Activists Protest Katz's Queens DA Inauguration Over Cash Bail

JAMAICA, QUEENS — Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz was inaugurated Monday evening at St. John's University as activists for criminal justice reform protested her already-broken campaign promise to eliminate the use of cash bail in the borough.

At the heart of the protest was the first arraignment in Queens in 2020, which saw a prosecutor requesting $50,000 bail for a man charged with stealing a cell phone, then threatening that person with a sharp object, according to the Queens Daily Eagle.

A judge set $2,000 bail, which the man, Frank Bugeja, could not pay. He was subsequently sent to detention facilities on Rikers Island, the Eagle reported.

"She asked for 50,000 dollars of cash bail only ten hours into her term, which is unsurprising but nevertheless concerning," Katelin Penner, president of Our Progressive Future, said in a statement. "We know that cash bail is a regressive, abhorrent, and despicable practice that keeps people locked up in jail cells for no reason other than their socioeconomic class."

The activists — who were largely members of the criminal justice and political advocacy groups VOCAL-NY, Court Watch NYC, Our Progressive Future, Red Canary Song, Decrim NY and Queens DSA — also delivered a letter calling on Katz to keep her campaign promises to not prosecute low-level marijuana offenses or sex workers, among other pledges.

"While we welcome some of your promises to bring much-needed reforms to the QueensDistrict Attorney’s Office - currently the most regressive office in all of New York City - that is all they are at the moment: promises," the letter reads. "As your constituents, we expect that you will fullyexecute on those promises, and more."

Concern over protests prompted a heavy police presence outside Katz's inauguration and around the St. John's campus, a Wall Street Journal reporter tweeted.

Katz's transition team and the Queens district attorney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but she told THE CITY last week that "the system is not yet equipped to move entirely away from cash bail."

Yesterday was amazing, and we are so, so grateful to @MaketheRoadNY, @VOCALNewYork, @CourtWatchNYC, @RedCanarySong, @aaronnarraph, and everyone who came out and shared space with us last night to tell DA Katz that cash bail is wrong and unacceptable. We’re watching. pic.twitter.com/O4uMNBtuEg
— Our Progressive Future (@ProgressiveOur) January 4, 2020

Less than a week into her term & @MelindaKatz already broke her promise to end cash bail in Queens.

Tonight I stood with my comrades in @VOCALNewYork, @CourtWatchNYC & @ProgressiveOur at her inauguration to make clear that we’re going to abolish cash bail in New York State. pic.twitter.com/3NsiLWmsTy
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@ZohranKMamdani) January 7, 2020

Katz kicked off her campaign in December 2018 pledging to eliminate cash bail only for misdemeanors and non-violent felonies, as the Queens Daily Eagle reported at the time, but her position shifted by the following spring.

"I believe in no cash bail for any crime," Katz told Patch in an interview at the end of April, reiterating that position during a June debate on NY1.

Cash bail is meant to give defendants a financial incentive to return to court: If they don't show up, they lose the cash. But data shows the practice disproportionately affects poor people of color.

In enumerating the injustices of the system, activists often point to the case of Kalief Browder, a Bronx teenager who died by suicide after awaiting trial on Rikers Island for three years.

Those arguments prompted the New York legislature to eliminate cash bail for misdemeanors and most nonviolent felonies, a policy that took effect Jan. 1, but activists say Katz needs to go further.

"Cash bail is an explicitly racist, classist weapon that disproportionately destroys low-income communities of color; it must come to an end once and for all," said Solomon Acevedo, a coordinator for Court Watch NYC and a member of VOCAL-NY. "Katz must lead the way."