Shabby D.A.'s

 

 NY Post

 District attorneys across the Big Apple last year declined to prosecute accused felons at nearly twice the rate of 2019 — letting more than 6,500 suspects off the hook, The Post has learned.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in 16.9 percent of the 38,635 felony cases that were closed in New York City during 2020, according to data compiled by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The year before, that rate was just 8.7 percent and the average for 2016 to 2019 was an even lower 8 percent, the statistics show.

Even though far fewer cases were disposed of last year, the 6,522 defendants whose charges were dropped exceeded the 5,985 who weren’t prosecuted in 2019.

The total number of cases closed in 2020 plunged by a massive 44.1 percent last year amid court closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — down from 69,119 the year before.

A law enforcement source said there were “a lot of layers to the problem,” including veteran prosecutors retiring or leaving for other jobs and “inexperienced [prosecutors] and cops making it harder to do trials,” as well as the political nature of DAs’ jobs.

 “The DAs are worried about getting re-elected,” the source said.

“Plus, you throw in a bucket of ‘woke’ and no one is getting prosecuted.”

The source also pointed to controversial, recently enacted laws governing the disclosure of evidence to the defense, known as “discovery.”

“Now, if someone takes a plea, you still have to provide the discovery information even though the case is closed,” the source said.

“Before, you didn’t have to. If you DP [decline to prosecute] a case, there is no discovery.”

Cy Vance's last dance

NY Daily News

Knee deep in millions of pages of ex-president Donald Trump’s tax returns, Manhattan district attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. said Friday he would not run for a fourth term.

“Representing the People of New York during this pivotal era for our city and our justice system has been the privilege of a lifetime,” said Vance in a statement.

“When I ran for this job in 2009, I said that a District Attorney’s responsibilities should extend beyond obtaining convictions in court, and that a 21st century prosecutor’s mandate is to move our justice system and our community forward.”

The announcement comes just weeks after Vance claimed victory in a bitter court fight over access to Trump’s taxes that made it to the Supreme Court.

 His critics say that Vance mostly reserved his gung-ho approach to pursuing criminal cases against Black and Hispanic New Yorkers while taking a more lenient approach for the city’s elite, including his decision not to pursue one of the earliest groping accusations against then powerful movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

But that victory was partially sullied by the fact that Vance declined to bring charges against Weinstein in 2015 — pre-#MeToo movement — for allegedly groping Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.

 

D.A. Vance's assistant prosecutor hid trial evidence to protect developers and contractors

THE CITY 

 The head of the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.’s vaunted Construction Fraud Task Force left her post this week after allegations surfaced that she withheld damaging evidence about a key cooperating witness in seven major bribery cases, THE CITY has learned.

Assistant District Attorney Diana Florence had prosecuted most of the high-profile cases involving construction wage theft, bribery and worker deaths brought by Vance in the last few years.

He appointed her “attorney-in-charge” of the task force when he formed it in August 2015 to crack down on wrongdoing in the industry.

Florence stepped down Tuesday shortly after allegations emerged in court papers that she kept secret a 38-minute audiotape in which the key informant in a series of construction bribery cases denied under oath to city investigators that he’d accepted any bribes.

Ifeanyi “Manny” Madu, a former city Department of Environmental Protection manager who was involved in picking vendors, was Florence’s star witness in cases she prosecuted against several contractors who’d received millions of dollars in city work.

Madu cooperated with the DA and claimed that in exchange for steering work to favored vendors, he received bribes of hotel stays, Broadway show tickets, gifts, extravagant meals and work for a subcontractor he secretly controlled.

He was the sole cooperating witness in seven criminal cases that were announced at an April 2018 news conference in which Florence stood next to Vance.

Unknown to the defendants, on Feb. 13, 2015, Madu made an audiotaped statement to city 

Department of Investigation agents involved in the bribery case, during which he was placed under oath.

According to court papers reviewed by THE CITY, Madu told DOI “among other things that he broke no laws, and that he did not take gifts, things of value or bribes from contractors.”

In court papers, Florence denied deliberately withholding evidence in the bribery cases, but did not address the allegation regarding the Madu DOI tape. She did not immediately return a phone message from THE CITY.

The allegations threatened to unleash a stampede to throw out cases and convictions involving Madu and Florence.

The accusations also marked the latest strife for Vance, who faces calls for his resignation over his handling of some high-profile cases involving the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and family members of President Donald Trump.

