Ex-prosecutor launches bid for Queens borough president
/
Eagle photo by David Brand
By David Brand
After 42 years in the Queens District Attorney’s Office, veteran prosecutor James Quinn is eyeing a move down the street to Borough Hall.
Quinn, a Richmond Hill resident, launched his bid for borough president a few days after leaving the Queens DA’s office, where he most recently served as Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney in charge of the Trial Division. Quinn resigned when DA Melinda Katz — the former borough president — took office on Jan. 1 after pledging to overhaul the executive staff. QNS.com was the first to report on Quinn’s candidacy.
The special election for Queens borough president will take place March 24 and candidates have until Jan. 14 to secure 2,000 valid signatures from registered Queens voters to appear on the ballot. Quinn joins a crowded field that includes Councilmember Costa Constantinides, former Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, police reform advocate Anthony Miranda, Councilmember Donovan Richards, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer and community activist and mapmaker Danniel Maio.
Quinn did not respond to a phone call seeking comment for this story.
He is reportedly a registered Democrat, but party affiliation does not matter in an open special election. Republican Eric Ulrich earned the most votes in Queens during the citywide special election for public advocate in February 2019 when more than a dozen Democratic candidates split the vote in a county where Democrats outnumber Republicans roughly six to one.
Quinn has remained an outspoken critic of state criminal justice reforms and the city’s plan to close Rikers Island jails by 2026. He has pledged to address those issues as borough president — though the borough president has little actual power on state and city policy. His tough-on-crime campaign material says he “knows how to protect you and your families” and urges Queens residents to “elect a crime fighter.”
His perspective on criminal justice reform differentiates him from the other left-leaning candidates in the field, but has at times generated controversy. Quinn was criticized when he dismissed the “narrative” of Kalief Browder’s suicide death during a September 2018 debate on the plan to close Rikers Island jails.
Browder, a Bronx resident, was arrested and charged with stealing a backpack when he was 16 years old. He was held in a Rikers Island jail for three years — including two in solitary confinement — because he could not afford to pay his $3,000 bail. Ultimately, Browder’s felony charges were dismissed and he was released. Two years later, he committed suicide and his experience galvanized a movement to reform the criminal justice system and close Rikers jails.
“Kalief Browder committed suicide two years after leaving Rikers,” Quinn said at the debate, while explaining that Rikers jail were not the cause of Browder’s mental health problems. “He committed suicide two years after he got out of Rikers Island. That is a fact. Everybody knows it.”
The comment prompted applause from many in the audience at the Kew Gardens Hills venue, but backlash from some lawmakers, attorneys and criminal justice reform advocates.
