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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now on this Martin Luther King Day, remember that one of the firsts that we had a historic first in New York City last year was that Manhattan got its first Black DA, Alvin Bragg. Now beginning his second year in office after having been elected in November 2021. The last time DA Bragg was on the show, he said Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin had been using him like the George H.W. Bush campaign used Willie Horton in 1988, the face of a Black man, they put forth as the face of criminality for political gain.

Governor Hochul won anyway, of course, but there's part of the historical record now of being Manhattan's first Black DA, even as the number of shootings and murders in the city was going down last year to their lowest since before the pandemic. The biggest piece of news coming out of the DA's office the last few days is probably the $1.6 million fine they won in court against the Trump organization in that tax evasion case.

The New York Times describes it this way, "The verdict branded the company a lawbreaker. Exposed a culture that nurtured illegality for years and handed political ammunition to Mr. Trump's opponents. Prosecutors with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office also continue to press a criminal investigation against the man himself." We'll talk financial crime, street crime, racial equality on King Day, and more with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. DA Bragg, always good of you to come on. Welcome back to WNYC.

DA Bragg: Thanks so much for having me. I always love speaking with you and engaging with your wise listeners.

Brian Lehrer: Let's begin on the Trump Organization News, $1.6 million is really nothing given the wealth of the company. Why did the judge impose that exact figure as you understand it and what does it do for tax justice?

DA Bragg: That number is the maximum allowed under our New York State law. I agree with you and shared my concern both publicly and even in the courtroom, our assistant district attorney noted that this is not what the number we would want it to be. We wanted it to be much higher. We can't have it that corporations in our state are if you will, pricing in the cost of fraud and so we have been engaging with our partners in Albany to change the law so that the corporations that engage in these systemic decades plus schemes of the fraud tax authorities will really feel the financial penalty. I would hasten to add that I think the marketplace will speak here.

You quoted The Times article branded as a criminal or felony corporation that I predict should have some effects on those who do business with the corporation, extend loans certainly in the public arena. Someone who's in a lot of public integrity prosecutions. One of the first things you've got to check when you're bidding is whether or not someone affiliated with the company has a felony. In this context, I think that the fine could be much higher and we're pushing for that in Albany, but there are some real-world consequences that the marketplace will impose.

Brian Lehrer: What's the bigger tax evasion context of this case, as you see it? Is this about Trump's company as an especially criminal enterprise when it comes to paying the taxes they owe or is this big real estate, big corporate, anything in many, many cases, and the Trump org got caught because everybody's looking at Trump?

DA Bragg: I think first and foremost, my hope with a case like this that has a lot of attention is that it sends a message of deterrence. We have done other tax matters. We take the tax law seriously at the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. It lasted for 13 years, it involved the most senior executives at the Trump organization and allowing them to get benefits like a luxury car, and housing "off the books." Something that the judge really pointed to that he found particularly disturbing was Mr. Weisselberg allowing and using the fraud to hand it to his wife would qualify for Social Security, which he didn't and the judge talked about all the people who rightfully deserve it and how we need that important government program to continue to operate.

Same with Medicare. I hope it sends a signal to the broader corporate environment. Those who would maybe be inclined to say, "Oh, this is a paper crime. Oh, there's no harm to really let them know that we take it seriously," but I also think it's important that it is the former President's corporation to make clear that whoever you are we stand at the ready at the Manhattan District Attorney's office to enforce the law.

Brian Lehrer: How common do you think this is among major corporations or do you think it's pretty rare? As I said before, maybe the Trump org got caught because people started paying attention to the Trump org for obvious reasons.

DA Bragg: I don't have data and I always like to answer a question like that if I can with specifics. What I can say is looking at our docket over the years and one of the things we did was look at other cases to make sure we are being judicious in the handling of this. It's not a unicorn. It's not completely anomalous, but do I have particular data about how often it's happening? It's hard for us to know. I know it's happening. Some because we've investigated and held others accountable for it. Hopefully, the result of this investigation, prosecution, and sentencing is that it will happen less. One thing that comes from a high-profile case is that we hopefully get some deterrence in the area of enforcement that the case highlights.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Org's Chief Financial Officer. He's going to prison as part of this, isn't he?

DA Bragg: Yes. He was sentenced. The Trump organization was sentenced on Friday. Mr. Weisselberg was sentenced on Wednesday and then immediately after the sentencing was remanded, was sent to Rikers Island to start his sentence. We asked for a sentence of six months and the judge sentenced him to five months. That sentence started on Wednesday in Rikers Island.

