeah, I think that they should have been held if they\u2019re about to commit a violent crime. They\u2019re about to commit burglary. Guys, they\u2019re about to commit burglary. If you want to prevent people from being victimized, you need to stop them before the crime occurs.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Is burglary defined as a violent crime?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Yes.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Why?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
It\u2019s breaking and entering.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Wait, but hold on, people \u2014 so you remand them, or are they allowed to make bail? I guess I\u2019m curious, this seems like a big broadening of what we\u2019re doing with just general white-collar criminals.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
There\u2019s two issues.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
In hindsight it\u2019s obviously easier.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Fair enough. In that situation, there\u2019s two issues. One is, the individual judge needs to have the discretion to be able to determine whether they think this person is a risk to the community. In that situation, I would have liked the judge to make that determination based on the totality of the facts and the circumstances. But under New York\u2019s bail laws, the judge does not have that discretion. Now, to your point, maybe that judge would have decided to remand, or maybe they wouldn\u2019t, depending on the specific facts of that case and that person\u2019s record.<\/p>\n

And so let\u2019s go to step two. After they are released, that person was here illegally, should have been handed over at the time of release, should have been handed [over] at the jailhouse door.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
And if they had been handed over at the jailhouse door, having been arrested for burglary, isn\u2019t it a fair assumption that the Trump administration would have moved to put them in a detention facility far away and\/or deported them to a third country or the country from which they came?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I don\u2019t know that that\u2019s a fair assumption. In my experience as a federal prosecutor, we let the criminal case play out.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you agree with the policy of undocumented immigrants getting driver\u2019s licenses in the state of New York?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
That\u2019s not really within the scope of the Attorney General\u2019s office. I haven\u2019t taken a position on that.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
Would you defend it?<\/p>\n

Ben Max
They only went forward with that law<\/a> after the Attorney General\u2019s office reviewed it. There was a whole thing between the Cuomo administration \u2014 and they were actually worried about the possibility of the Trump administration getting access to the records, so there was a whole review done. They actually, this was an instance they leaned on the Attorney General\u2019s office. But maybe you haven\u2019t reviewed it.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I understand that, and it\u2019s the kind of situation where I\u2019m sure the Attorney General gave legal advice in the role of counsel to the state. I would want to look into the reasons for that. I\u2019m sure there were specific reasons and nuances in making that decision.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
But you don\u2019t have an opinion on that law?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Sitting here today, I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Josh Greenman
I really wanted to ask about Cornell, because you talked a lot about safety. What is your view of what the role of the Attorney General should be in that particular case?<\/p>\n

And then also talk more broadly about campus sex climates, whether there\u2019s any broader role. And Title IX is a very, very complicated arena, but what do you think the right way to strike a balance is, of keeping young women in particular safe on campuses, but also respecting the rights of the accused?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Sure. So I think you all know, during my time as a federal prosecutor, I also prosecuted sexual assault cases. They\u2019re very serious cases. They require serious prosecutors. One of my cases involved a series of horrific sexual assaults. I put a man in prison for that, for life. So I know firsthand what these cases entail, and I\u2019ve talked to the victims, and I\u2019ve talked to the witnesses, and it\u2019s very, very important that the person in charge of that case approaches the case with fairness and impartiality.<\/p>\n

Obviously, Tish James has not done that. She has already prejudged the case. A number of you in the press have called her out on that: the New York Times, the New York Magazine, the Boston Globe.<\/p>\n

In terms of what the Attorney General\u2019s office\u2019s role is, I think this is a good example of the absence of the attorney general in the criminal law enforcement space being a problem. The real question you should be asking is, where was AG James two years ago? Two years ago, the Tompkins County DA decided not to do his own independent investigation. Now, if you create a system and a culture in New York State where the attorney general, who is the chief law enforcement officer of the state, actually acts like it, you will have a culture of checking in with your DAs, having an open line of communication, being a resource.<\/p>\n

In that kind of situation, the AG two years ago should have called up the Tompkins County DA and said, \u201cListen, I understand that Cornell did its own investigation, but that\u2019s Cornell. As the DA, you should do your own objective, independent investigation. I\u2019m not telling you how to come out, but you should do an investigation. If you need help \u2014 if you need a sex crimes prosecutor, a forensic expert, other resources \u2014 happy to send those to you. Or if you don\u2019t want to do it for any reason, I\u2019ll ask the Governor for a referral, and we\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But for the purpose of having confidence in the case, for the purpose of public trust, for the purpose of ensuring that these eight individuals whose lives and futures are in your hands are treated fairly, you should have an independent investigation. And I think the absence of the AG for two years is very telling, and the fact that they only step in a month before an election, and now this case is incredibly politicized \u2014 it\u2019s a disservice to everyone involved, and it\u2019s a disservice to the public.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
I just had a quick follow-up on charities. You mentioned the million-dollar salaries twice. Should we have a cap on nonprofit salaries? And this was a Spitzer issue as well, with the New York Stock Exchange. And should the nonprofits be subject to FOIL?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Oh, interesting. That\u2019s a very interesting question.<\/p>\n

