The attack last week on Congressman Lee Zeldin at a campaign rally near Rochester is getting more and more bizarre as the story unfolds. The Associated Press reported that 43 year-old David Jakubonis told investigators he’d been drinking that day and didn’t know who Zeldin was. Jakubonis was originally charged with attempted assault and released. Rockland state senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick says that has led some to speculate that the District Attorney, a Zeldin backer, under-charged him on purpose so he’d have to be released…
Monroe County D.A. Sandra Doorley has since said she would recuse herself from the case because she considers herself “a friend” of Zeldin’s, she was even in attendance at the rally when the incident took place, according to WHAM ABC TV in Rochester. Spectrum News One reports Doorley had been appointed as a campaign co-chair but she stepped down from that position after the state’s District Attorney Association said it created a potential conflict. Meanwhile, Rockland assemblyman Mike Lawler says incidents like these prove that today’s political dialog has gotten much too coarse…
Jakubonis was subsequently charged in federal court with a single count of assaulting a member of Congress with a dangerous weapon. He was being held pending a detention hearing, he is due in a Rochester court today. He faces ten years in prison if convicted.