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Since 1978 • (718) 260–2500 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2020 16 pages • Vol.Serving Brownstone Brooklyn, Sunset Park, Williamsburg & Greenpoint 43, No. 3 • January 17–23, 2020
BAILING OUT Bond biz crumbling under criminal justice reforms
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Who’s going to bail out the bail
bondsmen?!
The Brooklyn bail industry is reeling
from recently enacted state-wide
bail reforms, with the owner of one decades
old Downtown firm preparing to
shutter multiple storefronts in response
to a rapidly shrinking market.
“We’re not going to able to sustain
rents and payroll if there’s no bail,” said
Wendy Fordin-Saler, one of the owners of
Empire Bail Bonds on Livingston Street.
“It’s emotionally and mentally traumatizing
to say the least.”
The business, which has operated its
office in America’s Downtown for a quarter
of a century, closed shops in Queens,
Long Island, and Westchester at the beginning
of the year as a direct response to
defendants of low-level criminal charges
— who make up 95 percent of their clientele
— no longer having to make bail,
according to Fordin-Saler.
“We’ve had to lay off dozens of employees,
we’ve already closed three of
our six locations and if this continues
on, we’re going to lay off a lot more staff
and close all our brick-and-mortar locations,”
she said.
State legislators and Governor Andrew
Cuomo passed laws in April which took
effect on Jan. 1, limiting judges’ ability
to impose bail on most misdemeanors
and non-violent felonies, while not allowing
them to keep defendants in custody
pre-trial for any misdemeanors and
most non-violent felonies.
Judge spares the axe
Delays Fort Greene Park plan to remove dozens of trees
Seddio to step down as Dem boss
By Aidan Graham and
Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
Frank Seddio will step down as
the leader of the Brooklyn Democratic
Party next week, saying he
wants to take a less active role in
county politics as he edges closer
to retirement.
“I think eight years is long
enough,” Seddio said. “I’m 74
years old and I want to do more
with my wife and my family.”
Seddio, who was first elected
as Chairman of the Kings County
Democratic Party in 2012, will officially
step down Monday and the
party’s executive committee will
choose his replacement at a closeddoor
meeting that same day.
Brooklyn’s top Democrat is
choosing to back Assemblywoman
Rodneyse Bichotte (D—
Flatbush) as his successor, who, if
elected, would be the first woman
to hold the position, which would
give her significant influence over
the borough’s court system and local
elections.
The state lawmaker laid out a
vision for transparency, fundraising,
and grassroots support.
“I think that people need to understand
that change is inevitable,
and I hope that if I’m elected
by my fellow district leaders that
they will give me the benefit of
Bail bondsman Ira Judelson estimates the bail reforms affect half of his clients. (At left) Bail bond offices
on Atlantic Avenue near the Brooklyn House of Detention Photos by Kevin Duggan
Fordin-Saler and her competitors in
the bail industry strongly oppose the reforms,
including one prominent Brooklyn
bondsman, who complained that some
patrons — whose bail was retroactively
eliminated as a result of the new laws
— have already cut ties.
“I have clients coming into my office
saying ‘I don’t have to check in with you
anymore,’ and laughing,” said Ira Judelson,
who has arranged large bonds for
disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein,
mixed martial arts fighter Conor
McGregor, and the former director of
the International Monetary Fund Dominique
Strauss-Kahn. “It’s going to cost
taxpayers when you realize all the money
going into bring people back.”
Judelson — whose Atlantic Avenue
office lies directly across from the recently
shuttered House of Detention —
often deals with clients who have to post
large amounts of bail for felony charges,
and roughly half of his customers fall
outside of the new laws.
Advocates pushing for reforms argued
that the state’s former bail system
resulted in the mass incarceration of poor
New Yorkers who had not been convicted
of any crimes, while their well-heeled
counterparts could afford to buy their
way out of jail.
To illustrate the disparity, Public Advocate
and former Canarsie Councilman
Jumaane Williams compared the case of
Weinstein — a millionaire film executive
accused of sexually assaulting two
New York women — to the tragic circumstances
surrounding the 2015 suicide
of Kalief Browder, who spent three
years on Rikers Island awaiting trial,
because he couldn’t affording $3,000
bail on charges related to the theft of
a backpack.
“I can think of no clearer example of
why these reforms were so critical than
the fact that just a block behind us Harvey
Weinstein arrived for his trial today
under his own power, while … Kalief
Browder couldn’t afford to go home,”
Williams said in Manhattan Tuesday.
The Brooklyn bail industry in particular
has suffered under policy’s enacted
by District Attorney Eric Gonzalez
prior to the state-wide bail reform.
The Kings County prosecutor — who
effectively decriminalized possession
of small amounts of marijuana in the
borough — requested bail in only seven
percent of misdemeanor cases in 2019,
and several of Judelson’s competitors in
and around Downtown Brooklyn had already
closed shop in the years leading
up the new laws taking effect.
On the other hand, the closure of the
Brooklyn House of Detention as part of
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s borough-based
jails plan has not deeply impacted either
bail bonds company, according to
Judelson, who said that most of their
business comes from the nearby criminal
and supreme courts.
But the state’s trend toward enacting
progressive criminal justice reforms may
reduce the state’s bail bonds industry of
slightly more than 200 licensed agents by
half, according to the head of the trade
organization the New York State Bondsman
Association Michelle Esquenazi,
who said most bail-bonds businesses
are not large enough to weather a longterm
recession.
