SUFFOLK COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY RAY TIERNEY ANNOUNCES SWEEPING CHANGES IN STAFF,  ORGANIZATION AND THE CREATION OF A NEW BUREAU TO COMBAT GUN AND GANG VIOLENCE

(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced the creation of a new bureau and personnel moves that illustrate his vow to remove politics and special interests from the pursuit of justice and to keep communities safe countywide.

“I am excited to finally begin the important work of this Office.  When it comes to law enforcement issues that affect their health and welfare, I have received a mandate from the People of Suffolk County. I am committed to having a team that is independent, fair, effective and singularly focused on keeping all Suffolk County residents safe,” said Tierney. “This team and the creation of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau represents the future of pursuing justice in Suffolk County and reinforces my commitment to serve all of the citizens of the county.” 

Tierney has formed a new bureau, the Violent Criminal Enterprises (VCE) Bureau, which was created to combat gun violence and criminal activity perpetrated by gangs and criminal organizations operating in Suffolk County. The bureau will use multiple investigative strategies, including sophisticated crime scene and data analysis to build successful conspiracy and enterprise corruption cases against offenders to incapacitate and dismantle these violent enterprises.

“Combatting violence through an ongoing and coordinated approach using the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau will make the people of Suffolk County safer,” stated DA Tierney.

In addition, Tierney re-organized the Office’s legal staff into five divisions containing bureaus as follows:

• The Criminal Investigations Division will contain the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau and the Narcotics Bureau.
• The Conviction Integrity Division will contain the Conviction Integrity Bureau and the Appeals and Training Bureau.
• The Intake and District Court Division will contain the Intake Bureau and the District Court Bureau.
• The Trial Division will contain the Felony Offense Bureau, the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau, the East End Bureau and the Case Advisory Bureau.
• The Special Investigations Division will contain the Financial Investigations and Money Laundering Bureau, the Public Corruption Bureau, the Finance and Asset Forfeiture Bureau and the Vehicular Crime Bureau.

Tierney also made the following appointments to his executive team:

