MID-HUDSON – Police chiefs in the seven-county Mid-Hudson region have criticized Governor Cuomo for commuting the sentence of Judith Clark, one of the Brinks armored car robbers in Rockland County in 1981. Three law enforcement officers were killed in that robbery.
A letter to Cuomo from Saugerties Police Chief Joseph Sinagra, president of the Mid-Hudson Association of Chiefs of Police, said, “The callous exercise of the discretionary powers you possess as the governor of this state was nothing short of your total disregard to each and every one of us who wear the badge and put our lives on the line each and every day, in order to protect and serve your constituents.”
In Sinagra’s view, no convicted killer should be paroled as it sends out the wrong message to other criminals.
“Not only do we have an individual that participated in the homicide of three individuals, but this person is a terrorist, and admittedly a terrorist, was involved in stealing $1.6 million in furtherance of terrorist activity,” he said. “We don’t deal with terrorists; we should not be giving clemency to terrorists, we should not be commuting terrorist offenses, and to me this was a gross miscarriage of justice on the part of the governor and I think it was irresponsible what he did.”
It will be up to the state parole board as to if Clark will actually be released from prison.
Sinagra told the governor that his commutation, which he called “your nonsensical decision,” was “arbitrarily and blatantly” granted.
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