Democrats Hate Americans - 215 convicted killers were set free in Spitzer's first year as governor

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2008/01/27/2008-01-27_215_convicted_killers_were_set_free_in_s-3.html

215 convicted killers were set free in Spitzer's first year as governor

Sunday, January 27th 2008, 4:00 AM

They've murdered children, set deadly fires and destroyed lives in moments

of rage. They went to prison and could have spent the rest of their lives

behind bars.

Instead, they are free.

Dozens of cold-blooded killers who repeatedly begged to be released have in

the last year gotten their wish in record numbers.

In all, 235 violent felons, including 215 convicted murderers, have been

released by the state parole board in the first year of Gov. Spitzer's

administration, records show. That's 58% more than the 148 violent felons

paroled in 2006, the last year of Gov. Pataki's tenure.

Some were locked away for crimes so heinous that previous state Parole

Boards refused to set them free up to five times before their luck changed

under the Spitzer administration, a Daily News analysis has found.

The Spitzer administration at first refused to reveal the number of

convicted murderers released on parole last year. After The News used a list

of inmates suing the state to find 70 inmates convicted of murder in N.Y.C.,

the administration released the whole list. Among them:

College student Jose Parmes was 27 in 1981 when he hurled his 10-month-old

daughter out a sixth-floor window after fatally stabbing girlfriend Iris

Torres, 28, and cutting off her left ear. Parmes jumped out the same window.

His daughter landed on a second-floor fire escape and survived. Parmes, now

54, got 16 years to life in 1982. He was released in May after being denied

parole four times.

Frank DiChiara was 35 when he fatally shot 13-year-old Germania Zurlo in

February 1978. She'd arrived home from religious instruction to find him

rifling through her Brooklyn apartment. He was sentenced to life in prison

in 1979 and released in September after twice being denied parole. He's 65.

Louis Mortillaro was a 28-year-old bank teller when he went to the Brooklyn

home of his estranged wife, Doreen, in 1983 and plunged a knife into her

neck, face and back as the couple's 11-month-old daughter watched from a

playpen. Detectives found Mortillaro drinking in a bar blocks from the crime

scene. Mortillaro, 49, was freed in November.

Though the crimes occurred decades ago, the hurt remains for the families of

those whose lives were taken away.

Edna Cushman still remembers her sister-in-law, Genevieve Cushman, as a

caring 67-year-old who should have lived much longer.

"She was a very sweet and kind woman who liked to knit and crochet," her

sister-in-law said.

Genevieve Cushman died in 1981 when Richard Powers, then 18 and on work

release from a cocaine sale conviction in Westchester County, became enraged

at a girlfriend he believed was cheating on him. Powers poured gasoline in

the basement of the girlfriend's Yonkers apartment building and lit a match.

The girlfriend escaped the resulting inferno; Genevieve Cushman did not.

Last summer Powers appeared before the parole board. He'd become a talented

magician behind bars - and used his sleight-of-hand skills to convince the

parole board to make him vanish from prison.

Powers made a silver chip seem to disappear, though he suggested he could

have done the trick better if he was wearing jeans instead of "state pants."

"That's very clever," said Commissioner Kevin Ludlow, according to a

transcript of the hearing. He was released Aug. 30 at age 46.

Cushman says she was never told Powers was about to be released. "No one

ever told me he was coming up for parole," Cushman told The News. "I'm just

finding out from you that he was released."

Critics blame the Spitzer administration for unlatching prison doors after

years of Pataki's gleefully throwing away the key.

"Keeping hardened criminals in prison has gotten us great results, so it's

unfortunate the pendulum is swinging back to a liberal mentality that

jeopardizes our ability to live safely in our homes," said Brooklyn State

Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican and ex-cop.

The Pataki position is clear in a letter his corrections commissioner, Glenn

Goord, wrote to the wife of a Bronx killer vowing to "build all the cells

necessary to incarcerate for the rest of their natural lives such

cold-blooded killers as [her husband]. I am sure the children of his murder

victim support our decision."

In 2006, the last year of the Pataki administration, the parole rate for

violent felons was 12%. In the first year of the Spitzer administration, it

was 18%.

A suit pending in Manhattan Federal Court alleges the Pataki parole board

wrongfully denied hundreds of inmates parole solely due to the nature of

their crimes.

If their challenge is successful, many more killers could win new hearings

and walk free.

The suit was recently certified as a class action on behalf of some 1,000

killers, arguing that the parole board should consider other factors, like

remorse and rehabilitation.