Melinda Katz sworn in as Queens District Attorney

Affidavit votes disqualified by the Board of Elections pushed Katz's slim victory

NBC News

 Eighty percent of the approximately 2,800 affidavit ballots cast in the 2019 Democratic primary for Queens DA were disqualified — but it’s not clear how many of the voided voters still don't realize their ballots didn’t count.

 The I-Team obtained a list of more than 2,300 disqualified voters.

Though the list was not confirmed by the Board of Elections, two sources close to the ongoing court challenge between Tiffany Caban and Melinda Katz did confirm the list.

Some voters on the list said the Board of Elections has so far failed to notify them — even as a high stakes court battle proceeds to determine if Katz's narrow victory over Caban should stand.

 “I have not received any such notification (or any mail otherwise) from the Board of Elections,” said Sophie Epstein, a registered Democrat who said her vote for Tiffany Caban disqualified because she failed to check the “Democrat” box on her affidavit ballot.

 Mark Miller, a long-time Astoria resident, told the I-Team his vote for Caban was voided after a poll worker advised him to cast an affidavit ballot at the wrong polling place.

“We should be finding reasons to count the votes, right? Not reasons to not count the votes,” Miller said.

Katz wins primary. The Queens Machine rolls on

NY Daily News

Tiffany Cabán conceded the Democratic race for Queens district attorney on Tuesday, officially cementing Melinda Katz’s razor-thin victory after six weeks of contentious recounts and court battles.

Addressing supporters at the Katch beer garden in Astoria, Cabán said she would keep fighting for progressive criminal justice reform.

“To every woman, to every young person of color, to every queer person, every single human being who was inspired by the movement we built, you are next," Cabán said after supporters had chanted her first name for nearly a minute. "And I promise that I will be the first there knocking on doors for you.”

Cabán, a Manhattan public defender, added, “This campaign may be over, but the movement does not stop ... We are just getting started.”

Katz, the establishment favorite and Queens borough president, now claims victory by a mere 55 votes — 34,913 to Cabán’s 34,858. The borough president is all but certain to win the general election against long-shot Republican candidate Daniel Kogan on Nov. 5.
 

Campaign worker's mother fraudulently voted in D.A. primary

NY Daily News

Like any good son, when Working Families Party campaign worker Rafael Shimunov found out that his mother couldn’t vote in the recent primary for the Queens district attorney, he took to Twitter to complain about voter fraud.

Shimunov, whose mother, Margarita Shimunova, is a registered nurse and immigrant from Uzbekistan, voted for insurgent candidate Tiffany Cabán by paper ballot because the Board of Elections had her registered as a Republican.

“She’s never voted GOP in her life,” he tweeted in response to an ongoing social media conversation about claims the election was rigged. He went on to describe his mother’s health issues and her struggle immigrating from the former Soviet Union as a refugee.

“It’s not right, I heard they’re going to throw my vote away,” she said.

However, BOE records reveal an awkward family secret: Margarita Shimunova is indeed a registered Republican and therefore wasn’t eligible to vote in the June 25 Democratic primary.

Shimunova confirmed to the Daily News Friday that it was, in fact, her signature and date of birth on the BOE form showing she registered to the party of Lincoln in 2008.

But she denied being a Republican and said that she voted for Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders.

Records show that the mom voted in six elections since she registered, mostly general elections in which she could vote for either party. But documents show she also voted in the 2016 Republican primary during which Donald Trump carried his home state with 59% of the vote.

Well, that was a stupid thing to do, son. 

Queens D.A. recount comes at a price for Katz and Caban

THE CITY

With the recount process set to begin Tuesday in the tense Tiffany Cabán-Melinda Katz Democratic primary battle for Queens district attorney, both campaigns are tallying more than just votes.

Insurgent candidate Cabán, with about $35,000 left to spend, is invoking the electoral stalemate in fundraising pitches. Recent emails ask supporters for contributions to ensure a fair recount against a “party machine that has ruled local politics and suppressed democracy for decades.”

Meanwhile, Queens Democratic Party stalwart and Borough President Katz has about $332,000 on hand. But that’s offset by nearly $360,000 in outstanding bills, the bulk of which she owes to consulting firm Red Horse Strategies, records show.

Katz attorneys Michael Reich and Frank Bolz are volunteering their services, said Matthew Rey, a campaign spokesperson. He added that the campaign is now “just starting to raise money” for the recount and general election.

Prominent election attorney Jerry Goldfeder and Renée Paradis, Bernie Sanders’ former voter protection director, are on Cabán’s payroll.