Brian Lehrer: What did you establish in court about Donald Trump himself in this context? Remind us if his CFO, Weisselberg, who he worked so closely with, was charged individually, why wasn't the head of the company, Donald Trump?

DA Bragg: That's a fair question and one that I think came to the fore during the trial because the defense-- The jury rejected it, but the defense made what I think was the incredulous claim that only people who knew about this were limited to a couple and that Mr. Weisselberg was this rogue employee. The legal issue was, did this act benefit the corporation? It benefited him in terms of the benefits he received, but the corporation had to get benefits to be found criminally liable.

The defense argued that everyone else had their head in the sand, including Mr. Trump, I shouldn't say everyone else, but Mr. Trump specifically and in a rebuttal, we said, "Look, the former president, this is his namesake corporation, he hired all of these people, he set it in motion and so to say that he knew nothing was incredible. Now, that is a significant jump between that and imposing individual criminal liability. Here Mr. Weisselberg was, like I said, a luxury car, housing, and tuition for private school for his grandson. The evidence-- We make all of our decisions also based on the evidence as Mr. Weisselberg warranted the charge and the jury and the judge agreed.

Brian Lehrer: What's the nature of the ongoing investigation into Trump's role?

DA Bragg: I can't say that chapter in verse. One thing that we've been really cautious is we don't want to prejudice our ongoing investigation. We did issue a statement that the investigation's ongoing. One thing I can say is that we were I would say, judicious and investigative steps we were taking during the pendency of the trial first and foremost and then up through the sentencing because we did not want to take investigative steps that one could argue were presenting that ongoing trial somehow influencing that jury.

As I've said, without getting into details, I can say we're now move into a new chapter because the jury's now spoken and the vicinity, in that case, is now closed. We will still continue and I think certainly your listeners will know and understand. It's one of those things that you're talking publicly about something you are potentially-

Brian Lehrer: Biasing.

DA Bragg: -conflating witness tec-- Yes, exactly. Biasing the case. We will continue to do our work behind closed doors. Something I hope the public can be encouraged by. I love trials. Brian, I'm a 20 plus year I love it. I think right next to voting jury service is so important. Then the fact that our courtrooms are public, and so the public got to see the inner workings in the Trump organization equally as important. I think they got to see how well the people in the state were represented by our trial team. Susan Hoffmans or Joshua Steinglass and others.

What the public should know is that while that team was operating with full display, other members of the team with the same level of integrity and rigor and professionalism, were working on other strands. That's the type of representation that the people of the state of New York are getting, and if were in a position to report out, we will.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some questions for Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg about the Trump Org sentencing or anything else related to his office. (212)-433-WNYC. (212)-433-9692, or Tweet @BrianLehrer. Here we are, DA Bragg on Martin Luther King Day. You are 49. You were born five years after King was killed. Do you think you were influenced by him, mildly, profoundly? Was his legacy a topic of conversation when you were growing up? Anything like that?

DA Bragg: Profoundly. I'm a product of the Black Baptist Church which actually Dr. King came out of. The son of two parents who were significantly engaged. My father in particular in Petersburg, Virginia, working with the now late Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, who would make his way to New York years later on desegregating lunch counters in the South. One of my father's-- He's now passed as well, one of my father's favorite stories to tell me that you'll indulges me on two. One, that the time he shook Dr. King's hand he would tell that story often, and some of your listeners will probably know Reverend Walker, who pastored Canan Baptist Church for years on 116th Street in Harlem.

My dad told me when he was a senior in high school and working with Reverend Walker in Petersburg, Virginia, they were sitting in at the lunch counters every day and disrupting, and my dad's youth [chuckles] he went to Reverend Walker for days. "I'm leading everyone here, have all these people sitting down at the lunch counters. What if they actually serve us? We don't have any money." Then Reverend Walker said to my dad said, "That is the least of your concerns." Of course, they were never served and so the fact that they had no money to pay never became an issue. A profound influence I think both on my career path as a civil rights lawyer, as you know I represented Eric Warner's mother in the lawsuit of the city and worked as a civil rights lawyer for a number of years.

Then also more personally in my faith I started my celebration of Dr. King Day yesterday and teach the high school class at my church. It's important for them to know, particularly at Church of mine as a history of social justice service and being in the political arena. Talking with them about how his faith impacted his service, and certainly that saying is true for me. Thank you for asking.

