New York Times, October 10, 2004
A Little Help From His Friends
Editorial

The surprise release of Guy Velella from jail seems, on the surface, like ''Shawshank Redemption'' meets ''It's a Wonderful Life.'' Friends rally around the disgraced legislator as he struggles to survive incarceration. Then a city official, playing the role of Clarence the angel, sets him free as the music swells.

The reality was a bit different. Mr. Velella, the former state senator and Republican power broker, was sprung from Rikers Island after serving barely three months of an already light one-year sentence in a bribery case. In jail, he worked as a commissary clerk, not exactly hard time. Yet by pulling strings and dampening some hankies, he was able to play the system like a virtuoso. We should thank Mr. Velella for exposing flaws that need fixing.

At the center of the Velella drama is the Local Conditional Release Commission, a panel set up to ease overcrowded conditions in the jails in the days before crime started falling. Most New Yorkers have never heard of the commission. But Mr. Velella had. In fact, he voted to abolish it. What a twist of fate, then, that the commission ultimately came to his rescue. Its chairman, Raul Russi, believed that Mr. Velella had suffered enough -- a message Mr. Velella himself conveyed in tearful calls to the commission after it turned down his first request for early release. Then came an avalanche of laudatory letters, from friends and associates like former Mayor Edward Koch, all describing the Bronx and Westchester kingpin in words normally reserved for eulogies. The commission seems also to have been touched by the fact that Mr. Velella's crime cost him his Senate job and his license to practice law. But he is hardly destitute. He will continue to collect a lifetime pension of $80,000, and nothing prevents him from returning to Albany as -- what else? -- a lobbyist.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has begun an investigation of the Velella release. Already, though, it is clear that Mr. Velella was right the first time when he voted to disband the conditional release commission, which has granted early release to only 15 of the thousands of inmates who have appealed. The Legislature should also think about stripping the public's contribution to the pensions of members who, like Mr. Velella, abused the public trust. State Senator Liz Krueger has introduced a bill that would do just that.

Finally, it is time to look at how New York justice is unevenly meted out. The onerous Rockefeller drug laws impose long sentences on first-time offenders even for nonviolent crimes. Mr. Velella managed to cut a deal that allowed him to plead guilty to one felony count and avoid trial on 24 other counts. He began serving his time in June. Now, thanks not to good behavior but to a bad system, Mr. Velella will be home for the holidays.