“They’re family-owned business,
they’re not multimillion dollar enterprises,”
said Esquenaz.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The city’s controversial scheme
to ax a small forest’s worth of trees
in Fort Greene Park hit a snag after
a state judge ordered the Parks
Department to provide evidence
that its plans will not impose a
significant impact on the green
space and surrounding neighborhood,
setting back renovations to
the area’s largest park.
State Supreme Court Judge
Julio Rodriguez III sided with
the environmental watchdogs at
Friends of Fort Greene Park in
ruling that the Parks Department
failed to substantiate why its $10.5
million overhaul of the park —
which entails chopping down a
whopping 83 trees — does not
constitute a significant alteration
of the neighborhood’s namesake
playground, according an attorney
for the plaintiffs.
“This decision should awaken
the department to reality,” said legal
advisor Michael Gruen in a
statement. “Environmental regulation
is not enacted to be evaded
as if it were merely an annoyance.
It is designed to ensure serious
and honest evaluation of environmental
risks from the inception
of governmental consideration of
any project.”
The tree advocates argued that
the city tried to bypass the State Environmental
Quality Review Act
by classifying the parks project as
routine maintenance and accessibility
upgrades, and the plant
lovers are seeking the court’s intervention
in forcing the city to
conduct a lengthy environmental
assessment.
The judgement will stall a
planned upgrade of the 1867 park
designed by famed Prospect Park
landscape architects Frederick Law
Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, and
the city is still weighing whether
to follow the order or contest it, a
spokesman for the Law Department
said.
“We disagree with this ruling.
The city followed the law and the
approvals needed for this type of
project. An environmental review
was not required,” said Nicholas
Paolucci in a statement. “We are
reviewing the city’s legal options
to continue this important initia-
The Parks Department must study adverse impacts of chopping dozens of mature trees as
part of its redesign of Fort Greene Park, a state judge ruled on Jan. 9.
File photo by Kevin Duggan
See TREES on page 4
the doubt to allow change to happen,”
File photo by Stefano Giovannini
Bichotte said.
Rank-and-file Democrats have
only until Monday, Jan. 20, before
the borough’s 42 District Leaders
are asked to vote on their
next county chairperson, and the
only other contender is Assemblyman
Walter Mosley (D–Clinton
Hill).
“Brooklynites deserve to hear
what Rodneyse’s vision is and for
other candidates to be able to put
themselves forward,” said Jessica
Thurston of New Kings Democrats.
“It seems predetermined by
existing leadership.”
Seddio has existed as a staple
of Kings County politics, particularly
around Canarsie, Mill Basin,
Sheepshead Bay, and Marine
Park, since the 1980s, when he parlayed
his career as a community
liaison for local police precincts
into a career as a civic leader and
later as a politician.
The Canarsie native served alternatively
as Community Board
18’s district manager and chairman
in the late ’80s early ’90s, before being
elected as an Assemblyman to
represent Flatlands, Marine Park,
Mill Basin, Bergen Beach, and Canarsie
from 1998–2005.
A practicing attorney, Seddio
was later elected as a surrogate
court judge, and in 2010 became the
male Democratic District Leader
for the 59th District, before taking
over the helm of the party from the
late Vito Lopez two years later, after
his predecessor stepped down
in the wake of multiple sexual assault
allegations.
Seddio’s resignation comes amid
concerns raised by activists about
the health of the Democratic party’s
finances, which have deteriorated
under Seddio’s stewardship from
$505,000 in 2013 to just $32,800
in July 2019, according to a NY
Daily News report.
The party’s financial troubles
occur as Seddio himself faces lawsuits
over debts totaling $2.2 million,
the Daily News reported.
Seddio denied that his financial
difficulties played into his decision
to step down, and claimed
that the party’s dwindling funds
were due to the party refusing real
estate money.
Bichotte did not commit to
whether the party would continue
to reject donations from large developers.
At its last twice-yearly meeting
in September, the party’s full membership
voted to create a finance
committee to oversee the party’s
ailing finances, to which Bichotte
was appointed chair.
Seddio also came under fire for
using hundreds of absentee votes
known as proxy cards to overpower
rank-and-file members at the party’s
typically raucous meetings,
and one Greenpoint district leader
hopes that whoever his successor
is will limit that tactic.
“Regardless of who’s in charge,
the party needs to get more transparent
and more democratic,” said
Nick Rizzo. “It’s the only way this
rusty old machine can survive.”
Some district leaders have called
on curtailing the absentee votes by
only allowing district leaders to use
the cards from people within their
district, but here, again, Bichotte
said did not commit to any immediate
changes in the policy.
Frank Seddio will step down
as Brooklyn Democratic Party
boss next week.
Photo by Department of Transportation
The city plans to turn the bike lanes on Franklin Avenue (pictured) and Quay Street into
protected two-way bike lanes this summer.
Boon for G’point cylists
City plans new two-way protected bike lanes
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
The city is looking to install
two-way protected bike lanes
that would link Kent Avenue
and West Street at the waterfront
near the Greenpoint-Williamsburg
border this summer,
officials told local civic gurus
on Wednesday.
The Department of Transportation
will revamp a roughly
MEAN
Streets
quarter-mile stretch of existing
cycling paths on Franklin and
Quay streets into green-painted
lanes protected by a concrete barrier,
officials told Community
Board 1’s Transportation subcommittee.
On Franklin Street, the bike
lanes — which are currently located
on either side of the street
— will be consolidated on the
western side of the street, which
will serve both northbound and
southbound cycling traffic.
On Quay Street, traffic engineers
intend to replace the oneway
bike path marked by chevrons
on the east into a two-way
Brooklyn’s
boulevard
battle lines
See BIKES on page 6
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