March 03, 2010

Ortloff sentencing delayed for fourth time until July 13 2010

Former Assemblyman and New York Parole Commissioner Chris Ortloff's sentencing on child sex charges has been delayed for a fourth time.

Ortloff's sentencing, scheduled this time for March 8, has been pushed back until 11 a.m. on July 13 in Albany, Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Spina said Monday. Ortloff remains in jail, however.

"The defense filed a memorandum requesting the adjournment, citing the need for additional time to respond to issues in the pre-sentencing investigation report and to provide the court with additional materials relevant to sentencing," Spina said.

The defense sent the letter to Judge Thomas J. McAvoy on Monday, Feb. 22, and he granted the four-month delay a day or two later. Spina said the number of delays is unusual, and he thinks this will be the last one.

"I don't think the judge is going to entertain any more requests," Spina said.

Full story:
Ortloff sentencing delayed 4th time (Adirondack Daily Enterprise, March 2 2010)
Ortloff sentencing pushed back again (Times Union Blog, March 1 2010) has the full text of the request for the delay in sentencing.
Ortloff sentencing delayed again (Press Republican, February 27 2010)

March 01, 2010

Building Bridges - March 2010 edition

The March edition of Building Bridges is now available from the Prison Action Network.

Items covered in this issue include:

1. Activities for advocates, statewide
2. Coalition initiates campaign for parole reform
3. ICARE on DOH oversight of DOCS HIV/AIDS treatment
4. Job opportunities
5. Know Your Rights Project for immigrant detainees
6. Legislation watch
7. Medicaid and disability program rules
8. Lifers and Longtermers Clearinghouse
9. NYS Prisoner Justice Conference
10.Parole News
11.Prison media: radio, video, print, theater
12.Transportation to prisons

Of particular interest to parole reform:

The Coalition for Fair Criminal Justice Policies are actively pursuing legislative sponsorship of their proposed revisions to Executive Law §259-i, the section of the parole statute which describes the way the NYS Board of Parole must operate. The Coalition will bring their proposed revision of Executive Law §259-i to the New York State Prisoner Justice Conference on March 27th.

Quoting from Building Bridges: "This work is a beginning step toward our larger purpose, which is to move the NYS criminal justice system as a whole toward a reintegrative model. This model engages a person, from the time of their arrest until their reintegration, in the development of a reintegration document which would identify the contributing factors leading up to the arrest, and the strengths and assets they might use, if so motivated, to return quickly to life as a productive citizen. It could be used to inform the bail hearing, the indictment, the attorneys, and the judge who would be guided by it in designing a sentence that provided specific recommendations for this particular person to prepare him or her for reintegration. And if the sentence included incarceration the document would continue to be revised as the person moved through the system, and when they completed the conditions of the sentence they would be released. Our revisions to Executive Law §259-i would enable people who have met specific criteria to be released. In that way, it conforms to this overall reintegrative model as best it can without the rest of the model in place. (In the case of an indeterminate sentence, the release would be to parole supervision and the conditions of parole would again be based on the reintegration document.)"

Building Bridges goes on to describe the steps required for the proposed revisions to Executive Law §259-i to be adopted by the Legislature in bill form.