During an investigation that last year broke up a narcotics pipeline that trafficked heroin and other drugs from Mexico to Long Island, then Nassau County Assistant District Attorney Madeline Singas saw something she’d never before seen in her career as a prosecutor.
It was black tar heroin, lodged in the lining in the engine block of a sport utility vehicle driven up the east coast and stored at a body shop in Queens, made to appear like the gunk that builds up in between maintenance, said Singas, who was appointed to serve as Acting District Attorney in January following Kathleen Rice’s election to Congress.
“It never ceases to amaze me how crafty criminals can be,” Singas, 48, of Manhasset, said Friday in a sit-down interview with Blank Slate Media. “As criminals get more and more sophisticated, law enforcement needs to get more sophisticated.”
In the eight years Singas spent working under Rice, the office kept pace with criminals, she said, through the matching of modernized resources with investigative practices.
Though the office is now hers to run, Singas said she wants to keep the operation “business as usual.”
“Kathleen Rice ran many exciting and innovative programs and I intend to continue them,” she said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done on drunk driving and enhancing some of the legislation that goes along with drunk driving, gang violence, the heroin epidemic.”
“My background is in special victims and domestic violence, and I think those are the things I care deeply about,” she added. “I’d like to continue making sure women and children are safe against domestic violence, sexual violence.”
In recent years, Nassau County has become safer.
Since 2009, overall crime has dropped by 25 percent, according to county crime figures announced in January, and violent crime fell 9.5 percent from 2013 to 1014.
To maintain low crime rates, Singas said collaboration between law enforcement entities – like the efforts of the DA’s office, Nassau County Police and various federal agencies that brought down the drug pipeline – needs to be more frequent.
“I’ve spoken with victims of violent crime, to families of murder victims, to children who’ve been sexually abused, women who’ve been battered, people who’ve been financially wronged, so it’s always hard to say which crime it is we want to focus on because after you’ve dealt with all of those, it’s hard to put a value on whose victimization has taken more priority,” she said. “I don’t want to do that because I value every person’s experience with the criminal justice system. Public safety is our No. 1 concern.”
A first-generation Greek American who grew up in Astoria, Singas began her career as a prosecutor in Queens County in 1991 and was later promoted to a leadership position within its Domestic Violence bureau. She holds degrees from Columbia University and Fordham University Law School.
Shortly after Rice was elected to represent New York’s Fourth Congressional District last November, Singas announced she would seek the district attorney’s position in the 2015 general election and assumed the DA position in January after Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not name a successor to Rice.
In her interview Friday, Singas declined to comment on whether she has been in contact with Cuomo’s office about the position. If the governor does not nominate a district attorney, Singas would serve as acting district attorney until a candidate is elected in November.
“[Announcing my candidacy] was important for me and the office to know it was something I was planning on doing. I was committed to staying the course and running and that was important for the community to know that, that there wasn’t going to be this upheaval and then another upheaval in November,” she said.
Despite raising $411,221 in the first filing period for the general election, according to campaign finance records, Singas said her name recognition within the county would be crucial to strengthening of her candidacy in the next year.
“In the law enforcement community I’m known because I’ve been doing this a long time, but outside my own neighborhood I don’t think people know me,” she said. “The response has been great and we’ve raised a lot of money initially, which was impressive. Something about my story and experience really resonates with people and I’ve had nothing but positive feedback. It’s very motivating.
