Ball Seeks State Parole Reform

Assemblyman Greg Ball is determined to reform New York parole guidelines.

The second-term lawmaker, who represents constituents in Carmel, Southeast, and Patterson as well as Pawling, North Salem, Somers, and Yorktown, told a news conference last week on the steps of the historic Putnam County Courthouse that he will be introducing legislation in Albany as soon as next week to “go after the loophole dealing with concurrent sentencing, resulting in a revolving-door parole system in New York State.”

Ball called the news briefing in response to the deaths of a Brewster woman and her eight-year-old daughter last summer. Laura and Kayla Donohue were mowed down and killed by an illegal alien who was driving while intoxicated.

The man accused of the crime, Conses Garcia Zacarias, was sentenced to 8 1/3 to 25 years in state prison by Putnam County Judge James Rooney two weeks ago, after the Guatemalan national pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated vehicular homicide in connection with the tragedy.

Ball said under the state’s current parole guidelines, “this killer could be released from prison in a few short years. Idiotically, corrections law outlines the maximum parole for convicts serving concurrent sentences as one-third of the minimum sentence. This is despicable and especially insensitive in this case. New York’s revolving-door justice must be changed.”

Ball told the press briefing: “The victims of DWI deserve better than that. Our community deserves better than that. We must not only heighten sentences for those who choose to get behind the wheel drunk and murder others but reform our state’s broken parole system, as well.”

Ball called on his colleagues to support the new legislation: “There is no reason why bipartisan support cannot be achieved to piggyback on some of the more successful DWI legislation recently approved.”

Ed Kowalski of Pawling, director of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, whose niece, Elizabeth Butler of Croton Falls, was murdered in 2005 by an illegal alien, also addressed the news conference.

Kowalski said in the days following last summer’s tragedy on Brewster’s Main Street, “a week didn’t go by when an illegal alien was [not] picked up for drunken driving. This has to stop. The issue of vehicular homicide carries with it an 8 1/3- to 25-year prison term. However, the sentences are being served concurrently and not consecutively, which means this murderer can be out of prison in the same amount of time that Kayla Donohue went from first grade to fourth grade. It’s not enough.”

Chief Sheriff’s Investigator Gerald Schramek was also on hand, indicating that Sheriff Don Smith was in full support of Ball’s pending legislation: “Parole laws must be tightened to assure that offenders who continue to pose a danger do not obtain early release from prison. Justice demands that someone who takes a life while committing a crime must pay his debt to society.”

Putnam County Chief Assistant District Attorney Christopher York has promised that his office would strongly oppose any petitions filed by Zacarias for early release from prison.