New Suffolk DA Ray Tierney Set To Be Sworn In Sunday

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY — Ray Tierney is set to be sworn in as the new Suffolk County District Attorney during an inauguration ceremony Sunday.

The event takes place at 11:30 a.m. in the auditorium at St. Anthony's High School, located at 275 Wolf Hill Road in Melville.

A new day dawned in Suffolk County in November as voters elected challenger Tierney to unseat incumbent District Attorney Tim Sini by a comfortable margin.

Judge Hector D. LaSalle will administer the oath of office to Tierney. Also at the ceremony will be United States Navy Sea Cadets Honor Guard, the Eastern Long Island Police Pipes & Drum Band, and numerous Suffolk County and local elected officials.

“I feel tremendously honored and privileged to serve as Suffolk County’s next District Attorney,” said Tierney. “My office will prioritize the rights and needs of crime victims while protecting public safety through fair, tenacious, and thorough prosecutorial work. I will fight every day to ensure there is justice for all.”

Sini conceded the race to Tierney.

Sini, 41, of Babylon Village, ran on the Democratic and Keep Crime Low lines against challenger Tierney, 55, of Holtsville, who ran on the Republican and Conservative lines.

Sini has served as Suffolk County District Attorney since January 2018 and previously served as a federal prosecutor and the Suffolk County Police Commissioner.

Tierney spoke with Patch after the win and outlined his plans moving forward, as well as thanking voters.

"I am so humbled and grateful for the tremendous support I have received from everyone," Tierney said. "We made history, but this is just the beginning. I am ready to fight to keep the residents of Suffolk County safe."

When asked why he believed Suffolk County residents placed their faith in him, Tierney said he has made it clear throughout that campaign that he is not a politician.

"I just want to bring justice and safety back to the streets of Suffolk County. New Yorkers are tired of feeling unsafe in their communities," Tierney said. "The steadily rising crime rates are unacceptable and I am prepared to do my job to ensure that crime in Suffolk County declines as soon as possible."

Upon taking office, Tierney said some of his first priorities include ensuring that a solid transition team of people is in place in the District Attorney's office "who will, every day, work with me to keep Suffolk County residents safe, reviewing and recommending what exactly we need to do in January, establishing a centralized gang bureau, addressing high rates of opioid overdose deaths, and seriously and effectively addressing violent crime of any type, which has been absent in the Suffolk District Attorney's office for a long time."

Tierney said he had a message for residents: "The fight is not over." The win, he said, "was a huge victory, but this is only the beginning. We cannot get complacent. There is so much work to be done and we will do it. I thank the voters for giving me a chance and I want to inspire them and make them proud."

Tierney, who lives in Suffolk with his wife Erica and children Raymond, Sean, Patrick and Kaitlin, attended Brown University and got his law degree at St. John's University.

He served in private practice, then worked for the Suffolk County DA's Office, as well as the United States Attorney's Office, eastern district of New York, and the Kings County District Attorney's Office.

Tierney also spoke with Patch before the election and said he ran for office as the next District Attorney to bring "experience, ethics, and independence to an office that desperately needs it. I have been a lifelong prosecutor working for the safety and protection of the people of Suffolk County and the state. I have been given an opportunity to rid the DA's office of ineffectiveness and political gamesmanship. I look forward to continuing to serve the public."

He looked to his "success as a prosecutor, leadership role in complex investigations and trials and experience garnered from the challenges faced" as reasons why he would serve the DA's office well.

"My success in gang prosecution lead me to the White House where I advised the Attorney General on the success we had in Suffolk," Tierney said. He pointed to his MS-13 murder convictions and his knowledge base around those cases, which, he said, will be critically important in leading the DA's office.
Tierney said the most recent DA's office lacked transparency, making it "nearly impossible" to understand the crime rate in Suffolk County.

"Because everything the DA does is for political purposes, accurate crime stats are impossible to find," he told Patch before the November election.

Tierney plans to institute a crime strategies unit that will catalog all indexed crime and build strategies around preventing them. Additionally, he plans to implement a tool called ShotSpotter that will notify police of all gunfire without the need for citizens to call the police.

"This is especially important in the communities ravaged by illegal gun violence where citizens may be hesitant to contact the police," Tierney said. "Gunfire is the precursor to larger and bigger crimes in those areas and this is a measure of prevention."

Tierney also said, during his campaign, that change was long needed: "The current office is more concerned with splashy headlines, press conferences, and using the current position as a political stepping stone to his next job. This is all in stark contrast to how my office will be run."

DA Sini failed to utilize all of the prosecutorial tools to keep criminals off the streets, Tierney maintained.

"There are several instances, just this past summer, where he did not indict dangerous criminals despite having the circumstances and evidence to do so. These individuals were free to go and they went on to either commit murder, or in the instance of the East End overdoses, they went on to continue with their drug dealing and six residents died," Tierney said. "This will not happen in my office."