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A police union and a murdered cop’s widow are blasting a former state parole commissioner who as soon as helped launch a cop killer and now backs an Albany invoice giving crime victims much less of a voice within the launch course of.
Carol Shapiro, a prison justice activist and social employee who resigned from the state parole board in 2019 after two years, testified on Dec. 7 in Albany in help of the “Fair & Timely Parole Act.”
Before a convicted felon is launched on parole or ordered to remain in jail, the prison’s victims are given an opportunity to talk earlier than — or submit a sufferer’s affect assertion to — the board.
But Shapiro slammed the sufferer affect course of as “unhealthy,” suggesting heartbroken family members are repeatedly pressured to “inform their tales.”
The “Fair & Timely Parole Act” would require the discharge of eligible prisoners except they current “a present and unreasonable danger,” and would focus the decision-making course of extra on the progress of the person behind bars than on the egregiousness of the crime.
The bill — S7514 — wouldn’t ban the grieving households from giving their affect statements, however would stop the parole board from making it a major think about denying parole.
“The sufferer has its say at sentencing,” Shapiro stated throughout her testimony.
The invoice sponsor, far-left state Sen. Julia Salazar, argued present regulation “makes the [parole] board vulnerable to political stress” in high-profile instances.
Shapiro was considered one of two parole commissioners of the three-member panel who voted for the April 2018 launch of Herman Bell, who killed two NYPD cops and was sprung on her watch after 40 years behind bars.
Bell, a former Black Panther and Black Liberation Army soldier, lured officers Joseph Piagentini, 28, and Waverly Jones, 33, to their deaths throughout an ambush in Harlem in 1971.
Shapiro’s testimony stung Piagentini’s widow.
“The parole commissioner who signed off on the discharge of considered one of my husband’s killers has completely no enterprise speaking about what’s ‘wholesome’ for me and my household,” Diane Piagentini informed The Post. “She is aware of precisely how painful it was for us to look at these assassins go free, as a result of we informed her. That is why the sufferer affect assertion is so essential.”
Bell was convicted in 1975, and had appeared earlier than the board seven instances since 2004. Each time Piagentini submitted a sufferer’s-impact assertion describing the trauma she and her two younger daughters endured. Parole was denied every time.
Bell, now 73, refused to indicate remorse or regret through the first 30 or so years of his 25-years-to-life sentence, insisting he was harmless and nothing greater than a “political prisoner.” Witnesses and buddies testified he overtly bragged concerning the killing. Finally, in 2012, Bell admitted to the board he performed a component within the murders and claimed he’s a “peaceable” man you’d need as a good friend.
Board commissioners Otis Cruse, Caryne Demosthenes and Shapiro heaped reward on Bell throughout his March 1, 2018 interview, according to a transcript exclusively obtained at the time by The Post.
“This absurd listening to and offensive testimony are simply extra proof that the parole board and their pro-criminal allies in Albany don’t care about crime victims or the protection of law-abiding New Yorkers,” fumed PBA President Pat Lynch, including. “This invoice would stifle their voices and the voices of different crime victims.”
Reached for remark Saturday, Shapiro stated, “I’ve nice empathy for people who find themselves victims of heinous offenses. However, I firmly consider the aim of parole is to evaluate the flexibility of somebody to go house safely and to not trigger harmsto themselves or others.”
