These newsworthy events, among others, show that DA Mark Suben has kept his
promise to send serious criminals to prison while using common sense to deal
with youthful indiscretion, as well as provide leadership for the criminal
justice system in this county. They demonstrate the two things, in addition
to the obviously necessary experience and skill, that a District Attorney
should have in order to be successful, effective and fair: good judgment,
and the ability to communicate.
RANDY THIBEAULT SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR WIFE’S MURDER
PATRICT WEST SENTENCED TO 21 YEARS FOR NEW YEAR’S DAY KILLING
DEREK JONES SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR ST. MARY’S ARMED ROBBERY
WILLIE DANFORD SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS FOR DRUG SALE
DA TAKES OVER ADMINISTRATION OF CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER
DA DECLINES TO PROSECUTE CHS LACROSSE TEAM LOCKER ROOM INCIDENT
DA PROMOTES LOCAL SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA LAW TO PROTECT KIDS
April 2009:
RANDY THIBEAULT SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR WIFE’S MURDER
Wendy Thibeault, a popular and gentle woman of our community, was brutally
murdered on Memorial Day 2008. Her husband, from whom she was estranged and
was in the process of divorcing after a domestic violence incident at their
home over a month earlier, immediately became the prime suspect. The case
was promptly and thoroughly investigated by both the Cortland County
Sheriff’s Department and the New York State Police, particularly involving
the crack Forensic Investigation Unit of the State Police. Several months
later Randy Thibeault was indicted by the former District Attorney’s Office
for the murder of his wife. Thereafter, Mark Suben was elected District
Attorney, and it fell to him to prosecute one of the most significant murder
cases in the county’s history.
Immediately upon his election, Mark arranged to be appointed special
prosecutor, without pay, so he could begin to prepare his case in the period
between his election and his swearing-in as DA. He was thus able to review
the huge investigative file and meet with the excellent team of police
investigators, before he ever took office. This also enabled him to be ready
for hearings in the case, which began in the first week of his term.
One of the first things Mark did was to provide to the defense a complete
copy of all documents in the case, regardless of whether they had requested
them, which amounted ultimately to well over 8,000 pieces of paper. That was
the first implementation of Mark’s open file policy on which he had
campaigned, and it had immediate positive results for the prosecution. The
defense was unable to claim surprise as to any facts in issue, and was
unsuccessful in attempts to delay the trial.
At the trial, which lasted nearly three weeks, the prosecution put in over
40 witnesses and over 275 exhibits, using state-of-the-art audio/visual aids
which helped the jury to understand this massive case. It was a
“circumstantial” case, which means that, because there was no living witness
to the crime (other than the defendant), the case had to be proved by many
small circumstantial facts leading to the conclusion that the defendant
killed his wife. Ultimately, the case turned on the presence of DNA evidence
of the victim’s blood in a truck that Wendy Thibeault had never been in, a
fact established by the testimony of the defendant’s and victim’s son, who
was uncooperative with the prosecution.
The defendant was convicted on all counts, and was sentenced to the maximum
term of 25 years-to-life in state prison, meaning that he must serve 25
years of his sentence before he is eligible to petition for parole, which is
by no means a certainty in a case involving this kind of senseless
brutality. The defendant appealed his conviction in state and federal
appellate courts all the way to the United States Supreme Court, and the
conviction was unanimously affirmed in each court; not a single judge in any
appellate court voted to overturn the conviction. Mark personally drafted
and successfully argued each appeal.
Because of DA Mark Suben’s capable handling of this case at trial and on
appeal (which of course relied on the excellent police work that had gone
before), “Justice for Wendy” was swift and sure and permanent.
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December 2009:
PATRICT WEST SENTENCED TO 21 YEARS FOR NEW YEAR’S DAY KILLING
Less than 5 hours after Mark Suben took office as DA at midnight January 1,
2009, a critically injured young man, James Adams, was found lying in the
street in the City of Cortland. Through outstanding police work by the
Cortland Police Department, a suspect, Patrick West, was located and, when
the victim died a day later, was charged with manslaughter, for striking and
kicking the victim without provocation, eventually causing his death.
The newly elected DA personally presented the case to a grand jury, handled
all pretrial proceedings and motions, prosecuted the case successfully at
trial, and drafted and argued all the appeals, also successfully. Pat West
was convicted of the violent felony of Manslaughter 1st Degree and sentenced
to 21 years in state prison. The defense attorney at trial was then-Public
Defender Keith Dayton.