Katz, who initially appeared to have lost the crowded June 25 primary race to Cabán by 1,199 votes, pulled ahead by a mere 16 last week after a count of paper ballots.

The thin margin triggered a full recount of some 91,000 votes, which is expected to take at least a week — and every day will cost the campaigns. Both candidates have already spent upwards of $450,000 each in the past month, campaign disclosure forms filed last week show.

Sarah Steiner, an election lawyer and a former chair of the New York City Bar election law committee, noted there are “almost never recounts this big.”

“Recounts are usually in a single district,” Steiner said. “Usually, they’re in the smaller races. By sheer scale of larger races, usually the gaps between voters exceed the half of one percent in a recount.”

Just before the recount begins, attorneys for Cabán and Katz are scheduled to appear in state Supreme Court. Judge Jeremy Weinstein is expected to rule on whether 114 affidavit ballots with missing information should be validated and counted.

Despite recent accusations by the Katz campaign that Cabán’s team was cherrypicking affidavits favorable to her and effectively suppressing votes, both sides agree that every valid ballot should be counted.

“More than 100 affidavit ballots from registered and eligible Democrats were wrongly invalidated by the [city Board of Elections] — and we will be in court Tuesday morning to make sure these voters are not disenfranchised,” said Monica Klein, a Cabán spokesperson.

Reminds me of a Warren Zevon song. Send lawyers, votes and money

There's no way an 1100 vote lead disappeared without corruption

New York Times

The Democratic primary for district attorney in Queens, a race that drew nationwide attention, was thrown deep into uncertainty on Wednesday after a count of paper ballots flipped the primary-night result.

Tiffany Cabán, a 31-year-old public defender, saw her almost 1,100-vote lead evaporate, with 

Melinda Katz, the Queens borough president, edging out to a 20-vote lead.

The tight margin will automatically trigger a recount, according to Valerie Vazquez-Diaz, a spokeswoman for the New York City Board of Elections. It also spurred accusations from Ms. Cabán’s side that elections officials improperly invalidated more than 2,000 affidavit ballots before the paper ballots were counted.

“We are going to fight to make sure every valid vote is counted and every voter has a voice,” said Bill Lipton, the New York director of the Working Families Party, which supported Ms. Cabán. “And when all the votes are counted, we are confident Tiffany Cabán will be the next Queens district attorney.”

The primary race was cast as a battle between the traditional power bases in Queens and the progressive forces that propelled Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to her primary victory in New York last year. Ms. Katz had the backing of unions and local political leaders, while Ms. Cabán received support from prominent members of Congress, including Ms. Ocasio-Cortez.

Ms. Katz is ahead by 20 votes, 34,898 to 34,878, according to lawyers representing her. Jerry H. Goldfeder, a veteran election lawyer representing Ms. Cabán, agreed that Ms. Katz was now ahead by 20 votes.

The new vote total meant that Ms. Katz drew twice as many votes from the paper ballots as Ms. Cabán did.

Mr. Goldfeder said he intended to challenge the decision to invalidate all but 487 of the 2,816 affidavit ballots cast. Election officials said they had determined that the ballots, used when a voter’s name is not listed at the polling place, were invalid or had been cast by ineligible voters.

The Board of Elections would not release any information until the election results were certified but confirmed that there would be a recount. The board has a policy of conducting a manual recount when the victory is by less than 0.5 percent, Ms. Vazquez-Diaz said.

Crappy emailed me this bizarre (although expected) turn of events and wrote in the subject line and I am inclined to agree. Something like this happened in a district in Florida that the notorious Debbie-Wasserman Schultz represents. And of course there was the incident where 200,000 votes in Brooklyn vanished during the 2016 presidential primary. Go figure this would happen on the eve of the day of the birth of this nation. Apparently, the Queens Machine will stop at nothing to keep their crappy patronage jalopy running.

Update: I found a more appropriate picture.

Katz litter box will relocate from Kew Gardens in 2021

The face you make when you need to find a real job in 2021 (along with the guy who screwed you). Great photo from QNS' Mark Hallum.

Poor Liz Crowley, Jimmy Van Bramer and Paul Vallone will have to wait a little longer to run for BP. Oh, the humanity!







Update: CBS NY this morning and the NY Daily News are still saying this race is too close to call with 3,000 absentee votes still uncounted and Melinda is katerwauling for a recount.

