David Soares
Encyclopedia
P. David Soares is the current Albany County
Albany County, New York
Albany County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, and is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name is from the title of the Duke of York and Albany, who became James II of England . As of the 2010 census, the population was 304,204...

 District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

. He is a Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

.

Personal life

Soares was the youngest of the six children of Lucas and Lidia Soares. When he was six years old his family moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Pawtucket is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 71,148 at the 2010 census. It is the fourth largest city in the state.-History:...

. He received a Bachelor's Degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...

 in communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

s from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. He graduated from Albany Law School
Albany Law School
Albany Law School is an ABA accredited law school based in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1851 by Amos Dean , Amasa Parker, Ira Harris and others....

 in 1999. He married Tina Pantuso and they have two children.

Law career

Soares worked his way through Albany Law School
Albany Law School
Albany Law School is an ABA accredited law school based in Albany, New York. It was founded in 1851 by Amos Dean , Amasa Parker, Ira Harris and others....

 as an intern for the Albany International Airport
Albany International Airport
Albany International Airport is a public use airport located six nautical miles northwest of the central business district of Albany, in Albany County, New York, United States. It is owned by the Albany County Airport Authority....

 Authority, and later for the Albany County, New York
Albany County, New York
Albany County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York, and is part of the Albany-Schenectady-Troy Metropolitan Statistical Area. The name is from the title of the Duke of York and Albany, who became James II of England . As of the 2010 census, the population was 304,204...

 District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

's office. He also worked with the Albany Law School AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 law clinic for prisoners' legal services. Upon graduation, he was hired as an assistant district attorney by then-DA Sol Greenberg.

2004 election

On November 2, 2004, Soares was elected DA. He defeated incumbent District Attorney Paul Clyne
Paul Clyne
Paul Clyne was the District Attorney of Albany County, New York from January 2001 through December 2004. A graduate of Albany Law School, he spent about 14 years as an assistant district attorney, before he was tapped by local politicians to replace the retiring District Attorney, Sol Greenberg...

 in a primary and in the general election he defeated Clyne (Independence Party
Independence Party of New York
The Independence Party is an affiliate in the U.S. state of New York of the Independence Party of America. The party was founded in 1991 by Dr. Gordon Black, Tom Golisano, and Laureen Oliver from Rochester, New York, and acquired ballot status in 1994...

) and Roger J. Cusick (Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...

).


September 2004 Democratic Primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....

 for district attorney
  • David Soares, 14,909 votes, or 60.5%
  • Paul Clyne
    Paul Clyne
    Paul Clyne was the District Attorney of Albany County, New York from January 2001 through December 2004. A graduate of Albany Law School, he spent about 14 years as an assistant district attorney, before he was tapped by local politicians to replace the retiring District Attorney, Sol Greenberg...

    , 9,741 votes, or 39.5%


November 2004 election for district attorney
  • David Soares (D), 75,610 votes, or 54.6%
  • Roger J. Cusick (R), 57,202 votes, 41.3%
  • Paul Clyne
    Paul Clyne
    Paul Clyne was the District Attorney of Albany County, New York from January 2001 through December 2004. A graduate of Albany Law School, he spent about 14 years as an assistant district attorney, before he was tapped by local politicians to replace the retiring District Attorney, Sol Greenberg...

     (I), 5,677 votes, or 4.1%


Prior to the Democratic primary election for DA of Albany County, New York, Paul Clyne had been considered a "shoo-in" incumbent by the local political establishment. This prediction, however, failed to materialize when Soares won by a landslide. As a result, one particular important New York political pundit, WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer, called Soares' victory one of the "most stunning political upsets" in New York history. The New York Times noted the unusual nature of that unset the day that almost all incumbent
Incumbent
The incumbent, in politics, is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used in reference to elections, in which races can often be defined as being between an incumbent and non-incumbent. For example, in the 2004 United States presidential election, George W...

s won easy re-election.

Political career plans

There was speculation in early 2007 in the local and national media that Soares may run for re-election as DA, or for higher office, in 2008.

Soares was featured in Vibe Magazine, in which interview he discussed his goals and hopes for his career. On October 26, 2007, Soares was mentioned in the largest local daily newspaper as a possible replacement for Congressman Mike McNulty
Michael R. McNulty
Michael Robert "Mike" McNulty is a politician from the U.S. state of New York. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1989 to 2009, initially representing New York's 23rd congressional district and then, after redistricting, New York's 21st congressional district...

 in the 2008 race for Congress in the 21st congressional district of New York. However, he has opted to run for re-election instead.

