Speaker Corey Johnson Hold His First Press Conference After Being Elected — Credit William Alatriste (Flickr)
Robert Press, Press Clips columnist
PRESS CLIPS: Trump Names New US Attorney
By Robert Press
New U.S. Attorney for the Southern District
Former US Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara was fired in the early stages of the new Trump Presidential administration. The reason why has never been made clear, just that it happened coincidentally right after the U.S. Attorney’s office investigated and refused to come down with an indictment of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Bharara’s replacement acting U.S Attorney Joon Kim had a limit of three-hundred days in which he could serve in the position until he or another person had to be named as the new U.S. Attorney.
Geoffrey Berman has been named as the new Interim US Attorney, and he has a maximum term of one-hundred and twenty days unless he is formally nominated for the position. Interim U.S. Attorney Berman was an Assistant U.S. Attorney here from 1990 until 1994.
Among the cases Berman will be trying as Interim U.S Attorney will be the retrials of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and former State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Berman will also in charge of the trial of Joe Percoco a former aid to Governor Andrew Cuomo. This makes that trial all the more interesting as Governor Cuomo has all but set his sights on running for President in 2020, against current President Donald Trump.
Murder rate drops under 300 for 2017
At a recent press conference New York City Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced that there were less than 300 murders (290 to be exact) recorded in 2017. This is the lowest murder rate in the city since 1951 when there were 243 recorded murders in New York City. In 1990 the murder rate peaked at 2,245, and has declined since then to last years record low. this make 2017 the tenth year since 1939 that the murder rate was below 300.
Pizza-loving Red Sox fan Mayor Bill de Blasio said “you would have to go back to when pizza was 15 cents a slice and the Dodgers were playing in Brooklyn” to find those numbers. He added that 2017 was the safest year in modern New York City history. To see the entire 2017 crime statistics, and the yearly murder rates from 1939, click on this link.
In other news
Newly elected City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has yet to assign committees to fellow council members, but I look for Bronx council members Vanessa Gibson and Rafael Salamanca to get plum committees. There are thirty-five committees with six sub committees, and the new speaker has mentioned that he may create a couple of new committees or sub committees.
New Councilman Mark Gjonaj has hit the council running as he has his new (and former Councilman Vacca’s old) office up and running. However when I called what should be new Councilman Ruben Diaz Sr.’s office the voice mail mentioned Councilwoman Annabele Palma’s name not his, and the message box was full.
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