Councilman Vincent Gentile sat down with a group of clergymen and local leaders to let them know he is not like the other five candidates in the race for the next Brooklyn district attorney.
“Of all the six candidates, I’m in the best position to pick up the mantle and lead the legacy of Ken Thompson because, as I said, I have no connection to the Brooklyn DA’s office,” said Gentile.
Gentile, 58, is running against Acting Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez, Ama Dwimoh, Marc Fliedner, Patricia Gatling and Anne Swern who are all former prosecutors under Charles Hynes.
“I have no connection to the prosecutors, there’s no connection to the detectives in the cases, I have no connection to the cases themselves, unlike the others who come through the office including the acting DA,” said Gentile who submitted over 9,000 nomination signatures to the city’s Board of Elections last week.
Over a dozen men and women met with the long term councilman of the city’s 43rd district on Saturday to discuss their concerns about real estate fraud, wrongful convictions, community-police relations and anti-violence initiatives within the Canarsie, East New York and Brownsville communities.
“The voters should ask themselves: ‘Do we give the Brooklyn DA’s office back to someone who spent most of their years under Joe Hynes when all these things were happening or do we look for someone who can be independent enough like Ken Thompson to continue to uncover wrongful convictions?'” Gentile said to the group.
Gentile publicly backed Hynes during the 2013 race against Thompson, two weeks after the office announced investigating over 50 homicide cases where former Detective Louis Scarcella’s police tactics were questioned.
Despite Gentile’s previous support for Hynes, he posthumously praised Thompson’s work with the Conviction Review Unit (CRU) which overturned 21 wrongful convictions before his death in October.
A week before his passing, Thompson appointed Gonzalez, his second-in-command, to lead the third largest district attorney’s office in the country.
Thompson was 50.
To date, the CRU has exonerated 23 cases — six involving Scarcella.
“I am the only one who is independent enough to pick up where Ken Thompson left off because I have no loyalties to anything in the DA’s office like Ken who went in without fear and called the shots the way he wanted,” said Gentile.
The DA hopeful assured the group that he will commit to increasing the office’s budget in order expand the CRU and real estate fraud unit and create a housing unit to specifically investigate developers and landlords.
Gentile, who joined in the fight to release the grand jury minutes regarding the death of Eric Garner, would also advocate in Albany to make NYPD officers’ disciplinary records available, enhance the Gun Buy Back program and support community groups that keep the youth off the streets.
Election Day is Nov. 7.