Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s deputy supports soft sentences for violent criminals and backed restorative justice over jail time for a man who killed his friend.

Meg Reiss, the Chief Assistant District Attorney in Bragg’s office, has said prosecutors need to challenge the view that criminals are ‘bad dudes’.

Bragg and his team have come under intense scrutiny for their decision to charge Donald Trump over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and others. Critics say the case is without merit and have accused Bragg of pursuing Trump while failing to keep New York safe by handing criminals soft sentences or loose bail conditions.

Bragg installed Reiss, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn and Nassau County, as head of his executive team in January 2022. She said at the time she was looking forward to advancing ‘innovative reforms in the criminal legal system’.

Before taking the position, she was Chief of Social Justice in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, where she spoke passionately about restorative justice, whereby a criminal meets their victim – or those impacted by their crimes – as part of the punishment and rehabilitation process.

Meg Reiss, the Chief Assistant District Attorney in Bragg’s office, has said prosecutors need to challenge the view that criminals are ‘bad dudes’

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference on Tuesday following Donald Trump’s appearance in court. Bragg and his team have come under intense scrutiny for their decision to charge the former president over hush money payments

Donald Trump appeared in court on Tuesday facing charges brought by Bragg’s office 

In a discussion in May 2021, she talked about an ‘extraordinary’ ongoing manslaughter case in which it ‘seemed appropriate for restorative practice rather than a carceral sentence’.

Reiss explained the killer knew his victim ‘very well’ and the incident involved a ‘fight that ended up in one person dying.

She added: ‘The only survivor of the victim’s family was his daughter who actually had never met her father and because they’re going through a restorative practice right now, it’s the first time that she’s actually ever getting to know her dad through the person who has been charged with his death.’

‘I think it’s such a complex process for both people but I think that everybody comes out of it in certainly in a new way,’ Reiss said.

Several years earlier in 2017, Reiss was serving as Executive Director at the progressive Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College.

Read Related Also: Did Shannon Bowe Die Due To Weight Loss Surgery? Here Is What You Should Know

In that role, she appeared in a discussion titled ‘Justice in the Trump Era’ and said prosecutors must challenge the notion criminals are ‘bad dudes’.

‘Should we use labels like that – when you say violent people versus people that commit violence?’ she asked.

‘People have committed violent offenses, but it doesn’t mean that person is permanently violent,’ she said in the March 2017 talk. ‘I think this is all part of the language that we need to consider that we use in the system.’

DailyMail.com reported on Tuesday that Bragg and his team have let many violent and career criminals free in New York during their pursuit of Trump.

The former president was supported by his children and their partners – but not by his wife. Eric and Lara Trump are pictured far left; Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos are seen to the right. Don Jr and his fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle are in the center of the group

Donald Trump addresses his supporters at Mar-a-Lago after being indicted in New York on Tuesday afternoon

They include a crook arrested more than 100 times and a serial criminal released last week on $1 bail.

Following his court appearance on Tuesday, Trump called Bragg a ‘criminal’.

In a burst of fury during his 25-minute remarks to a packed crowd of family and supporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump let his frustration with the case shine through.

He slammed his legal opposition, despite a warning from the judge presiding over the case, Juan Merchan, to use his words carefully in order to avoid a gag order.

The former president described his foes as a ‘Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and a family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris,’ which drew groans from the crowd.

Trump also said the real criminal in the case is Bragg, accusing him of leaking grand jury information.

‘The criminal is the district attorney because he illegally leaked massive amounts of Grand Jury information for which he should be prosecuted, or at a minimum he should resign,’ he said, to cheers.