This year’s race for district attorney in New York’s Brooklyn borough is as convoluted as any Washington scandal, says the New York Times. The main characters are an incumbent withh a reputation for prickliness, a former candidate now facing felony charges, and a former ally, turned bitter enemy, whose goal is to get the district attorney tossed out. Some enemies of District Attorney Charles J. Hynes charge that Hynes finds ways to prosecute those who oppose him. Hynes, 69, a Democrat running for a fifth term, says he is the victim of a disinformation campaign.
That doesn’t stop the accusations. “When I started to think about running for D.A., more than one person said to me, ‘you better be clean as a whistle and, even if you are, you might still get indicted,’ ” said David Yassky, a Democratic Brooklyn councilman who says he may challenge Hynes. Behind many of the accusations is John Kennedy O’Hara, a 43-year-old Brooklyn native who revels in mischievous political campaigns and long-running battles that seem extremely personal. For years beginning in 1996, O’Hara waged a determined fight against criminal charges that were filed against him by Hynes’s office. Prosecutors said he voted in five elections in a district in which he did not live.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/06/nyregion/06oppose.html?oref=login