ALBANY, N.Y. - U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is pushing legislation designed to help local law enforcement officials protect key witnesses
who provide the police with information about crimes, help identify suspects, or
testify during trials.
Schumer says witness intimidation could hamper police investigations and witness tampering cases are on the rise in the Capital Region, and this legislation also increases criminal penalties on those, like gangs, that
seek to intimidate witnesses.
Schumer
was joined by Albany County District Attorney David Soares, Schenectady County
District Attorney Robert Carney, Rensselaer County District Attorney Richard
McNally, Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple and Albany Police Chief Steven
Krokoff on Tuesday to unveil the proposed legislation.
The State Witness Protection Act would, for the first time, make
witness intimidation a federal crime, and toughen sentences for anyone who
attempts to intimidate a witness, or prevents them from going to the police with
important information that could help in cracking a case or chasing a lead.
In the wake of a spate of tampering and intimidation incidents in Albany this
past year, authorities have been left frustrated by increasing reluctance of
witnesses to come forward with information – a trend they believe is being
fueled by a climate of fear created by perpetrators.
In more severe instances, witnesses to crimes have been murdered to keep
them silent. In 2003, Christopher Drabik was shot and killed in Troy by a
gang member in order to keep him from testifying against a local drug dealer.
Furthermore,
each county District Attorney's office report a number of occasions where gang
members have attended trials in the courtroom and glared at witnesses at when
they take the stand and are asked to testify against or identify defendants.
The
legislation would increase the potential maximum penalty to
30 years in prison in cases of attempted murder or physical violence against a
witness, and increase the potential maximum sentence to 20 years in jail for
other types of witness intimidation, like obstruction of justice.
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