He was the very first African-American magistrate to head the Manhattan prosecutor’s office: Alvin Bragg entered the history books by indicting Donald Trump, an unprecedented fact for a former American president.
This 49-year-old Democrat, elected in November 2021 – like all judges and magistrates in the United States – New York State Attorney for Manhattan jurisdiction, officially charged Donald Trump with a $ 130,000 payment case, just before his 2016 presidential victory, to an X-film actress, Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair.
The former president is expected to appear on Tuesday, according to his lawyer.
In office since January 1, 2022, Mr. Bragg, born in Harlem in northern Manhattan, immediately became known for his progressive positions on criminal and law enforcement policy.
Attracting the wrath of Republican conservatives, including in New York, he has shown his desire to seek alternatives to prison for minor offenses and on the contrary to put pressure on white-collar and financial crime.
Having grown up in the Harlem district in the 1980s and 1990s, he said in 2021 that he had been “deeply marked by the criminal chain, including by attending three unconstitutional arrests, weapon in hand, by the NYPD”, the police of New York, whose behavior towards black and Hispanic minorities has often been decried.
– “Without trust, there is no security” –
“Without trust, there can be no total public safety”, had launched to the press the lawyer left Harvard and who worked for the attorney general of the State of New York (equivalent to a local minister of the Justice, editor’s note) and for the federal prosecutor’s office which also sits at the Manhattan courthouse.
The judicial system in the United States has a federal order of prosecutors and courts present in each state and attached to the Department of Justice in Washington, and a local order of prosecutors and courts for each federated state.
Succeeding prosecutor Cyrus Vance in January 2022, Alvin Bragg announces from the start that he will no longer prosecute offenses deemed minor such as refusals to comply or resistance to arrests.
In a megalopolis of 8.5 million inhabitants, renowned for its enormous socio-economic inequalities and its sometimes violent history, Mr. Bragg also undertakes to request reduced sentences for certain thefts.
Prison must also be considered as a last resort, according to this magistrate classified on the left.
– Rear machine –
But Alvin Bragg must backtrack after criticism from New York City Mayor, former police captain Eric Adams. An African-American city councilor who wants to be tough and who was elected at the end of 2021 by campaigning on the fight against gun crime.
On the Trump-Stormy Daniels file, Alvin Bragg was accused in 2022 by the New York Times of wanting to temporize before indicting the former president. Two assistant prosecutors had thus resigned in February 2022 by denouncing the “doubts” that Mr. Bragg would have expressed at the time about the investigation targeting Donald Trump.
On the contrary, “Bragg has been skilful and pragmatic”, praised former prosecutor Bennett Gershman to AFP, welcoming an “aggressive investigation” against the 45th American president (2017-2021).
In addition, Prosecutor Bragg succeeded in January in having the family-owned Trump Organization fined $1.6 million for financial and tax fraud, a criminal first for the group, which is awaiting a major civil trial this week. year.
The former chief financial officer of the group, loyal among the faithful, Allen Weisselberg, cooperated with the New York justice system and was sentenced to five months in prison and paid two million dollars.
Donald Trump was not prosecuted in this case, but he regularly called Mr. Bragg “racist” and “leftist”.
On the Stormy Daniels file, the ex-president accused the prosecutor on Saturday of being “corrupt and very politicized”.
These “attempts to intimidate our services and threaten the rule of law in New York will not be tolerated”, warned the Manhattan prosecutor’s office.
