Attack on Zeldin raises issues beyond bail

Last week, a man named David Jakubonis stepped onto a makeshift stage and suddenly accosted Rep. Lee Zeldin, the GOP nominee for governor, during a campaign speech in a suburb east of Rochester.

Holding a pointed key chain, the kind used as a self-defense gadget, the 43-year-old Army veteran of the Iraq War strode up to Zeldin, grabbed the microphone, and repeatedly said, “You’re done.” The candidate grabbed Jakubonis' wrist, others jumped in, and all ended up on the ground.

Thankfully, Jakubonis was subdued, without injury to Zeldin beyond a minor scrape, or to his cohorts. Soon, however, people seeing the video were rightly surprised and alarmed that Jakubonis — by his own account a chronic alcoholic with mental health problems — was swiftly released without bail.

Jakubonis was charged only with second-degree attempted assault. Even before sweeping changes were made in New York’s cash-bail system, he might not have been held overnight.

Why was he not given a bail-eligible felony rap? No satisfactory answer has come from Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley, a Republican backer of Zeldin once but no longer listed as a campaign co-chair (which by ethics rules she shouldn’t have been).

Now her critics get to wonder aloud whether she lowballed the charge to showcase the bail issue. Given Zeldin’s vow, should he win the statehouse, to fire Democratic Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for leniency, the Monroe County authorities' action in this case should have drawn similar critique from the candidate.

Zeldin instead pounds away at Gov. Kathy Hochul over bail reform. He clearly sees this as rich rhetorical territory. Republicans like to cite bail reform as symbolizing Democratic failure on violent crime even if that overstates the extent of the policy's role in our current disorder. Certainly, any Republican nominee would spin this differently if Doorley, having done the same thing, were a Democrat backing Hochul.

Enter the federal law, which treats any assault on a congressman with extra weight. So Jakubonis is now in federal custody. When he appeared in court Thursday, U. S. District Judge Marian Payson said she wants to review his mental health history and whether he’ll have the right support if released pending trial.

Meanwhile, Zeldin is forfeiting a chance to signal to state voters that he’s a real leader. He could be explaining his prior efforts as a state lawmaker to help troubled veterans like Jakubonis and trying to realistically address the wider nature of our current crisis — irrational violence everywhere.

Instead, Zeldin's campaign sticks to a predictable script, sung in his party's chorus. With a bit of initiative, he could turn this bizarre and uncalled-for incident into a stronger case for himself above the partisan battlefield.