Bronx Prosecutor Slammed for Alleged 2d DWI



Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Toiano

 DWI, OVI, DUI, OWI...it's all the same, an alphabet soup meaning the driver was drunk.  Yesterday, the NY Post was blasting an assistant Bronx District Attorney or ADA for continuing to prosecute cases while charges of DWI or whatever they call it in NYC are pending against her.  This is the Post account:

The Bronx assistant DA charged with drunken driving and suspected of using her juice to make an earlier DWI disappear is still prosecuting an amazing 75 cases -- which cops and defense lawyers yesterday called the height of hypocrisy.   'She should be fired outright. Anyone else would have been dismissed from their job a long time ago,' a police source said. 'She's a total disgrace to the Bronx DA's Office.'

Jennifer Troiano, 34, was arrested last August after she was found 'stumbling, falling down . . . on the cellphone walking in lanes of traffic"' after an accident on the Major Deegan Expressway, police said. She is awaiting trial for that arrest and also under investigation for a December 2009 incident, when she was brought to the 44th Precinct on suspicion of DWI only to have the arrest disappear after someone called the officers on her behalf, police sources have said.
But those two black eyes have yet to block her career path with the DA's office, where she works out of the Arson, Auto, Economic Crime Bureau. Her last trial was in March, and "She's in court all the time," a law-enforcement source told The Post.

Troiano's lenient treatment was especially infuriating to police officers, who face automatic 30-day suspensions and other disciplinary action if they are arrested.  'We don't even have to be arrested to be put on administrative leave or modified duty,' a Bronx cop said. 'Anybody can make an allegation against us and they take away your gun and badge so fast you won't believe it.'

The anger also extends to Troiano's own office.

'A lot of people in the DA's office are pissed,' said a defense lawyer who regularly works out of the Bronx courts. 'And we're like, how are you keeping your job?'

Steven Reed, a spokesman for Bronx DA Robert Johnson, said the office does not discipline employees based solely on arrests.

Cops and another defense lawyer found it ironic that a member of the DA's office investigating the massive NYPD ticket-fixing scandal may have had her own ticket fixed.   'If they're investigating cops, I don't understand why they're not investigating her,' said a lawyer defending a case Troiano is prosecuting.

The NYPD is only investigating whether precinct cops helped Troiano after her alleged non-arrest for DWI.

Troiano has declined comment.
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A couple of observations:  Miss Troiano is accused or alleged  to have committed these offenses not convicted of anything, yet, although you'd not know that from the tenor of this diatribe. . . , um, story.  Secondly, Miss Troiano must not have made many friends among the cops, press, et al.  Referencing the Bad Lawyer archives should demonstrate that I'm no friend of drunk drivers, especially when they have law licenses, this story is pretty over the top.  It makes me wonder who's dog, Ms. Troiano kicked.