• Allen L. Bode as Chief Assistant District Attorney. Bode is a graduate from the University of Chicago School of Law who began his career as a prosecutor in the Queens District Attorney’s office in 1997. In 2003, Bode joined the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York (EDNY) where he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief in the Long Island Criminal Division until 2020. In 2020, Bode was appointed Chief of the EDNY International Narcotics and Money Laundering Section where he served until December 2021. The bureaus within the Conviction Integrity Division (the Appeals and Training Bureau and the Conviction Integrity Bureau) will report directly to Bode.
• Christopher J. Clayton as Special Counsel to the District Attorney and as Division Chief for the Special Investigations Division. A graduate from The George Washington University and Syracuse University College of Law, Clayton served as an ADA in Suffolk County from 1992 to 2001, primarily in the Major Crime and Homicide bureaus. Clayton is a two-time recipient of the Suffolk County District Attorney's Distinguished Trial Advocacy Award for his efforts in the prosecution of Ralph Oyague and Frederick Hutzenlaub, wherein Oyague shot a Suffolk County police officer during a bank robbery and for his participation in the First-Degree Murder trial of Stephan Lavalle. Clayton left private practice to join the team after 21 years at Ingerman Smith, LLP, where he was a partner and served on the firm’s management committee. Clayton worked as general and labor counsel in the representation of public and private schools and school districts, colleges and municipalities.  He has also been appointed as an adjunct lecturer at Stony Brook University where he instructed master’s degree candidates in the School of Professional Development.
• Jed L. Painter as General Counsel. Jed was recruited from the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office where he worked as an ADA since 2007 following his graduation from St. John’s University School of Law. In 2013, Painter was appointed as Counsel and in 2019 as General Counsel to the Nassau County District Attorney, where he served until December 2021. Following Hurricane Sandy, Jed served on the Governor’s Moreland Act Commission on Utility Storm Preparation. In 2018, he was appointed a Special Deputy Attorney General for the investigation into former Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Jed is a Practice Commentator for Thomson West New York State Agriculture and Markets Law and serves as an Advisory Member on the New York State Chief Judge’s Justice Task Force. Jed has been the recipient of the United States Humane Law Enforcement Award from the National Sheriff’s Association and the Humane Society of the United States (2016) and the Prosecutor of the Year Award from the New York Prosecutors Training Institute (2019).
• Richard Zacarese as Chief Investigator. Rich began his law enforcement career in 1999 and served over 22 years with the New York City Police Department mostly working in an investigative capacity, both conducting and supervising investigations in different ranks. He started as a Police Officer in the Queens Gang Squad through the Executive Director of Criminal Investigations. Zacarese worked across all five boroughs in New York City, where he formed partnerships with all prosecuting agencies throughout the city to conduct complex investigations into violent individuals and gang organizations for a variety of crimes, including: homicides, non-fatal shootings, robbery patterns, firearms possession, firearms sales, and narcotics distribution. Zacarese created his own method of breaking down complex investigations to obtain the most compelling evidence resulting in the convictions of a countless number of the most violent criminals in New York City. Throughout his career, Zacarese has focused on conducting precise investigations on the most violent individuals and created new and innovative investigative techniques that respond to current trends in crime.
• James G. Chalifoux as Division Chief for the Trial Division. Chalifoux has nearly 30 years of experience as a prosecutor, having joined the Office in January 1993 following his graduation from Albany Law School. During his career, Chalifoux has served in nearly every Bureau, including District Court, Case Advisory Bureau, Major Crime, Public Integrity, Special Investigations and Homicide. During his time in Homicide, Chalifoux successfully prosecuted numerous high-profile cases, including the prosecution of Medford Pharmacy killer David Laffer who shot four people at a Medford pharmacy on Father’s Day. In 2010, James was promoted to Deputy Bureau Chief of the Major Crime Bureau. In 2020, he was appointed to serve as the Deputy Bureau Chief of the Homicide Bureau.
• Megan O’Donnell as Division Chief for the Criminal Investigations Division and the Intake and District Court Division. O’Donnell began her career in the Office in 1998 after graduating from Hofstra University’s School of Law. O’Donnell served as a trial attorney throughout various bureaus where she prosecuted a gamut of crimes, including sexual assaults, gang violence, major narcotics offenses and homicides, including the 2008 prosecution of the “Patchogue Seven” for their involvement in the death of Ecuadorian immigrant Marcelo Lucero. In 2010, O’Donnell received the Prosecutor of the Year Award from the New York Prosecutors Training Institute. In 2010, O’Donnell was named Attorney-In-Charge of the Anti-Gang Unit, and shortly thereafter Deputy Bureau Chief of the Special Investigations Bureau. In 2013, O’Donnell left the Office, to litigate cases in Federal Court as an Assistant County Attorney. In 2018, O’Donnell returned to the Office as a Division Chief.
• Leslie B. Anderson as an Executive Assistant District Attorney for Community Partnerships and Engagement. In 1991, after graduating from Union University, Albany Law School, Anderson was hired by then-District Attorney James M. Catterson, Jr., as ADA. For more than 10 years, she prosecuted and tried cases in the District Court Bureau, Case Advisory and Major Crime Bureaus.  In 1998, Anderson established and acted as Unit Chief for the Gang Investigations Unit until leaving the Office in 2002. Between 2003 and 2018, Anderson worked as a Principal Attorney at the Grievance Committee for the 10th Judicial District, which prosecutes attorney misconduct. In 2018, she rejoined the office as an Executive Deputy Bureau Chief focused on gang suppression, special projects and community relations. In March 2021, she was promoted to Executive Assistant District Attorney.
• Tania Lopez as Director of Communications. Lopez joins the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office after having previously served as deputy press secretary for New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli since 2016. Lopez is a former award-winning journalist having worked 17 years in newspaper journalism. Prior to graduating from New York University in 2001, Lopez worked as a news assistant for The Wall Street Journal’s Overseas Copy Desk for two years. She then interned at New York Newsday in Queens where she eventually covered the Sept. 11 attacks with a team of reporters. From 2002 to 2004, Lopez covered education for the Belleville News-Democrat in Illinois before she was recruited to Indiana to cover various beats for The Indianapolis Star where she remained for nearly seven years. In 2011, she returned to Newsday where she covered crime and corruption in Suffolk County and various high-profile stories. In 2016, Lopez was nominated for an Emmy for her work as an associate producer on the Newsday documentary “Gilgo: Five Years Later.”
• Catherine Loeffler as Special Advisor to the District Attorney. Loeffler serves on the Executive Team while overseeing the District Court Bureau as Bureau Chief. Following graduation from CUNY at Queens College Law School, Loeffler began her career in 1993, serving as a prosecutor in the District Court Bureau. She also served in the Case Advisory, Major Crimes and Narcotics Bureaus where she prosecuted several persistent mandatory felony offenders as well as a narcotics wiretap consisting of 90 defendants. In 2005, Loeffler became Trial Supervisor of the District Court Bureau and was then promoted to Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Court Bureau in 2011. Loeffler served as Acting Bureau Chief of the East End Bureau from July 2016 to December 2017 before she became Bureau Chief of the District Court Bureau in January 2018.

