Gov't Lawyer Convicted in Hate-Crime Case re Harassing Calls to Neighbors Gets Prison Time
Updated: A longtime New York state government lawyer until he was embroiled in a criminal case for making racist, threatening phone calls in 2010 to his black neighbors in Albany and others, James J. Hennessey has now been sentenced to prison time following his conviction.
The 59-year-old was given the maximum one-to-three-year term on Wednesday by Judge Stephen Herrick, reports the Albany Times Union. His lawyer had argued that Hennessey wasn’t in his right mind at the time and a probation officer had recommended in a pre-sentence report that he get a lighter sentence.
“You terrorized them. You terrorized aspects of your neighborhood, of the community, of the city of Albany,” the judge told Hennessey, who reportedly made kidnap threats, among others, and disguised some calls to make it appear that they had come from the Ku Klux Klan.
One of Hennessey’s neighbors, Sean Brown, said he and his fiancee were terrorized by the experience and didn’t know whether the verbal attack might escalate to property damage or worse, the newspaper recounts.
“The acts of James Hennessey caused mental intimidation where I didn’t know if I should take action into my own hands,” Brown told the court. “Should I purchase a gun? … Can I get to the phone fast enough? Can the police get here fast enough to protect me and my family?”
Although Hennessey had tried to disguise the calls by sending them through a computer website that let him block his number, authorities were able to trace them to him.
Initially charged with second-degree aggravated harassment he later found himself defending a felony hate-crime case because of the racist nature of his threats.
Hennessey’s conviction was vacated in December 2014 because the hate-crime harassment statute was found to be unconstitutional in an unrelated case, according to an April 2016 appeals court decision in his bid for reinstatement to the bar.
Hennessey had previously sought to vacate his conviction on the ground that he suffers from a mental illness and was under the influence of psychotropic medications when he entered his guilty pleas. An appeals court said Hennessey should get a chance to prove his mental capacity was impaired and remanded the case in November 2013.
Earlier coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Gov’t Lawyer Charged with Hate Crimes re Claimed Anonymous Calls to Neighbors”
ABAJournal.com: “NY State Lawyer Resigns from $104K Civil Service Job, Takes Plea in Hate-Crimes Case”
Updated April 19, 2023, at 12:52 p.m. to include subsequent developments.
