Nassau DA Anne Donnelly's challenges so far include 'perfect storm' staffing issue

Nassau District Attorney Anne Donnelly was prepared to confront a backlog of court cases from COVID-19 and the systemwide effects of discovery and bail reform when she became the county’s top prosecutor earlier this year.

But an unexpected challenge for Donnelly, now 10 months into the job as the county’s first Republican district attorney since 2005, may be rebuilding her staff.

By Aug. 10, 27% of the prosecutors who were on staff when the year started had resigned, according to the results of a Freedom of Information Law request and other numbers Newsday obtained from Donnelly’s office.

The 61 prosecutor exits in that time included four bureau chiefs and three deputy chiefs, along with two other assistant district attorneys who had worked in the office for more than a decade. Resignations continued in September, including at least two more deputy bureau chiefs.

Donnelly recently sat down with Newsday for an exclusive interview about her tenure so far, including staff and leadership issues, coping with the backlog and discovery demands, high-profile cases her office has filed and other matters she has prioritized.

The district attorney said in part that when it comes to staff, there hasn’t been “a mass exodus” of attorneys and that she has recruited new talent so there is “experience walking in the door as well as some experience walking out.”

On Jan. 1, there were 225 prosecutors on staff, according to Donnelly’s spokesman, Brendan Brosh. He said that by mid-September, there were 210 prosecutors on staff — including a class of 24 rookies fresh from law school.

‘Perfect storm’

Courthouse observers agree any switch in administration that puts a new political party in control of the district attorney’s office leads to policy, personnel and strategy changes.

But some members of the legal community who have witnessed a flood of experienced prosecutors heading for the door said Donnelly has faced a “perfect storm” when it comes to staffing issues.

The combination of the pandemic-related case backlog and legislative reform measures from 2020 that put an onus on prosecutors to promptly disclose records to criminal defendants has made some prosecutors feel more like paper pushers than litigators.

“Really it’s like a perfect storm. You’ve got the bail reform. You’ve got the discovery reform. And you have COVID,” said Mineola defense attorney Dennis Lemke.

Then as prosecutors began to leave the district attorney’s office, their departures created a bigger caseload for those who stayed.

Lemke described it as “a domino effect,” with resignations begetting more of the same.

“If I’m an assistant district attorney, I’m not getting paid per case. I’m getting a salary. And all of a sudden, guess what? My caseload is probably increased by at least 20%, if not more … There’s no time to try a case. And I’m getting more cases that are being placed on me,” he added.

Multiple Nassau prosecutors who only would speak privately to Newsday because of fear of career repercussions said there also is dissatisfaction with some members of Donnelly’s executive leadership team because of a tendency to micromanage or a dictatorial management style.

They said that problem is compounded by a workload that keeps building at a time when Donnelly has all but eliminated overtime pay.

Mineola defense attorney Donald Rollock estimated he has attended at least 30 farewell events for departing Nassau prosecutors since the year began, something he said he did as a show of respect for their professional contributions.

He said Donnelly “needs to continue rebuilding and putting her own personal stamp on the office.”

Rollock, a former prosecutor himself, added: “I think that she cares very much about Nassau County and keeping this county safe.”

‘We are listening’

Before her election, Donnelly worked for three elected district attorneys in her 32 previous years as a Nassau prosecutor, starting with the late Denis Dillon and continuing under Kathleen Rice and Madeline Singas.

“I went through a change of administrations three times,” Donnelly said, pointing out that senior personnel are lost at such times.

The district attorney said she wants her staff to give the leaders she’s put in place a chance to find their strides.

Recently Donnelly met with personnel from each bureau in her office, something she said provided valuable feedback.

“I did hear some concerns … I think any change in the management of an office, some people were used to the way ‘A’ was and now you have someone who’s more of a ‘B,’” Donnelly recalled.

“What I said to them to them was ‘Give these people a chance. These are hardworking, smart career prosecutors. They’ve not trying to micromanage you … They’re trying to help you,’” she added.

Donnelly told Newsday that she also explained to staff that there would be overtime hours available where “definitely needed.”

She said she found out upon taking office that the prior administration already had spent $1.6 million on a $500,000 overtime budget that supposed to cover first half of 2022 — a pattern she called “not sustainable.” The Nassau County Comptroller's Office could not immediately confirm those numbers Friday.

When it comes to staffing, Donnelly also said her office has been affected by the so-called “Great Resignation” happening across America as workers who re-evaluated their priorities amid the pandemic quit their jobs.

She said she can’t compete with the salaries and flexible schedules some private law firms can offer.

But Donnelly said her office has successfully recruited prosecutors who had worked for the district attorneys in Suffolk, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, including one employee with a 30-year record of litigating cases.

The district attorney also said she heard from a prosecutor who resigned three months ago and wants to come back.

Donnelly added that her message to current staff who feel overwhelmed is: “We are listening.”

‘A huge voice’

The district attorney said she has been working on solutions aimed at giving assistant district attorneys more support, including by hiring about 18 personnel known as discovery expediters who help compile records that need to be disclosed to defendants.