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September 2010:
DEREK JONES SENTENCED TO 25 YEARS-TO-LIFE FOR ST. MARY’S ARMED ROBBERY
Less than 6 months after Mark Suben took office as DA, a downstate man named
Derek Jones, who had a long and violent criminal history, accompanied by a
local woman, robbed a young woman of our community who was on her way home
from work, threatening to stab her with a knife if she resisted, in front of
St. Mary’s Church on North Main Street in the City.
Again, outstanding police work by the Cortland Police Department assisted by
the Cortland County Sheriff’s K-9 unit resulted in the immediate capture of
both suspects, who were charged with armed robbery and other serious crimes.
Again, the newly-elected DA personally presented the case to the grand jury,
handled all pretrial proceedings and motions, and prosecuted the case
successfully at trial. Derek Jones was sentenced to 25 years-to-life as a
persistent violent felony offender, based on his previous violent felony
convictions for armed robbery in New York City and upstate. Because of
delays in filing an appeal, Jones is still pending appeal. If and when an
appeal is filed, Mark will personally draft and argue the People’s position.
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WILLIE DANFORD SENTENCED TO 14 YEARS FOR DRUG SALE
DA Mark Suben has made it a priority to prosecute drug felonies particularly
involving drug dealers coming into our community from urban crime centers
like Syracuse and New York City. So, when Willie Danford, a drug dealer from
Syracuse with a lengthy criminal history, came here to sell 2 ounces of
cocaine (which is a significant amount of that controlled substance, and
would have been broken down into smaller packages and distributed to many of
our local addicts), he was captured and charged with an A-level drug felony
through the capable efforts of our local Drug Task Force.
The case was successfully prosecuted from arrest to trial and on appeal by
the DA’s hand-picked Chief Assistant DA, Karen Howe. After his conviction,
Willie Danford was sentenced to 14 years in state prison as a second felony
offender, all of which was upheld on appeal.
After his conviction, the DA’s Office also sought and was granted the
forfeiture of the vehicle Danford was driving when he came here to deal
drugs. When the DA took title to that drug dealer’s car, Mark promptly gave
it to the Drug Task Force to use in fighting the drug criminals that still
threaten our community.
Because of this and other successful drug prosecutions, many drug dealers
now plead guilty and agree to go to prison without trial to avoid lengthier
sentences, which saves taxpayers the significant cost of trials, and many
more now steer clear of Cortland because of our growing reputation as a
tough place if you are caught.
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August 2011:
DA TAKES OVER ADMINISTRATION OF CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER
For several years, Cortland County has had a Child Advocacy Center, whose
mission is to coordinate the investigation of sexual and serious physical
abuse of children, with the goal of reducing the trauma of such
investigations on the child victims while simultaneously developing a
tighter case against the perpetrators. The idea is to get all the various
agencies responsible for investigating such child abuse together from the
very beginning of the case – police agencies, Department of Social Services
through its Child Protective Unit, emergency medical responders, mental
health providers, Aid to Victims of Violence personnel who provide support
for the young victims, and others – to choose one professional well-trained
in the best way to interview the victim in such cases to represent all the
agencies and get all the necessary information though one interview. That
way, the child is spared the multiple interviews formerly needed, and spared
the continued trauma that such tag-team interviews unavoidably inflicted on
the child. The idea, further, is to locate the interview in a specially
designed center that is child-friendly and allows all investigating agencies
to monitor the interview in real time. The Center also coordinates and
promotes the specialized forensic training of numerous members of the
investigating agencies as well as local medical and mental health providers,
to enhance the services available to support and heal the child, and make a
strong case against the perpetrator.
The county Child Advocacy Center is funded entirely by the state through the
Office of Child and Family Services, which has established rigorous
standards to assure that each local Center is operating effectively to
achieve the forgoing goals.
In 2011, after several years in operation, for a variety of reasons
Cortland’s Child Advocacy Center was not performing as well as it needed to,
nor was it meeting the state’s standards, and our funding was in immediate
danger of being pulled, which would have killed this vitally important
program in our community. It seemed that the Center would function better if
it were administered either by a social services or law enforcement agency
with greater knowledge of investigative methods, and DA Mark Suben
volunteered to take on the responsibility of administering the Child
Advocacy Center through the DA’s Office, which happened in August 2011.