Brian Lehrer: On being a former civil rights attorney and identifying with the social justice movement, I think many people still don't understand the line that many contemporary prosecutors, including yourself, try to walk between getting the bad guys off the street and trying not to perpetuate mass incarceration as a matter of social justice. A lot of people see the prosecutor's role as prosecuting to the max and the defense attorney's role as defending to the max and somewhere in there, through the classic adversarial process, justice gets done. Prosecutor's jobs are more complicated than that. How would you start to describe that to someone not familiar with the field, and who might even wind up suspicious of someone who comes out of social justice civil rights law into prosecuting people?

DA Bragg: I'll say I've lived at this intersection, I'll answer your question first personally, and then maybe a bit professionally, because I've been a civil rights lawyer, and then I've been a prosecutor for years and for me-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: A lot of people don't know your background. We've talked about it before, but you were with Preet Bharara in the US Attorney's Office here in New York for many years. You were a federal prosecutor before you were a Manhattan DA. Long history as a prosecutor, just filling some of that in for our folks.

DA Bragg: No, I appreciate that. For me, this intersection of civil rights and prosecution goes back to my youth. When I was a kid, I had six gunpoint incidents. Three of them were traditional arising from public safety. Guns pointed at me by others. The three of them were incidents with unconstitutional stops and guns being pointed at me by police officers. At a very early age understanding that we've got to have constitutional policing and understanding that in those three times particularly two of them, I needed a police around to stop this. Then understanding that we have to do it in a way that inspires trust. That to me is the through line.

In order for me to do my job as Manhattan District Attorney, we need witnesses and victims to come forward. If people don't have faith in the system, if they see people being incarcerated for long periods of time for doing little harm, that undermines faith. If they see actors in the system, whether it's a prosecutor or a police officer doing something that doesn't advance justice, that undermines the system too. That faith in the system has been the through line for me and making the system better, both as a civil rights lawyer and as a prosecutor.

Particularly for someone who's come out of a-- Lives all of my life in Central Harlem and seeing firsthand. I've said I've had guns pointed at me, I've been shot at, I've had a knife to my throat, I had to go through navigate my family. One of the most sovereign things I ever do was walk through the yellow tape of a crime scene. I've done that professionally before, obviously, but with my family to get home. For those of us who've lived and really experienced deep public safety issues like myself, that's primacy.

That's always going to be, I'll say your number one civil right is the right to walk to your corner store and buy some juice or milk. That has primacy but in order to advance that fundamental right of public safety, we have to have a system that we all have faith in. Otherwise, it doesn't work. I've sat in a room with witnesses, or I've gone into community groups and talked to folks who said, "Yes I know something that happened, and I don't come to work because I don't trust the system."

I think based upon my personal experience and having spent time as both a federal and state prosecutor before the DA's office and a civil rights lawyer, I view that as part of my charge. I spent a lot of last year going out, talking to youth groups, talking to civic groups about the system of being transparent about the things I think we need to change, but also being really, really, really forceful about everyone wants and deserves public safety, and that has to have primacy in all that we do in the DA's office.

Brian Lehrer: Irah in Manhattan has a Trump Org prosecution question. Irah, you're on WNYC with Manhattan DA, Alvin Bragg.

Irah: Yes. Good morning, Alvin. Irah here. Listen, taxes have to be given not only to the State of New York but also to the Internal Revenue Service. I would imagine that everything that Mr. Bragg has found should be going to the Internal Revenue Service and why hasn't the federal government done something, they can do bigger fines.

DA Bragg: Irah, I think that's an interesting question and a good observation. I can only speak as to state enforcement, law enforcement of the state law. Oftentimes in a matter, and I'll just speak as someone who's been a federal prosecutor and also as in, the number two at the State Attorney General's office. Oftentimes the state or local proceeding is happening the federal government will defer to that. In fact, there's the credit policy, I believe it's called on letting local prosecutions proceed under certain circumstances.

Certainly, no longer an expert in that. Those from my days gone by, and I wouldn't speak on behalf the federal government. As for us, our case went forward, and we got accountability and we're now on to the next chapter in our ongoing investigation.

Brian Lehrer: Amir in Morningside Heights, you're on WNYC with DA Alvin Bragg. Hi, Amir.

Amir: Hi. Thank you, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Mr. District Attorney, I think you likely know that across the country, HIV criminalization laws are overwhelmingly used to target and criminalize black people and poor people living with HIV. A lot of people would argue that these laws vilify people living with a manageable, treatable disease that's a protected disability under the ADA. Actually, in six states, people living with HIV are forced to register as sex offenders regardless of whether they posed a transmission risk or whether prosecutors could prove that they acted with an intent to transmit the disease.