Tierney additionally made the following appointments and promotions:

• James Slattery as the Bureau Chief of the newly formed Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau (VCE). Slattery graduated from Fordham University School of Law in 2012 and served as a prosecutor in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office from 2013 until December 2021. At the Kings County DA’s Office, Slattery served within the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau where he was promoted to Senior Assistant District Attorney in 2017 and Deputy Bureau Chief of Gangs in 2021. He was appointed a Special Assistant United States Attorney for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York in 2021 working within the Rapid and Strategic Prosecution Bureau and Organized Crime and Gangs Bureau.
• Kevin Ward to the position of Bureau Chief of the Public Integrity Bureau;
• Lucie Kwon-Cho to the position of Bureau Chief of the Financial Investigations and Money Laundering Bureau;
• Raphael Pearl to the position of Acting Bureau Chief of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau.
• Jessica Spencer to the position of Acting Deputy Bureau Chief of the Violent Criminal Enterprises Bureau;
• Lawrence Opisso to the position of Deputy Bureau Chief of the Felony Offense Bureau;
• Elizabeth Creighton to the position of Deputy Bureau Chief of the Felony Offense Bureau; and
• Shauna Kerr to the position of Acting Deputy Bureau Chief/Attorney in Charge of the Domestic Violence Unit.
• Laura E. Carroll to the position of Deputy Bureau Chief of the Appeals and Training Bureau. Carroll will serve as the office’s Training Coordinator. She is a graduate of Bay Shore High School, Binghamton University, and Albany Law School. Carroll began her career as a prosecutor in the Office of the Queens District Attorney in 1997. In 2003, she joined the law firm Shaub, Ahmuty, Citrin and Spratt, as an associate. Carroll resumed her career as a prosecutor in 2007, when she was appointed as Deputy Bureau Chief in the Office of the Nassau County District Attorney’s Litigation Division, supervising prosecutions in both the District Court and Felony Screening Bureaus. In 2016, Carroll was appointed as Director of Training for the Nassau District Attorney, where she served until December 2021.
• Kathleen Kearon to the position of Acting Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Court Bureau.
• Dara Martin-Orlando to the position of Acting Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Court Bureau.
• Jean Graf-Mayer as an Assistant Special Investigator assigned to the VCE Bureau. Graf-Mayer served as a detective for ten years with the New York City Police Department, including seven years spent as an investigator within the Detective Bureau’s Gun Violence Suppression Division. She had a lead role in conducting the analysis and identification of gang-related violence throughout New York City. She participated in the investigation of approximately ten high-profile conspiracy cases, resulting in large scale gang take-downs and the successful prosecution of over 150 violent gang offenders. In addition, Graf-Mayer facilitated the prosecution of countless homicides, non-fatal shootings and shots-fired incidents by identifying, preparing and presenting the cumulative evidence for the District Attorney’s Offices of New York City. Graf-Mayer was selected to work alongside the Executive Director of Criminal Investigations to train specialized units within the NYPD so that they were provided the proper tools and knowledge to ensure the successful prosecutions of their cases. After completing her Associate Degree in Applied Science for Paralegal Studies from Suffolk County Community College, and Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Dowling College, Graf-Mayer continued on to receive her Juris Doctor from Touro Law Center.

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Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.

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