Politics on the Hudson

The attorney general campaigns of Democrats Eric Schneiderman and Kathleen Rice are in a dustup over a bill that’s aimed at stopping predators from using the Internet to lure children.

Rice, the Nassau County district attorney, released her third television ad today that is built around her pledge to “work to make luring a child on the Internet a felony.”

Schneiderman, a state senator from Manhattan, argues that the crime of luring a children over Internet is already a felony. His campaign also says that the bill Rice supports would require more evidence before a prosecutor can secure a conviction.

From his press release:

Luring children (including using the internet) is already a crime, regardless of the vehicle used to lure the child. Schneiderman voted for this bill, which passed in 2008.

By contrast, the bill Rice prefers did not advance in the committee because not only is it duplicative of the already existing law enacted in 2008, but would actually require proof of additional elements in order to convict. Under this bill, not only would prosecutors to prove that a child was lured into an area, but they’d also have to prove the additional element of internet usage and proof of two further elements as well.

Under the existing statute, predators could be convicted because of activity they did over the internet, without the added burden of proving the internet usage.

Rice’s campaign fired back that Schneiderman’s people have their facts wrong.

According to an e-mail sent by Rice spokesman Eric Phillips, the law Schneiderman’s campaign is pointing to has nothing to do with the Internet (he includes a link to this measure that was signed into law in 2008).

The bill Rice is pushing for would expand that crime to include child predators who operate on the Internet, Phillips said.

“The only legislation that the State of New York can use to prosecute an offender is under Endangering the Welfare of a Child, which is a Felony A class misdemeanor,”  according to the bill’s memo. “We must introduce legislation that forbids offenders from luring children by means of using the Internet or any other devices.”

The measure Rice supports, which has versions in the Senate and Assembly, can be found here.

The jabs thrown today are another sign that the campaigns see each other as their main rivals for the Sept. 14 Democratic primary, which includes Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Greenbrugh, Westchester County, former Insurance Superintendent Eric Dinallo and Bronxville lawyer Sean Coffey.

Updated: In a response to the response, the Schneiderman campaign says Rice’s folks are wrong: “Once again, Ms. Rice demonstrates why multiple editorial pages have said she lacks sufficient grasp of the issues to be Attorney General. The fact is that the bill she is lobbying for was originally introduced in 2007 before New York passed the child luring law in 2008, meaning the justification for the bill is out-dated. Had Ms. Rice looked at the statute, and not just the cliffs notes version, this confusion could have been avoided,” said Schneiderman campaign manager Emily Arsenault.”

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