'Playing politics with young Black lives': Lawyer assails DA over gang member implication

Peter Thompson had a choice to make that June evening last year as a crowd of people began beating and kicking a man outside a Yonkers deli.

He chose wrong – not because he was a gang member like most of them, but because he feared what might happen if he didn’t appear to join in.

He launched a kick that did not connect and pleaded guilty recently, acknowledging his involvement.

That's what happened June 17, 2021, according to Thompson's lawyer, William Wagstaff.

Wagstaff has assailed District Attorney Mimi Rocah and her office for lumping Thompson in with the others and never publicly acknowledging he had a limited role and was not a gang member. He suggests she was “playing politics with young Black lives” and that her reluctance to say publicly what he claims she conceded to him in private was because she had to appear “tough on crime” for those in the law enforcement community weary of progressive stances she has taken.

Jin Whang, Rocah's communications director, disputed Wagstaff's claim, but would not comment further on his account of the conversation he had with Rocah. She said Rocah was committed to restorative justice and second chances for defendants like Thompson.

Wagstaff held a press conference with Thompson's family, Congressman Jamaal Bowman and community leaders Saturday outside the Westchester County Courthouse, calling on Rocah to reconsider.

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Her office released a statement afterward, saying Wagstaff "has mischaracterized and misrepresented" his conversation with Rocah. It said Wagstaff's own actions in publicizing the case further "will only make it more difficult for his client to move on from this incident."

A 2020 graduate of Archbishop Stepinac High School, Thompson was a defensive back and wide receiver for the Crusaders’ football team. In his senior year his coach nominated him for the “Heart of a Giant” Award, a program of USA Football, the New York Giants and the Hospital for Special Surgery to honor high school athletes for their work ethic and love of the game. After high school he enrolled in Westchester Community College.

On June 17, 2021, Thompson was attending a vigil for a slain friend when several gang members, some childhood acquaintances, engaged in an attack on a 33-year-old man outside the deli on North Broadway.

“Fearing reprisal against him or his family for non-action, Peter threw a kick at the end of this beating, which did not connect,” Wagstaff wrote in a letter to Rep. Jamaal Bowman inviting him to the press conference. “He retreated to the sidewalk, hoping it would quell any questions from the group about why he stood by spectating.”

Wagstaff said he invited community leaders because “too often we are told one thing to secure votes, but the actions taken in private do not reflect the public pronouncements.”

Thompson was indicted with 12 other defendants in August 2021 and earlier this year Wagstaff began enlisting elected officials, Stepinac administrators and others to advocate for Thompson.

Thompson pleaded guilty last month to riot in the first-degree, a felony, and disorderly conduct, a violation, after initially being charged with first- and second-degree gang assault. The felony would be dismissed and the records sealed in October 2023 if Thompson remained in college and stayed out of trouble.

The District Attorney’s Office did not publicize the resolutions of any of the cases until after the only defendant to go to trial, Develle Coates, was convicted of gang assault. Coates was the second person to hit the victim in the head with a bottle. That knocked the man to the ground, where the crowd set upon him.

All the other defendants were listed in the press release with what they had pleaded guilty to and their expected sentences or how much they were serving if already sentenced. For Thompson, it mentioned the plea to the felony and the violation, but did not mention the stipulation the felony may be dismissed, only that he was “awaiting final disposition of his case.”

Only Coates was specifically identified as a member of the 300 Bloodhound Brims gang but pronouncements by law enforcement since the incident have broadly implied all the defendants were gang members. Yonkers police identified Thompson as a member of the Makk Balla Bloods gang following the indictment and said Saturday afternoon they still believed that was the case. Wagstaff suggested that was an effort to cover for Rocah's missteps and that any friendships Thompson may have had with gang members did not make him one.

The Journal News/lohud and other outlets included Thompson in their reporting. Three days after the Nov. 4 press release, Wagstaff wrote to Rocah, expressing displeasure Thompson had been included at all if prosecutors knew his records might eventually be sealed.

“To indiscriminately lump Peter in with gang members, causing Peter undeserved reputational damage, reifies that your office does not understand the plight of impoverished people of color,” he wrote. “They rarely get a second chance, and this story undoubtedly will impact Peter’s second chance.”

Following that was a phone call in which he said he demanded a public apology from her. He said Rocah told him the reason she couldn’t do that was out of fear for how prosecutors in her office and police would react, he told The Journal News/lohud in an email. It's a claim Rocah's Office says is not true.

Whang said Wednesday Rocah was not available to discuss the issue. In a follow-up email on Thursday she said the DA “will not be talking to the press about a phone call she had with defense counsel pertaining to an active and ongoing case.”

Whang spoke with Wagstaff by phone the day after his conversation with Rocah. She said she reiterated the reasons Thompson was referenced in the press release and offered to give the media information that would clarify Thompson’s case. She said Wagstaff refused to even hear what that clarification would be.

The version she had in mind was similar to the one The Journal News/lohud eventually crafted with Wagstaff to update the online version of its article after he contacted the reporter last week.

Editor's note: This article has been updated to clarify the events of June 17, 2021 and with additional information following Saturday's event.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: District Attorney Mimi Rocah assailed over gang member implication