Former DA Clyne, who lost to current DA Soares by a landslide in the 2004 Democratic primaries, initially contemplated opposing his successor for re-election; but eventually he decided not to run. For a moment it looked as though Soares might run unopposed since no candidate from either major parties, Democratic or Republican, had filed to run for the office of District Attorney of Albany County before the deadline to file expired. However, since there was still time left for independent candidates to file, Roger Cusick, a Republican, who had opposed DA Soares in 2004 and lost, declared himself as an independent candidate on August 18, one day before the deadline to file as an independent candidate would have expired. Cusick was able to get enough signatures to put himself in the ballot list. He once again opposed DA Soares in the November election.

Political criticism

Soares has faced some criticism. His drug policy reform position has been disputed by at least one defense lawyer, while some members of Albany police and others consider Soares as "soft" on drug crimes. He has been criticized for his prosecution of defendants from Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 for selling steroids to residents of Albany County.

Some feel the criticism is politically motivated, and his supporters and independent pundits applaud Soares's progressive approach to criminal prosecution in Albany County. In an editorial, the Times Union noted, "Mr. Soares has rightly concluded that it would serve no purpose to seek a perjury indictment of Mr. Spitzer because the former governor did not speak with the district attorney's office under oath." He claims to be "unfazed by critics." In any case, he was re-elected by the voters by a landslide in the 2008 election.

2008 re-election

In November 2008, Soares won re-election by a landslide, 73 to 27 %, with a 50,000 vote margin.

November 2008 election for district attorney
  • P. David Soares (D), 80,441 votes, or 73 %
  • Roger J. Cusick (I), 29,128 votes, or 27 %


After a canvass, including the counting of all absentee ballot
Absentee ballot
An absentee ballot is a vote cast by someone who is unable or unwilling to attend the official polling station. Numerous methods have been devised to facilitate this...

s, the vote was 75,857 for Soares on the Democratic line, 6,548 on the Independence Party line, and 4,882 on the Working Families Party
Working Families Party
The Working Families Party is a minor political party in the United States founded in New York in 1998. There are "sister" parties to the New York WFP in Connecticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon, but there is as yet no national WFP...

 line, for a total of 87,287. Cusick received 31,996 votes, and there were 24 "scattered" and "void", or write-in votes. There were 29,526 blank votes.

Murder of Peter Porco

Soares' office's first big case was the murder case of Peter Porco, an attorney, in 2005. ADA Michael McDermott secured a guilty verdict for the murder against his son, Christopher Porco.

Government integrity prosecutions

In October 2006, Soares opened an investigation into New York State Comptroller
New York State Comptroller
The New York State Comptroller is a state cabinet officer of the U.S. state of New York. The duties of the comptroller include auditing government operations and operating the state's retirement system.-History:...

 Alan Hevesi
Alan Hevesi
Alan G. Hevesi is a Democratic politician whoserved as a New York State Assemblyman from 1971 to 1993, as Comptroller of the City of New York from 1994 to 2001, and as State Comptroller for the State of New York from 2003 to 2006...

 on allegations of defrauding the government. On December 22, 2006, Hevesi accepted a plea bargain from Soares which called for Hevesi to plead guilty to one count of defrauding the government based on his personal use of state employees to care for his ailing wife, in lieu of a grand jury indictment.

On January 3, 2007, Soares said he would open investigations into wrongdoings in the New York state departments of Education, Health, Motor Vehicles, Labor and Insurance.

Soares investigated the so-called Troopergate
Eliot Spitzer political surveillance controversy
The Eliot Spitzer political surveillance scandal broke out on July 23, 2007 when New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office admonished Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer's administration for ordering the State Police to create special records of Senate majority leader Joseph L...

 scandal in August and September 2007, and found that Governor Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Spitzer
Eliot Laurence Spitzer is an American lawyer, former Democratic Party politician, and political commentator. He was the co-host of In the Arena, a talk-show and punditry forum broadcast on CNN until CNN cancelled his show in July of 2011...

 and his staff broke no laws. He re-opened his investigation amid much criticism.

Steroids prosecutions

The Albany Country DA's office under Soares has prosecuted several defendants for selling illegal steroid
Steroid
A steroid is a type of organic compound that contains a characteristic arrangement of four cycloalkane rings that are joined to each other. Examples of steroids include the dietary fat cholesterol, the sex hormones estradiol and testosterone, and the anti-inflammatory drug dexamethasone.The core...

s to Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 players, and representatives of the Mitchell Commission
Mitchell Report (baseball)
The Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball, informally known as the "Mitchell Report", is the result of former Democratic United States Senator from Maine...

 met at least twice with Soares over this issue. Soares secured the conviction of a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

who prescribed steroids to baseball players and other persons who the doctor had never examined.

External links

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