According to a story from last week, an assistant to New York Attorney General Letitia James may face criminal charges for vandalism.
Charges of criminal tampering may be brought against Assistant Attorney General Stacey Hamilton for allegedly damaging a neighbor’s car in November by hurling an unidentified liquid on it.
Hamilton’s attorney allegedly accused the office of Albany County District Attorney David Soares of “unfair treatment” even though the matter was given to a separate special prosecutor by appointment.
Because former President Donald Trump and his business are facing civil fraud accusations, James and her agency have been in the news nationally in recent months. Following the investigation, the former president was the target of a successful business fraud action that resulted in a judgement of approximately $464 million, which has since been reduced to $175 million.
Newsweek stated that the claimed complaint against Hamilton, however, has nothing to do with Trump and is instead about a supposed disagreement or incident involving the assistant attorney general and her neighbour.
On November 16, a neighbour reported vandalism to the police. The neighbour allegedly told the Times-Union that Hamilton had damaged the paint on his car by pouring unidentified substances on it.
Kevin Gagan, Hamilton’s attorney, claims that on the same evening as the alleged vandalism incident, the assistant attorney general was physically attacked by the car owner’s girlfriend. The girlfriend is currently being charged with misdemeanour assault.
“Get [Hamilton] arrested and to get into the papers to embarrass her so that she would drop the criminal case against this guy’s girlfriend—that’s the whole case,” asserted Gagan, claiming the vandalism charge was made up.
Additionally, he asserted that the reason the Soares office was “pulling the strings behind this” was because of “maybe some personal animosity between” Hamilton’s former coworker and the guy who works there.
The agency told the newspaper that there was “absolutely no truth to claims of behind-the-scenes manipulation by any member of our office” and that it was not involved in Hamilton’s alleged prosecution.
Hamilton, the assistant attorney general, was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday to address the vandalism allegations against her, according to sources. But City Court Judge John Reilly has rescheduled the hearing for April 17.
She may spend up to 90 days in jail if she is found guilty of third-degree criminal tampering.