So I don\u2019t have a view on sort of arbitrarily setting a cap for nonprofit salaries. My concern when I hear about million-dollar CEO salaries is that it seems to be a red flag when those organizations are not producing results. We also have situations \u2014 documented situations \u2014 where a CEO of a nonprofit then starts for-profit companies that his nonprofit then contracts with. It\u2019s obvious self-dealing. So to me, those are red flags and a reason to investigate and understand whether there is outright fraud happening, whether it\u2019s mismanagement, and what we can do about it to make sure that taxpayer dollars are going to help the homeless as they are intended to do.<\/p>\n

I think the FOIL question is an interesting question. I think it actually points to one of the issues that we were discussing earlier, which is we essentially have some of these nonprofits that are fully funded by taxpayer money \u2014 are essentially government agencies that are not subject to the scrutiny that government agencies usually are. I think that\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
Do you think we need a bigger public sector, then, and to sort-of eliminate a lot of this contracting out?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You know, I did meet someone who runs a homeless shelter and works for the state. It\u2019s very unusual. Almost every homeless shelter in the state is run by a nonprofit, but there\u2019s two or three that are not. And I think that\u2019s a good conversation to have. I talked to him. I was up in Franklin County. I talked to him at length about how he runs his shelter system. I think it depends on the needs of a particular county. Rural areas have different needs than urban areas. But I think we have to understand first what\u2019s happening in this sector and make better decisions about how it should be structured.<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
And by the way, I do think that Cuomo did attempt to cap<\/a> nonprofit executive compensation. I think there may have been legal challenges. It was a long time ago.<\/p>\n

OK, so my question is, you\u2019ve proposed an Office of Civil Commitment, I believe, to deal with serious mental illness, taking advantage of new state law that allows for easier commitment. My question for you is, if you get elected, [you] would be in the opposition party, right? I don\u2019t know when the last Republican Attorney General served in \u2014 do we know when the last \u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
You don\u2019t think Blakeman is going to win?<\/p>\n

Alyssa Katz
You never know. Never know. But so my question is, you talk about building an apparatus of local residential treatment centers. How would you do that as an Attorney General? We don\u2019t control any of the levers that would actually build projects that would take years to execute.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So first of all, in terms of the actual powers of civil commitment, we don\u2019t need new laws on that. There were new laws passed on this just last year in Albany with bipartisan support that expanded the civil commitment laws. Mental Hygiene Law, Article 9<\/a> says you can bring someone inside if they\u2019re a danger to themselves or others or cannot take care of their own basic needs. So I do think there\u2019s already bipartisan consensus that we need to have those powers. Those powers are in the law.<\/p>\n

Now we need someone to use those powers. The question is, how are we going to use those powers? And this is where it really is a collaborative effort. I look forward to working with everyone, Democrat or Republican, to deal with this issue. I will tell you, I have spoken with mental health advocates at NAMI [National Alliance on Mental Illness]. I\u2019ve spoken with the author of Kendra\u2019s Law. I\u2019ve spoken with the folks at the Dutchess County Stabilization Center, which is largely regarded as a success story of a place that has been able to fill the gap that currently exists, where people are falling through the cracks because there\u2019s nowhere to go. And I\u2019ve spoken with people across the state, Rochester, Syracuse, about how to deal with these issues.<\/p>\n

The one place where there is consensus among law enforcement, among nurses, among mental health advocates, firemen, first responders, is that we need leadership on this issue, that we need more psych beds, and that we don\u2019t want to go back to the institutionalization of the \u201970s. But that doesn\u2019t mean we want to just leave everyone abandoned on the streets. We need to create something.<\/p>\n

And I think the area of consensus is to build residential treatment centers \u2014 small residential treatment centers, 100 beds or less, dispersed throughout the state. When I talk to law enforcement officers that pick up someone who\u2019s having a mental episode on the street, and they have to drive that person somewhere, they tell me sometimes the nearest place is two or three hours away. It\u2019s unacceptable. It doesn\u2019t work. We need to have small places spread around the state where people can have three meals a day and a warm bed at night and access to treatment.<\/p>\n

And I actually think there already is bipartisan consensus around that. We just need someone who\u2019s going to show leadership on the issue, help stitch together the different approaches that are currently happening in the state, and make sure that no one falls through the cracks.<\/p>\n

