State Attorney General Letitia James dropped the ball on defending New Yorkers, a group of crime victims and their family members said Tuesday as they rallied for GOP challenger Sarita Komatireddy.

Komatireddy, a former federal prosecutor, vowed to give victims and their households a “direct line” to the lawyer common’s workplace if she’s elected next month.

“In New York today, the reality is, criminals have more of an audience with our elected officials than crime victims,” Komatireddy said during a press convention outside James’ Lower Manhattan workplace.

Six New Yorkers impacted by violence and medicine gathered with the Republican candidate, ripping the Empire State’s lax legal justice legal guidelines backed by Democrats including two-term incumbent James and Gov. Kathy Hochul.

“They’re all angry,” Komatireddy said. “They’re all drained of being ignored. Each one of them is a sufferer of lawlessness.

“For the first time… those victims will have a direct line to the attorney general,” Komatireddy said — as she unveiled her plan to set up a “Victims Advisory Council” within the AG’s Office if she unseats James on November 3.

Among these standing with Komatireddy was Tatiana Brahimi, a Putnam County mother whose 18-year-old son was struck and killed by a automotive during a 2016 Dutchess County brawl.

“I’m not a politician. This is why I believe in Saritha. She is not a politician,” Brahimi informed reporters.

“Letitia James and all those cronies before her do not care about us. I buried a child. How many of us are burying our loved ones? 
The government doesn’t care. We need people like Saritha, who cares.”

Madeline Brame lost two sons — Army veteran Sgt. Hason Correa, who was stabbed to dying in Harlem in 2018, and Rayvon Brame, who overdosed on fentanyl-laced cocaine — and said she was backing Komatireddy because victims and their households “need a seat at the table.”

Long Island mother Teresa Bliss, whose son, 25-year-old David Bliss, was shot to dying in broad daylight in Port Jefferson in 2021 by a profession legal on probation, said the system failed her household.

New York Attorney General candidate Saritha Komatireddy holds a press convention with households who had lost family members to crime and medicine at 28 Liberty Street in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post

She recalled discovering out that her son had been killed through the radio — after authorities informed her to wait in her automotive outside a native police precinct when she went there looking for David.

“These cascading failures — from the judicial disposition of probation, in lieu of  incarceration, to lax probation enforcement, to the absence of proper, dignified family notification protocols — demonstrate a complete system breakdown,” Teresa Bliss said.

“This is exactly why victims and surviving families need a permanent voice,” she said. “Because after the most painful, life altering nightmare of our lives, we are asking for one simple thing: to be heard.”

New York Attorney General candidate Saritha Komatireddy holds a press convention at 28 Liberty Street with households who had lost family members to crime and medicine in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York Attorney General Letitia James maintain a press convention at 919 third Ave. in Manhattan on Friday, Oct. 2, 2026. Robert Miller for NY Post

New York’s 2019 legal justice reforms bar judges from setting bail on most crimes, letting more offenders roaming the streets and in some circumstances committing new crimes.

New York Attorney General candidate Saritha Komatireddy holds a press convention at 28 Liberty Street with households who have lost family members to crime and medicine, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post

“In Kathy Hochul and Letitia James in New York, we’ve seen the consequences of criminal justice policies that, in my view, far too often put offenders ahead of the victims,” said Jennifer Harrison, a Long Islander who based Victims Rights NY after her boyfriend was murdered outside a New Jersey nightclub in 2005.

“When the criminal justice system fails a victim, where are we supposed to go if not for people like Saritha?” she said.

“We have activist judges, prosecutors whose decisions raise serious questions about public safety, bail reform, a parole board that families believe too often disregards the severity of violent crime, and failures to enforce parole and probation violations,” she added.

But Komatireddy accused James of also not doing enough for the victims, and said her advisory council will give them a voice in shaping workplace’s public security and enforcement priorities.

“We will place victims at the center of what we do, and give them the respect and dignity that they deserve,” she said.

In an interview with the unbiased journalist group The New York Editorial Board, Komatireddy said she would ship prosecutors from the AG’s to native district attorneys’ places of work when victims elevate complaints that their circumstances are falling through the cracks.

“We need to make sure that there is an open line of communication with crime victims. [That] if a crime victim is dissatisfied with their local DA, that they have someone to call,” she said in the interview revealed on Substack — also vowing she would re-dedicate half of the AG’s Office’s 700 prosecutors to legal circumstances.

Jennifer Driver, the mom of Sarah Patricia Goode, a 21-year-old Long Island lady who was raped and murdered after rejecting a creep‘s sexual advances in 2014, said it’s sorely wanted.

“Victims and survivors deserve a permanent voice in the laws, policies, and services that affect their lives,” Driver said. “It would assist flip our ache into goal and guarantee victims are handled with dignity, compassion, and the support they deserve.

“Not an afterthought,” she said. “We cannot change what happened to our loved ones, but we can work to improve the system so that future victims and their families are heard, supported, and treated with the respect that they deserve.”

From left, witnesses Jose Alba, a former Manhattan bodega clerk, Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY, and Madeline Brame, Chairwoman of the Victims Rights Reform Council, at House listening to in 2023. AP

New York Attorney General candidate Saritha Komatireddy holds a press convention at 28 Liberty Street with households who had lost family members to crime and medicine in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post

Komatireddy, an underdog in the race, pulled within just six factors of James in a latest Republican inside ballot, which confirmed the incumbent with a slim 50.7% to 44.7% edge.

Earlier this week, she blamed James for the subway “chaos” that saw the seventh transit murder in the Big Apple so far this yr, almost double the 4 murders over the same span in 2025.

“Survivors deserve results, not politics,” a spokesperson for James said in a assertion.

“Attorney General Letitia James has always fought for them, including suing the federal government to protect more than $212 million in services for survivors of violent crime,” the assertion said. “While our opponent stages political events, Attorney General James is at work delivering for every New Yorker.”