That's a pretty dehumanizing and discriminatory policy, but thankfully, New York doesn't have one of those laws. We as a state don't usually force people living with HIV to register as sex offenders. Why did you use your office to violate the rights of a person living with HIV who was convicted in Louisiana by forcing them to register as a sex offender here in our state? Doesn't your decision have implications for people seeking refuge here in New York who are fleeing laws that target sexual and reproductive freedoms in other states? Was that harmful decision a mistake, Mr. District Attorney?

DA Bragg: This is a very important issue, an issue that we had a very senior assistant district attorney in my office, seconded to an organization that worked on for a year, was down at the White House on this issue. I agree with what you said as a policy statement of the case that you're referring to, which is an active litigation, but it's at the appellate stage. I can statement within the four corners at the record we had to-- Under the law, when you are required to register at another state under the sex offender laws, there's reciprocity in this state that's we've seen the state opinion on that law.

I agree with you as a matter of policy, and we've articulated that publicly but in terms of being the person who's going to obviously have to follow the law we're doing that in the courtroom, flagging for the court what the actual law is, but are advancing an Albany legislation to address this issue at that, if you're required to register another state even required to register for something we don't believe in here, that's an [unintelligible 00:22:35] to us in New York.

Right now, reciprocity would under the law be required here. We're trying to address that in the legislature as a policy there.

Brian Lehrer: Is that to say that you felt that your hands were tied under the law in the particular case, the caller references, and you wish you could have had the leeway to go another way?

DA Bragg: Yes. There'll be times when the substantive law and our duty as an officer of the court, sometimes people will say, "Just don't cite that case, or don't tell the court about it." We obviously have a-- Maybe it's not obvious. We have a duty to articulate the laws it stands to the court, cite the law if there's law out there. Then also this also is a matter of the executive agency. That is the statewide level that enforces and administers this.

Some might disagree, but I believe that we can at the same time enforce that law and do what we're charged to do and also raise our hand and say, "Look, this is not an outcome having someone register for something just because some state that we don't agree with has you do it doesn't mean they just have to register here." I think we can raise our hand and press policy issues even if that's not the current law and ask that the law be changed.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM, HD, and AM, New York. WNJT FM 88.1, Trenton. WNJP 88.5, Sussex. WNJY 89.3, NetCon and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming @wnyc.org. Few more minutes with the Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. DA Bragg, here you are beginning, roughly beginning, 16 days into the beginning of your second year and you became the target of criticism as allegedly too soft on crime following your day one memo when you came into office last January.

Let me read just a few lines from the beginning of your office's day one memo fact sheet from last year still on your website and see if you still stand by this here in year two, or if you think this was misunderstood, the first line is, "Over-incarceration has not made Manhattan safer."

Then in the next paragraph, the memo says in bold, "Tellingly for years, Manhattan has over incarcerated relative to every other borough in New York City and has higher crime rates." Has that mismatch between incarceration and crime rates changed yet under your watch, or is it too early to see that? What would the first line of your year two, day one memo be?

DA Bragg: Certainly, those principles are bedrock principles. We have to focus on those doing the most harm. We can have side by side, as we did last year an increase in gun prosecutions, an increase in hate crime prosecutions focusing on those that do significant harm, and at the same time have a very, very significant increase in the number of felony cases that we send to alternatives to incarceration like substance use disorder and mental health.

We can do both. It is which cases to go forward with. We can increase our gun prosecution, hate crime prosecutions at the same time as we did late last year, announce a significant investment in our mental healthcare infrastructure. It is about bringing cases where significant harm is done, individualized justice, so that consistent with public safety, if people need to be connected with mental healthcare, substitute disorder, and that is public safety work. We've seen, and with those first couple of sentences talk about the children. I saw it growing up.

I think it became more acute during the pandemic is our social structures were fractured. The [unintelligible 00:27:00] cases where someone goes to Rikers for 45 days and they come back and they still have their substance use disorder and they have their mental health issue wasn't addressed, and then they commit the same crime. We've seen that that's how we see many of these articles from last race that someone was arrested on their 15th time.

14 of those before I was in office. The question is, how do we get there and how do we reduce that recidivism? All of it is public safety work, the gun prosecutions, the hate crime prosecution and the alternatives to incarceration, and connecting people to services. We can and must do both to advance and get to enduring public safety in Manhattan. That's what we're doing every day. We started it last year. We're going to continue to do it this year. We've seen encouraging signs, but we've got more work to do.

Brian Lehrer: You actually make the case in this day-one memo that incarceration can lead to more recidivism as opposed to less.