Ben Max
Over the last decade, one of the major focuses out of the Governor\u2019s office and the Attorney General\u2019s office, heightened after Roe v. Wade was overturned, has been reproductive rights. Did you agree with the overturning of Roe v. Wade? Did you agree with New York\u2019s current reproductive rights laws? And right now being litigated is the Shield Law<\/a>\u2014 there\u2019s challenges to New York\u2019s Shield Law. How would you take that on if you were Attorney General in a couple months?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So I\u2019ve spoken about this. I spoke about this at the debate. Obviously, I have personal experience bringing kids into this world and dealing with the complications that can be involved with that, and I very much respect New York law on this. New York law protected a woman\u2019s access to abortion even before Roe v. Wade. That protection is now enshrined in the New York Constitution. I respect that law. I\u2019ll uphold and defend that law. And I think it\u2019s important to be consistent.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you agree with it?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I told you, I think it\u2019s New York law, and this is the thing about being the Attorney General\u2014<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
Do you personally agree with it?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I personally respect that law, and I think we need to uphold and defend the law.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
And Roe v. Wade, what\u2019s your take on Roe v. Wade?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
New York law protected access to abortion even before Roe v. Wade, and it does now.<\/p>\n

Juan Manuel Ben\u00edtez
But Roe v. Wade is a national issue. You worked in the federal government. What\u2019s your take on Roe v. Wade?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019m not running for Supreme Court. I\u2019m not running for national office. I\u2019m running for New York Attorney General. And I think it\u2019s really important to focus on the issues that actually affect New Yorkers. New York law protects\u2014<\/p>\n

Ben Max
But that\u2019s directly related to the Shield Law, right? Because Roe v. Wade was overturned, so therefore New York passed a Shield Law that\u2019s now being challenged by states that outlawed abortion.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I understand, and I\u2019ll defend that law.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
You\u2019ll defend that law?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I\u2019ll defend that law.<\/p>\n

Akash Mehta
\u2026On a different topic: Letitia James introduced legislation<\/a> to create a private right of action to sue corporations for unfair and abusive practices. That was stripped out by the legislature. And in the city, Mamdani is now trying to again institute that private right to action. Do you think private citizens should be able to sue corporations for unfair and abusive business practices?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I do. You know, New York currently has a False Claims Act that\u2019s similar to the federal False Claims Act. It\u2019s underutilized. But right now, New York citizens have the ability to pursue fraud in the government \u2014 and similarly, fraud and misuse of funds in the government. Similarly, I think it makes sense to enable citizens to pursue fraud and misuse in corporations.<\/p>\n

The bigger issue is that this is actually the job of the Attorney General. This is one of the core functions of an attorney general in the consumer protection space, is to make sure that you don\u2019t have corporations engaging in abusive practices. So it\u2019s telling to me that there\u2019s a desire or a need to have private citizens do that. I think the Attorney General should also be more aggressive in that area.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
You clerked for [Supreme Court Justice] Brett Kavanaugh. His reputation is for being a very good mentor to very high-powered clerks, basically. Curious what you learned from him then, what you\u2019ve learned from his jurisprudence, what you learned from his confirmation hearings.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
So I clerked for the Justice when he was on the D.C. Circuit, right after law school. And I will tell you, he is the hardest-working person that I know. He is extraordinarily detail-oriented. He looks at every single thing submitted in the record. He reads every brief multiple times, and he demonstrated by example what it means to really follow the facts and the law. He really cares about the record, and he really cares about getting it right. My first opinion that I worked on with him, we went through more than 100 drafts. That is the kind of attention to detail that I think a good lawyer applies to their cases, and that is my takeaway and how I\u2019ve tried to conduct myself in my cases.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Did his confirmation hearings change how you see anything \u2014 see politics, see Washington? How did you sort of feel about that? It was such a galvanizing moment for a lot of people.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
You know, I always kept my eye on the ball during those hearings. Obviously, I know him personally, and so I thought that it was important to focus on the man I know. And I respected him because he has always been, like you said, a friend and a mentor to me, and the allegations that were lodged against him were inconsistent with the man I know.<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
So having studied her career more closely than anybody else, what would you say is Letitia James\u2019 biggest accomplishment? And can you rank the last five AGs from good to bad?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Interesting question. Ranking the last five AGs from good to bad, I would rank them in reverse chronological order, by how much they went after crime. And I\u2019m going to ignore their personal misconduct for a minute when I answer this question, because that obviously changes the calculus. But if you just focus on their work, I think you see a progression of people who \u2014 with Vacco, was aggressively going after crime as crime; with Spitzer, also a former prosecutor, going after crime and fraud; Cuomo doing the same thing; I think Schneiderman doing the same thing, but in that order, in terms of results and effectiveness.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little hard to tell, because when Tish James took over as Attorney General, she took down all of the prior year-end reports, and so you don\u2019t have direct data to compare. The only things on her website are her own year-end reports. But that\u2019s my perception of it, from studying them from the public record. And your other question was?<\/p>\n

Nicole Gelinas
What is her biggest accomplishment as AG?<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
I actually do think the surveillance pricing \u2014 the actions she\u2019s taken to try and keep surveillance pricing under control are important. I think when you see a threat, you have to get ahead of it, and that is one instance in which she has tried to get ahead of it. It\u2019s a relatively new practice that\u2019s being experimented with, and I think we need to make sure that people are not victimized by profiling.<\/p>\n

Ben Smith
Well, thank you so much for coming in.<\/p>\n

Saritha Komatireddy
Thank you. Thank you all.<\/p>\n

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