The expediters are embedded in the office’s bureaus, according to Donnelly, who hopes to increase their numbers to about 24.

‘Many of the ADAs said ‘I feel like a paper pusher … I don’t feel like I’m doing the work I was meant to do,’” Donnelly said.

The district attorney also said she reinstated a Felony Screening Bureau so staff can dispose of cases with misdemeanor plea bargains, if appropriate, before the matters are added to the files of prosecutors who handle more serious cases.

Donnelly said she has spoken to court administrators about assigning a judge full time to handle such cases.

“It’s a work in progress, but that I think will help with the burden,” she added.

Mineola defense attorney Robert Schalk said he’s seen a positive change under Donnelly’s administration in that prosecutors now are more willing to make deals in misdemeanor and lower-level felony cases where the evidence against the accused is weak.

But N. Scott Banks, attorney-in-chief for the Legal Aid Society of Nassau County, said he’s disappointed Donnelly stopped the Pre-Arraignment Diversion Program that interim District Attorney Joyce Smith introduced last fall.

The program was launched to let people facing charges for minor, nonviolent offenses avoid a potential criminal conviction by taking part in programming focused on rehabilitation and treatment as a substitute for court system involvement.

Banks, whose agency represents economically disadvantaged defendants, said he gets the sense that Donnelly’s administration is not as focused on alternative programs as it should be.

“I never expected Anne Donnelly to be a progressive, but I also think that she should engage in communities more often,” he said. “…. She’s got a huge voice. It’s not just coming in and taking the credit for sending a criminal to jail or taking drugs off the streets. Those things are things that she should do. But go into the community and try to work on things, solutions to issues.”

Donnelly spokeswoman Nicole Turso said in a statement to Newsday that the prior administration’s Pre-Arraignment Diversion Program was “well-intentioned.”

She added: “The number of participants in the program, however, was not enough to sustain the initiative and the project was wound down.”

Battling ‘ghost guns’

One of Donnelly’s first notable moves after taking office was to start a Firearms Suppression and Intelligence Unit in an effort to counter what she called “a once-in-a-generation surge of illegal and untraceable weapons into Nassau County.”

By mid-September in 2021, authorities had taken 188 guns off the street in the county, compared with 268 in that same time this year, according to Donnelly.

She said the problem isn’t just weapons smuggled from the South along the so-called “Iron Pipeline” — an interstate corridor from states where gun laws are more permissive — but untraceable ghost guns that are assembled part by part and have no serial numbers.

“It’s almost like a challenge to some people, ‘Let me see if I can do this.’ But now you have a working firearm. And if it falls into the wrong hands, and it’s used in a crime, there’s no way to trace it,” Donnelly said.

She pointed to the pending case against a Massapequa dentist as an example of defendants from “unusual walks of life” who are facing weapon charges locally with the proliferation of ghost guns.

An attorney for the dentist, who pleaded not guilty in July to multiple felony charges, has called his client “a peace-loving gun enthusiast.”

‘A great moment’

Donnelly includes the July indictment of a SiriusXM radio DJ and a postal worker who allegedly teamed up in a major drug trafficking scheme as one of the highlights of her term so far.

In a joint effort, law enforcement officials used intelligence from a related 2021 drug bust in Hempstead to put together a case Donnelly said shut down a major drug pipeline into Long Island and led to a $1 million narcotics seizure.

Prosecutors said that included 10 kilos of cocaine and 1 kilo of fentanyl — the latter of which the district attorney said at an August news conference was enough to fuel “more than 300,000 deadly doses.”

Donnelly told Newsday recently that the opioid epidemic is a problem that can make her lose sleep.

“That’s one of those things, sometimes that keeps me up at night … There are young people who are trying drugs, maybe for the first time … not realizing what it’s laced with and not realizing how deadly that can be,” the district attorney said.

The July drug indictment closely followed another case that generated the biggest headlines of Donnelly’s tenure as Nassau’s top law enforcement official.

In June, longtime New Jersey prison inmate and convicted serial killer Richard Cottingham appeared virtually in Nassau County Court for a murder arraignment in the 1968 slaying of 23-year-old dance instructor Diane Cusick outside Green Acres Mall.

Donnelly said after arraignment of Cottingham, who is known as the “Torso Killer,” that DNA evidence that “may be the oldest DNA hit to lead to a prosecution in the United States” provided the crucial break in the case more than half a century later.

Investigators preserved a semen sample from the crime scene and technology improved to the point where authorities said they were able to generate a good enough DNA profile from the evidence to seek a match in a national index.

Cusick’s daughter, Darlene Altman, 58, recalled in a recent Newsday interview how Donnelly embraced her with a hug when they met.

“She may be tough on crime but she also has a very kind heart,” Altman, who lives out of state, said of Donnelly.

On the day of the arraignment of Cottingham, who pleaded not guilty, Altman wore a necklace with a ballerina slipper charm that had been her mother’s.

While speaking with Newsday, Donnelly remembered asking Altman about the jewelry.

“She wanted to wear those ballet slippers to watch him get arraigned. So that was a great moment to be able to give her that,” the district attorney said.