Looks like Lasak wound up giving Caban a hand:

 Gregory Lasak, a Queens prosecutor, took nearly 15 percent of the vote, possibly siphoning support from Katz.
 
Cabán ran strong in Astoria, Long Island City and Sunnyside. Katz, meanwhile, underperformed in Broad Channel and the Rockaways.

There were Lasak posters everywhere in Howard Beach, Broad Channel, Rockaway Park, Neponist and Belle Harbor. Over 3,000 absentee votes still have to be counted but it's a certainty it went to the retired prosecutor.

Admin Note: The first funny scheadenfruede post was written by the original Queens Crapper, the update is written by your friendly neighborhood LLC.

Rory Lancman drops out of D.A. race to support Melinda Katz

NY Post


In a stunning move mere days before the election, Rory Lancman announced Friday that he’s dropping out of the Queens district attorney race to endorse rival Melinda Katz.

The decision was just as much about old-school Queens Democrats circling the wagons to ensure insurgent Tiffany Caban – a young public defender being endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – doesn’t win as it was about backing Katz, the borough president whom Lancman harshly attacked during the campaign, sources said.

“The numbers are simply not there for me to win this Tuesday’s Democratic primary,” said Lancman, a city councilman.

“And I owe it to the voters, and particularly to my supporters, to acknowledge that fact and withdraw from the race.”

Lancman, who was joined by Katz at a Queens press conference in making the announcement, attributed his bowing out to being “especially concerned about causing a split in the South Queens vote” and “effectively diluting the voice of the community most impacted by the decisions our next DA must make.”

South Queens consists of predominately African American communities, a critical vote in borough primary races.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also is backing Katz.

One Queens Democratic Party official told The Post that Lancman did the right thing.

“If you’re Rory, you don’t want to play spoiler. You don’t want to burn down the house. It’s a big blow to Queens County if we lose this race,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

What does that official mean by "we lose this race"? These are all democrats that are running, how does the whole party lose? It's clear the candidate they are targeting is Caban, but do they consider candidates like Lasak or Malik and the other 3 spoilers too?

More importantly, why did the NY Post protect the identity of this person if he or she serves the constituency of the "world's borough" and says shit like this? Clearly this "insider" as well as "the house" doesn't have the voter's interests in mind and is more concerned with maintaining the power structure of the Queens Machine.

This is all just warped.

And now you readers see why I included that SE Queens article a few days ago.

Rep. Gregory Meeks is a Queens queen maker

NY Post


Rep. Gregory Meeks slammed Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday for their endorsement of insurgent candidate Tiffany Cabán in the race for Queens district attorney.

“I don’t know who they spoke with, but clearly they did not speak with the elected officials of Queens County, or the people who elected them,” Meeks said in a statement. “African Americans have the largest stake in this DA race . . . Yet Warren and Sanders saw fit to endorse without even considering what African Americans thought.”

Meeks, chair of the Queens County Democratic Party, is supporting Melinda Katz in the race to replace the late Richard Brown.

Apparently the congressman doesn't think African-Americans live anywhere else in Queens County. And as for his claim that those presidential candidates don't know what African-Americans think, he must think he has "the Shining".

Joe Crowley is not done with Queens

FOX News

Former U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley may get his revenge by proxy on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a district attorney race -- after being embarrassingly dethroned last year.

Crowley, previously a top Democrat whose years-long political career was derailed by the self-described Democratic Socialist, is opposing Ocasio-Cortez’s growing influence in New York state politics.

He’s helping raise money for Queens Borough President Melinda Katz, a district attorney candidate who’s competing against public defender Tiffany Cabán, the candidate backed by Ocasio-Cortez, Politico reported.

"Melinda and I both grew up here, went to school here, have sung together at countless community parties here, and most importantly have dedicated our careers to improving the lives of the people who call this wonderful borough home,” Crowley wrote in the fundraiser email, asking for donations of $50 to $200.

 “For as long as I’ve known Melinda, she’s always shared my commitment to making Queens a safer, more just place for our families, and I know she’ll do the same from the DA’s office.”
Katz is among the leading candidates in the seven-way Democratic primary to fill the seat that became vacant after DA Richard Brown died last month.

Southeast Queens towns still being underestimated in elections

Queens Eagle

The predominantly black neighborhoods of Southeast Queens comprise one of the country’s largest and most reliable Democratic strongholds.

The region is rich with engaged and informed voters who head to the polls in high numbers, and yet, neighborhoods like St. Albans, Cambria Heights and Hollis are often ignored by local election-watchers — and candidates themselves.