Since then, under DA Suben’s guidance, the Center named a new director,
Jamie Wheeler, who has a strong background in Child Protective Services and
has demonstrated strong organizational and communication skills and an
ability to get things done. Under Jamie’s leadership, the Center was moved
to a location in the County Office Building, which was renovated to be a
cheerful child-friendly place complete with bright colors and a fish tank,
with work space for various agencies, and electronic equipment permitting
efficient forensic interviews. In less than one year under its new
administration, the Center has gone from near closure to a Tier-1 rating,
the highest possible, which will bring with it even more state funding than
it had before. Furthermore, the newly-invigorated Center has been performing
as it was designed to, reducing the initial trauma on the child victims and
helping to make strong cases against the perpetrators that will result in
convictions and prison sentences without the need for trials, thus further
reducing the trauma to the children.
This result has been accomplished without spending a single dollar of
Cortland County budget funds. Future plans for the Center include developing
a way to fundraise, to supplement the state funding to increase even more
the benefits of having this Center in our community, all without spending
any local taxpayer dollars.
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May 2012:
DA DECLINES TO PROSECUTE CHS LACROSSE TEAM LOCKER ROOM INCIDENT
Last May, an incident that occurred in the locker room of the Cortland High
School varsity boys lacrosse team was referred to the Cortland Police
Department and the District Attorney for investigation and possible criminal
prosecution. It was alleged that some senior members of the team had
forcefully engaged in some inappropriate physical hazing of younger members,
with a coach looking on. CPD thoroughly investigated the allegations, took
many statements from all relevant witnesses, and referred the case to DA
Mark Suben for review and authorization to make arrests.
After careful review, Mark declined to prosecute, based on the fact that the
alleged victim did not want it prosecuted, and also and perhaps more
importantly, because the evidence did not support criminal charges against
any person, student or coach. There were no physical injuries, it was not
clear who might have done what, and the coach appeared to have acted
properly in breaking up what he believed, from his vantage point, was simply
roughhousing. Moreover, the boys involved were heavily disciplined following
an internal school proceeding, and some received the additional sanction of
losing anticipated college scholarships.
DA Suben, applying judgment and common sense, realized that the boys’
inappropriate behavior was appropriately addressed by the school
sufficiently to correct their behavior, and that criminal penalties on top
of that would have been excessively punitive for boys with clean records and
bright futures not yet out of high school. In bygone times, this incident
would probably not have been referred to the police. When it was referred,
DA Suben applied the common sense he promised he would.
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May 2012:
DA PROMOTES LOCAL SYNTHETIC MARIJUANA LAW TO PROTECT KIDS
In the past year, police and public health authorities have been dealing
with various chemical compounds manufactured to replicate the effects of
marijuana but not governed by any existing drug law because it didn’t fit
the definition of real marijuana or any other controlled substance defined
under current drug laws. The effects of these synthetic substances were
devastating and dangerous, with immediate and often irreversible negative
physiological and emotional reactions, and even death. Despite the evidence
that these products were dangerous, unscrupulous merchants in smoke shops
and head shops continued marketing the synthetic marijuana under various
exotic names, always on the theory that it was legal to do so, usually
targeting young purchasers. Because these compounds were not covered by
existing drug laws, police were powerless to remove them from store shelves
or even to confiscate them when found on kids.
Legislation introduced to make synthetic marijuana compounds illegal, to
give police and public health officials the tools to address this growing
public health emergency, stalled in the State Assembly. While waiting for
the political problems to sort themselves out, Governor Cuomo’s State
Department of Health issued an executive ban on these substances, which
authorized a civil proceeding to remove them from store shelves under threat
of fines. As well-intentioned as this stop-gap measure was, the process
would be slow, and in the end the sanctions would not be very burdensome to
the unscrupulous merchants. In the meantime, kids would still have
uncontrolled access to a product that they had no idea was so dangerous
until it was too late.
DA Suben took the initiative as one of the first District Attorneys in the
state to develop a local law to criminalize the sale or possession of
synthetic marijuana compounds, presented it to Cortland County Legislature,
which in May 2012 made Cortland one of the first counties in New York State
to give its police agencies the tools to remove these dangerous substances
wherever they found them, thus giving this community a weapon to address
this urgent and dangerous public health emergency affecting the kids. Mark
has been frank to say that he probably will not prosecute most kids caught
simply possessing the substances, but rather will save such prosecutions for
those distributing these poisons. Recently, Governor Cuomo strengthened the
state enforcement powers and penalties for synthetic compounds and bath
salts by executive order. Whenever the state passes legislation controlling
such substances, the county law will cease to have effect. In the meantime,
DA Suben has taken the initiative to protect our kids and fight the dealers
to whatever extent we can.
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