As the first state campaign finance deadline approaches on Friday for the Kings County District Attorneys race two more former assistant district attorneys – Marc Fliedner and Anne Swern – have submitted their paperwork that they are looking to run.
Meanwhile interim District Attorney Eric Gonzalez suffered through his first piece of negative flavored press when DNAInfo reported today that one of his biggest supporters, Lu-Shawn Thompson, wife of the late District Attorney Ken Thompson, is locked in a bitter dispute with Thompson’s mother over disbursement of his will. Thompson appointed Gonzalez as the interim DA just days before he died.
Others already who have announced they are running include former ADAs Patricia Gatling and Ama Dwimoh. Rounding out the frontrunner field is high-powered attorney Arthur Aidala.
“Certainly there’s a lot of people considering it [the DA race], but after the January 15 filing we will start to see who are the contenders and who are the pretenders,” said one source very familiar with both Brooklyn’s legal and political community. “You can have a wonderful narrative but it’s going to take money to win.
To this end, several sources say that Gonzalez remains in very good shape and is expected to report raising close to a hefty $250,000 in the upcoming filing, which together with having the power of the office behind him would keep him as a favorite. However, if he comes in with considerably less money of around $100,000 he would have to reconsider his position, said the source.
Aidala, the former president of the Brooklyn Bar Association, had a fundraiser on Monday and has the ability to raise a lot of money, but several sources say if Gonzalez shows he can raise money, Aidala will sit out the election and possibly even help Gonzalez.
“Depending how things shake out if Anne Swern finds out she can raise $1 million it will be a lot different then finding out she can raise only $100,000. She’s intellegent enough to know she can’t fool herself,” said the source.
“They [Swern and Fleidner] have the same narrative, and same ideology and would appeal very heavily to brownstone belt. “It’s hard enough for a white to win a countywide seat without running up big numbers in the brownstone belt, but if they divide it they create a problem for each other,” said the source.
But both Swern and Fleidner have extensive experience and like their chances.
“I’m optimistic and a lot of people are encouraging me [to run],” said Swern, who recently left her job in the Brooklyn Defenders Office, after serving as a prosecutor for over 33 years under four elected district attorneys.
Among her responsibilities as the First Assistant District Attorney for Kings County, she supervised more than 1,100 attorneys and support staff members in their prosecutorial and administrative functions, and was the senior executive for alternative sentencing policy and programming.
Together with other stakeholders, Swern also planned and supervised the Brooklyn Treatment and Mental Health Courts, the Red Hook Community Justice Center and the Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison (DTAP) Program. During her tenure at KCDA, she supervised various Bureaus and Divisions and conducted numerous investigations and jury trials to verdict, including homicide and sex crimes cases.
“I think I’m the best choice for district attorney. And running when you strongly belive in yourself is an exciting chance to take,” said Swern.
Fleidner, after graduating from George Washington University Law School in 1987, immediately began working for Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman as an Assistant District Attorney, where he worked until 1992 mainly as a trial in the Sex Crimes and Special Victims Unit, prosecuting sexual assault, child physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence cases.
In 1992, Fleidner worked as an Assistant Prosecutor with the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office in New Jersey, where he became Director of the Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit. After a stint in private practice for Trenton-based Kamensky Cohen & Associates as a senior litigation attorney, he returned to Kings County in 2006, where he served under former DA Charles Hynes as Chief of the Major Narcotics Investigations Bureau.
In 2014, the newly elected Thompson appointed Fleidner Chief of the newly-created Civil Rights Bureau. During this tenure, he tried and convicted Mashawn Sonds for the brutal hate-crime beating of a transgender woman in Bushwick. He also tried and convicted Police Officer Joel Edouard for stomping on the head of a restrained civilian in Bedford Stuyvesant and Police Officer Peter Liang for the shooting death of unarmed civilian Akai Gurley in the Pink Houses Development in East New York.
“We need complete criminal justice reform. The system is broken and we need creative alternatives to dispositions that are not being engaged. I know how partnerships can be developed,” he said.