Local leaders and organizers say that is the case again in the wide-open, seven-candidate Democratic Primary to replace the late Richard Brown for Queens district attorney.

“We’re used to it,” said Donnie Whitehead, a local activist who has endorsed Mina Malik for Queens 

District Attorney. Whitehead and his wife JoAnn Whitehead co-founded the organization CommUnity 1st alongside organizer Oster Bryan. “Black folks have been voting Democratic for the past 60 years only to see the Democratic Party ignore black voters.”

“If they don’t spend time here during their campaigns, then when they get into office, forget about it,” Whitehead continued.

The influential organizers gained notoriety when they rallied behind Barack Obama in the 2008 New York Democratic primary and helped deliver the 5th Congressional District for the future president, even though party leadership had backed Hillary Clinton.

Southeast Queens elected officials with deep ties to the Queens Democratic Party have lined up behind Borough President Melinda Katz, who has a campaign office in Rochdale. U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, the county party chairperson; Assemblymember Alicia Hyndman; and Councilmembers Adrienne Adams and Donovan Richards are among the dozens of elected officials who have endorsed Katz.

Whitehead said they don’t necessarily represent the perspective of everyday voters.

“That has nothing to do with what people are thinking on the ground,” Whitehead said.

One of the overlooked factors in Bernie Sanders losing the NY primary to Hillary Clinton back in 2016 is that he didn't stop by there and Hillary did by going to a baptist church.

Better know your District Attorney candidates

pic.twitter.com/Z7IRzPExxF

— Betty Lugo, Esq. (@LugoTrueJustice) March 5, 2019

 

Now Melinda Katz is accusing another candidate of being sexist for pointing out her biggest donors, this time at a woman

QNS


For the second time this week, Borough President Melinda Katz is claiming that one of her Democratic rivals in the Queens district attorney race has launched sexist ads against her — but the allegation this time is against one of her three female opponents.

On Friday, Katz decried a two-minute online ad from public defender Tiffany Cabán published that day. Cabán singles out Katz as a remnant of the Queens Democratic Party machine despite there being five other hopefuls in the June 25 primary, saying that Katz accepts campaign funds from the real estate industry.

“But the corrupt Queens political machine doesn’t want me to win because they get rich off of foreclosures, they’ve taken millions from developers and I can’t be bought and controlled. That’s why they’re going all in to elect Melinda Katz,” Cabán says in the ad. “Here’s the simple choice: Your next DA could be a career politician, a career prosecutor or a career public defender. Who would you trust?”

But Katz countered out with a Twitter thread that began with the claim that sexism had played a role in Cabán’s campaign ad.

“Let me be clear. For someone who is supposedly running a “different kind of campaign,” this ad was full of the same sexism & half-truths that the worst kind of campaigns use,” Katz said. “The truth: I first ran on a 3rd party line to challenge the men in power & have spent years supporting women doing the same. I have always been my own woman & always will be, despite the sexist refrain the Cabán campaign is pushing.”

Mario Cuomo's son endorses Melinda Katz in Queens District Attorney primary election

NY Post


Gov. Andrew Cuomo is jumping into the hotly contested Queens District Attorney’s race and holding a fundraiser for local machine favorite, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz.

The three-term governor is hopping into the race after Democratic freshman and socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backed public defender Tiffany Caban, giving the one-time longshot a major boost — and setting up a proxy battle between two of New York’s top political figures.

Cuomo’s political operation declined comment.

Katz said in a statement, “I’m proud to have Governor Cuomo’s support at this critical level.”
Neither would provide more details about the event, which is set for June 10 at an undisclosed Manhattan locale.

 I can't tell what's more insulting and off-putting, the fact that they are holding a fundraiser for a Queens election in Manhattan or that the venue or even location of the event is being kept a secret despite this major endorsement.

What exactly is Cuomo's "political operation"?

Update:

Melinda Katz and her allies/endorsers are using sexual identity politics, misogyny accusations and Donald Trump comparisons to undermine Greg Lasak's D.A. campaign in a letter distributed by Katz' campaign.

Melinda Katz and her donors from the real estate industry are trying to buy the D.A.'s office

THE CITY

Queens Borough President Melinda Katz is doubling down on developer dollars in the crowded race to become district attorney.

Katz’s donors include a who’s who of the city’s multi-billion dollar real estate industry, making up roughly 29% of all the money she received between mid-January and late May, the latest campaign finance filings with the state Board of Elections show.