DA Bragg: That's not me making the case. There are significant data and you take the example I just gave. Someone who-- We're not talking about our gun trafficking cases and our cases like that are human trafficking, which we're not using these alternatives on, but the case I just saw someone went to Rikers Island for 45 days and it's because they didn't have access to their mental health medication. 45 days for someone who has a mental health issue, and that caused them to do disturbing conduct. Certainly, things that we are people walking around talking to themselves, and then if they shoplift, we want to obviously do something.

The point is if it's born of greed and we have investigations that's fencing and think people that are doing things to make money, but if it's based off on a mental health issue, and we put someone in jail for 30 days, their condition's going to get worse. They're going to go back in the streets and they're going to do the same thing again. We've been seeing that for years, and we've been seeing it even more so coming out of the pandemic with the dislocations and the distress that many are in.

Brian Lehrer: I'll mention that the mayor and the NYPD released the overall crime stats for 2022 recently. The good news shootings and murders went down to lower than pre-pandemic levels. The bad news, other kinds of crimes mostly went up, but I saw that 80% of the murder and shooting reductions took place in Brooklyn. How did Manhattan do?

DA Bragg: We outpaced the city. Shootings were down-- I'll give you the number as of December 25th. Shootings were down citywide by 17%, they were down 20% in Manhattan. Homicides were down 13% citywide and were down 20% in Manhattan, so we outpaced the cities. It's important that we're one city, right? I'm rooting for the other boroughs as well, obviously. Guns and violent crime doesn't know the border of Manhattan versus Brooklyn, or the Bronx. I think it's important. It's important that people should know that on these really important statistics, Manhattan is outpacing, and doing better than the city average. Look, we're all going to keep on working together, and continue to push those numbers in the right direction. I think it's born a lot of the partnership and the work that we've done this past year.

Brian Lehrer: Brooklyn DA Gonzalez was on the show last week, and he said here that he thinks expanding judicial discretion in the by-law would be helpful, his word helpful in making sure people come back to court, but also in making New Yorkers feel more safe. Do you also think expanding judicial discretion in the new session of the state legislature would be helpful?

DA Bragg: I think we've got to see what the specific language is. Look, I've operated in the federal system where we had some of the things that people are now advocating for in the state system. I saw some good things coming out of that, but I also saw some misuse, and overreach. We've already talked about a few things we're going to connect with Albany on when there's the actual language on the table we'll take a look at it.

Certainly, when I look at the data in Manhattan the return to court rate has remained stable. Also, the rearrest rate is a number I keep an eye on. We'll make our decisions based on the data in the context of specific legislative language. Of course, as I said, going back to those early experiences, I've lived public safety challenges, I know them, and everything we're going to do is going to be advanced public safety.

Brian Lehrer: Restate it again as you said it before us so that we can have it for when we follow the session of the legislature that's beginning, and then we're out of time. What is your number one priority for Albany for this term of the legislature that would help with crime and justice in New York?

DA Bragg: My number one priority and we have not said it yet, is discovery. Alongside bail, the discovery law was changed around the same time to make the time period in which prosecutors have to produce evidence in the offense shorter, and the evidence to be turned over more robust. I full support early, and full discovery. That's been my practice throughout the past 20-plus years. We didn't get funding to do it. I know the other city district attorney's office the public defenders also did not get good money.

Our information technology lags just by way of one example, 2021, before I was in office that year, I think 1800, or so misdemeanor cases that timed out they were dismissed because discovery wasn't turned over in time. Again, that was before my time. That does not influence public safety. It's an issue for my office, and administration, and an administration of justice more broadly, and also public safety. We're having cases, some of these domestic violence cases.

That's a discussion that we've started at the city and the state level of proper funding in particular information technology solutions, and also, taking a look at that statute. We can meet our obligations but also in a way that we don't have cases getting dismissed because of information technology shortcomings.

Brian Lehrer: That answer gave me a thought for a follow-up question. I'll extend by one question, and it is a political question. Do you have an opinion on Governor Huchol's controversial nominee for the chief judge of the State Court of Appeals, Hector LaSalle, what's swirling around him? Have you practiced before him in any context, or have an opinion about whether he's balanced prosecution versus defense as a judge or anything else relevant?

DA Bragg: I've never practiced before him, nor if I can study the jury duties. I'm going to, and also obviously my constitutional role vis-a-vis the Senate and the Governor. I'm going to leave that to the Senate and the governor of their process. I'll leave that there

Brian Lehrer: We leave it there with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. We always appreciate when you come on. Thanks a lot for talking through so much stuff. Thank you for coming on today. Happy New Year-

DA Bragg: Thank you so much. Happy New Year as well.

Brian Lehrer: -and Martin Luther King Day.

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