Nassau DA-elect Anne Donnelly ready 'to do the right thing' with step into top law enforcement role

When Nassau District Attorney-Elect Anne Donnelly takes her oath of office in early January, it will be the final step in a journey that started when she was just a schoolgirl.

As a child, Donnelly toured the Nassau County Court complex in Mineola with her father, Patrick Galligan, who was the deputy chief court officer in District Court. Together, they would visit courtrooms and walk the underground route that he often traversed between buildings .

Years later, Donnelly — who had applied to become an NYPD officer — took his advice in 1985 when she was a Fordham University junior and the law enforcement agency called to offer her the job.

Defer for a year and finish college, Donnelly’s father told her. But after she did so, he spent the next six months talking to her about going to law school.

"I said ‘Daddy, law school?’ " Donnelly, 57, recently told Newsday. "He said to me, ‘You know when you used to come to court with me? Remember the judges in the black robes? They’re lawyers. You know the prosecutors who are working with the police department? They’re lawyers.’ He said, ‘You’re so smart. I just think you could do it.' "

As a Fordham senior, Donnelly took the LSATs and sent out law school applications, soon intent on becoming a prosecutor. But Galligan, who had developed a brain tumor, died before his daughter took the next step.

"I got my first acceptance to law school after my father had passed away. But I knew he was there," added Donnelly, who graduated from Fordham University School of Law.

Years later, she also could feel her father's spirit when she started working in Nassau County Court as a prosecutor, walking those underground passageways herself.

By mid-2021, Donnelly had held the position of deputy chief of the Rackets and Enterprise Crime Bureau for more than a decade when former Nassau District Attorney Madeline Singas resigned to become an appeals judge in New York's highest court — setting up a contest for the office’s top job.

Donnelly discussed her run for the position -- her first try for elected office -- along with the career trajectory that brought her to that point and what some of her priorities will be when she starts her new job, in an interview at Domus, the Nassau County Bar Association's headquarters in Mineola.

As the Republican Party looked for a candidate after Singas' resignation, Donnelly's phone started ringing: After more than three decades as a Nassau prosecutor, she had a choice to make.

"A number of law enforcement men and women that I have worked with over the 32 years, when they heard that I was considering running, reached out and said, ‘You should do this. This is your life’s culmination. You’ve worked your whole life for this,' " Donnelly recalled.

She retired from her job at the district attorney's office and began her run for the county's top law enforcement job.

Partnering with police

At noon on Jan. 5, Donnelly will be surrounded by law enforcement officials who encouraged her to make the decision she did when she is sworn in at the county’s new police training facility.

She defeated the Democratic candidate, State Sen. Todd Kaminsky, in the November election as part of a wave of Republicans who swept into office across Long Island. Donnelly got 58% of the vote to Kaminsky's 42%.

"The realization I came to after speaking to people was, the office needed me. ... They need a leader that knows the system … knows Nassau County … and I sat at my desk and I said, my father, who I admired and loved very much, and we lost him at a young age, always told us to do the right thing. … When I’m given the opportunity, how can I not step up and say, ‘OK, I’ll run,’ " Donnelly added.

Donnelly's working relationship with Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder goes back decades, to when she was a new assistant district attorney in District Court and he was a young cop who would put together street-level narcotics cases and bring them there.

As years passed, their careers took investigative turns and crossed frequently. Ryder went on to lead the police department’s intelligence-gathering and asset forfeiture operations, and Donnelly became an investigative assistant district attorney — a prosecutor who collects evidence while working on long-term probes.

"She’s tenacious. … Some of the best attorneys I’ve seen square off with her walked away with their tails between their legs," Ryder said of Donnelly.

"We’re not adversaries. We’re on the same team, you know? We all can do better, but Anne Donnelly always found a way to make sure that we were working together and getting it done for the right reason, for the victims," he added.

The police commissioner said Donnelly’s first big challenge will be leading under the state's rules on bail and discovery reform — a matter that emerged as the defining issue in the district attorney’s race and a law that Donnelly has vowed to work to change.

She said she will join with other state prosecutors to lobby legislators to give judges back more decision-making power so they can consider a defendant's entire history and who is being hurt by the alleged crime when making a bail decision.

Boosting technology and battling backlog

Donnelly cited boosting her office’s technological capabilities as one of her priorities. She said she is exploring different systems for storing and sharing digital evidence files and considering how her staff can best work with Ryder’s personnel on handling video from body-worn cameras.

The anticipated widespread introduction of the devices throughout Nassau’s police force will generate a new category of evidence that will have to be examined and turned over to defendants, a task Donnelly said she will assign to a designated group of prosecutors.

The new district attorney also will have to deal with a backlog of cases caused by the coronavirus pandemic and plans to meet with the judiciary to come up with a plan. She said that could include a push for more cases to be heard daily and for more jurors to be called for duty.

Andrew Monteleone, president of the Criminal Courts Bar Association of Nassau County, said he believes defense attorneys will have "a lot more opportunity" to get clients "a fair disposition" after Donnelly takes office. He worked under Donnelly’s supervision as a young Nassau prosecutor and believes she will change the culture of the district attorney’s office back from what he called an "us versus them mentality" in which defense attorneys are seen as "the enemy."

"I think she’s going to be a tough DA. I think we’re still going to have our work cut out for us. ... But the office that she came from was tough but fair," he added of Donnelly’s hiring under late former Nassau District Attorney Denis Dillon.

A mom and a prosecutor

When a gunman opened fire in a West Hempstead supermarket on April 20, killing a manager and wounding two other employees, Donnelly said she was stunned and upset. She reacted not just as a prosecutor, but as a Garden City mother of three.

"This was something you usually read about that doesn't happen in Nassau County, right? That happens far off, someplace else. Well, it was happening right here in Nassau County, in a Stop & Shop that I grocery shop in," she recalled.

The day's events, which ended with the alleged culprit's capture in Hempstead, left Donnelly with the same feeling she'd had on Dec. 7, 1993, when the Long Island Rail Road shooting massacre happened. That day, Donnelly feared at first that her husband Dave was on the train that Colin Ferguson opened fire on, killing six people and injuring 19.

"I remember when he called me from Penn Station," Donnelly said of her spouse, now of 30 years. "He was like, 'I don't know why I can't get out, but I can't get out of Penn Station.' And I just started crying because I was just so glad he wasn't on the train."

Donnelly said the threat of such violence will motivate her to put together the best team of prosecutors possible so her office is prepared to tackle such cases.

She also believes that being a mom — whose children, including one with special needs, are now grown — will continue to impact how she does her job. She said it has given her sympathy for the underdog and helped her take a big-picture approach to cases involving young defendants, where she would step back and see if the district attorney's office could help them get on the right track.

Family is never far from Donnelly's mind when she thinks of her career and serving the public.

Aside from her father's service, her older sister Mary Galligan is a retired FBI supervisor who headed the agency's 9/11 investigation, her younger brother Patrick Galligan Jr. is a former Marine Corps fighter pilot, and her younger sister Barbara Galligan is a physician who works with cancer patients. The siblings' cousin, Marty Walsh, is the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

"She leads by example, things she learned from her father, a former Marine. Marines lead from the front. You say, 'Let's do this together,' " former Nassau prosecutor George Smit said of Donnelly, who was his supervisor for nearly a decade.

Donnelly said the best way to lead is on her mind as she prepares to step into the role of Nassau's top law enforcement official.

"It's about always doing the right thing, whether the right thing is offering a plea in a case, or the right thing is taking it to the wall," she said. "We are here to make sure that justice is served. And that's what we're going to do."