She raised $560,000 during the four-month filing period — about $158,300 of which came from people, companies and organizations in the real estate industry, according to THE CITY’s analysis of campaign finance disclosure documents filed by the committee KATZ NYS.

Of the nearly $318,000 Katz raised from individuals, at least $126,000, or 40%, was contributed by developers and people in the real estate industry.

She’s bucking a growing trend of local politicians — among them Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams — who say they won’t accept developer dollars.

Katz’s platform includes a pledge to assign an investigator to every workplace accident that results in serious injury. She told THE CITY last month she would “absolutely” prosecute developers who are at fault in construction fatalities or injuries, and not just contractors implicated.

With the June 25 Democratic primary looming, the borough president is the fundraising frontrunner in the seven-way race to replace the late Richard Brown.

Katz’s largest cumulative donation came from the family behind Two Trees Management, whose founder, David Walentas, and his wife each donated $6,250, in addition to the $6,250 donated by his son, Jed. That was followed by a $15,000 contribution by real estate developer Daniel Tishman of Tishman Realty & Construction.

Her campaign was also buoyed by donations from developers and construction companies that do business in the borough she’d have jurisdiction over if she becomes the next DA.

Katz received $12,500 from two people associated with Jackson Heights-based Nash Builders, which constructed an eight-story building in Elmhurst, and $11,250 from individuals tied to The Mattone Group, a College Point-based developer.

Two political committees tied to the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents 25,000 property owners and agents, donated $10,000 to Katz. The political arm of the Real Estate Board of New York, an influential trade group, gave her $2,500.

D.A. Richard Brown has died

QNS


Richard A. Brown, who served Queens for 28 years as its top law enforcement official, has died, his office announced on Saturday morning.

Brown, 86, had been battling from complications of Parkinson’s disease in recent years and announced in March that he was taking a leave of absence until June 1, when he planned to formally resign the office. He handed over his duties in an interim capacity to Chief District Attorney John Ryan, his top deputy, who announced Brown’s death.

“Judge Brown — as he has long been affectionately called — was a public servant like no other,” Ryan said. “He topped a spectacular judicial career and was appointed the district attorney of Queens County in 1991 by then-Governor Mario Cuomo. He was proud to serve the millions of people of Queens for nearly 28 years and was re-elected to six terms in office.”

Melinda Katz vows crackdown on construction sites while conflicted with developer campaign donations

The City

When Queens Borough President Melinda Katz announced her candidacy for district attorney in December, she sought to stand out as an advocate for workers injured or ripped off on the job – especially on construction sites.

“Developers and construction companies will be held accountable if they fail to follow the law and keep their workers safe,” reads a Katz for DA campaign platform in which she promised to assign an investigator to every workplace accident that results in serious injury.

That hasn’t deterred real estate developers from donating to her campaign, leading up to a likely decisive June 25 Democratic primary vote in the race to succeed longtime Queens DA Richard Brown.

Katz’s fundraising filings with the state Board of Elections show that more than $250,000 of the roughly $1 million her two campaign funds had collected through Jan. 11 came from real estate developers and other industry interests. That makes her the seven-way contest’s top recipient so far of real estate-related contributions.

Her donors represent a who’s who of New York City real estate – including David Walentas of Two Trees Management, Winston Fisher of Fisher Brothers and John Catsimatidis of the Red Apple Group.

The earliest contributions, dating back to January 2018, went to a committee Katz established to run for an unspecified citywide office in 2021. Funds were later transferred to her DA race committee, the Katz campaign confirmed.

Some of those donors have supported Katz for years, including in her two runs for Queens borough president, a seat she’s held since 2014. Borough presidents give advisory recommendations on developers’ land use applications.

And as a Council member from 2002 to 2009, Katz served as chair of the City Council’s Land Use Committee, which casts decisive votes on such applications.

In between those elected positions, she worked as a lobbyist with the law firm Greenberg Traurig. Among her clients was a company associated with Forest Hills-based Muss Development. Principal Joshua Muss and an associated firm have donated $5,400 to Katz campaign funds since 2018, and Muss family members donated nearly $14,000 to past campaigns.

Katz told THE CITY she will “absolutely” prosecute developers who are at fault, and not just contractors implicated in construction fatalities or injuries.

“You have to make an atmosphere in the development world where rushing is no longer an excuse,” said Katz, 53. “You want to make sure that they understand that the atmosphere of Queens is changing.”