Sandra Doorley email highlights tensions in DA's Office amid viral confrontation fallout

Only days before Monroe County District Attorney Sandra Doorley's confrontation with a young Webster police officer went viral, she sent an email to staff that bounced between complimentary and disparaging.

The email began tamely enough, with Doorley applauding the work of some — highlight "some" — of her staff of prosecutors. The email then shifted tone, drastically.

"However, many of you are a disaster, plain and simple," Doorley wrote. "This will not be tolerated," she continued, with the sentence in bold letters.

The tenor of the email was unsurprising to some prosecutors who left the Monroe County District Attorney's Office during the tenure of Doorley, who was first elected in 2011.

For years there has been an undercurrent at the office, stories from prosecutors who left for private practice who found the environment at the DA's Office too fractious and interactions with Doorley verging on hostile. What Doorley saw as her demand for excellence, others sometimes saw as unwarranted, unfair and occasionally combustible attacks from her upon their abilities and integrity.

Questioned through the years about the occasional discontent within the office, Doorley responded that her turnover numbers were no worse than that of other offices, including the Monroe County Public Defender's Office. And, she said, the complaints about her temperament sometimes seemed laced with sexism, a challenge to a workplace discipline that may have been tolerated and even expected from male bosses.

Doorley did not respond to an interview request Monday.

As the video surfaced last week, then went internationally viral, some former prosecutors witnessed what they say was no surprise. (Local lawyers have declined to go on the record. Some have gone into the defense field and often represent defendants in cases with the DA's Office.)

In the lone interview Doorley provided last week about the incident, she described the confrontation to the Democrat and Chronicle — before the body-worn camera video was released by Webster police — as little more than an "agitated" meeting between her and the officer, but one that overall was positive. There was no scandal here, no news, Doorley insisted.

There are two takeaways from this response: Either Doorley did not recognize just how entitled and vitriolic she would appear in the video, if it became public, or she was dishonest, hoping that the body-worn camera video would not be released by the Webster police.

Similarly, a statement she provided before the video was released was, to put it mildly, a sugar-coated version of the hostility she demonstrated toward the officer, Cameron Crisafulli. In the statement, she acknowledged her speeding offense — 55 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone — but did not address the interaction with Crisafulli.

In the body-worn camera video, she is dismissive of the officer, challenging his decision to issue her a speeding ticket, and even calls the Webster police chief to intervene. At one point, she calls the officer an "a--hole."

The video was released the day after the Democrat and Chronicle interview and the release of Doorley's statement. Once the video went public, the narrative changed greatly.

Personal, political challenges for Sandra Doorley

These are not the first challenges Doorley has faced, both personally and professionally. She survived a cancer scare that kept her from work for months after treatment and recovery. Then, on the political end, she was denied an open judgeship that she was interested in.

Republicans, who likely wanted to hold onto the party's lone non-judicial countywide office, instead chose someone else for the vacancy.

A Democrat turned Republican, Doorley was left in a bit of political isolation: Many Democrats consider her a turncoat and the more progressive ranks in the party see her as a supporter of inequitable criminal justice measures.

Black Lives Matter protests once settled at her Webster home several years ago, and she has received anonymous threats.

However, some complaints of belligerent conduct toward subordinates predate many of these events. The internal email that circulated and was provided to the Democrat and Chronicle was an example of how the DA's Office, for some prosecutors, can seem a place of unstable employment.

In the email Doorley wrote, "To see so many of you drop the ball on so many cases, is discouraging and disheartening." She said she planned to meet with lawyers to discuss their forthcoming cases and individual caseloads.

"Depending on the status of caseloads at the time, you should expect changes and movement," she wrote in the email.

But to some, the attitude is proof that Doorley expects energy and commitment from her prosecutors.

Local defense lawyer Daniel Strollo, who previously worked for the DA's Office, said Monday that Doorley "can be difficult to work for."

Still, he said, the stressful work and the emotional component can be taxing, and many prosecutors who were challenged by Doorley were deserving of being questioned. They expected rewards even with dubious performance, he said.

"Do we really want assistant district attorneys who really want to be coddled?" he said. Instead, he said, Doorley demands a level of prosecutorial achievement that she expects from herself.

Strollo himself resigned from the office after a controversial Instagram post in which he questioned the media attention paid to the case of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a Minneapolis police officer. That posting prompted calls for his firing; Strollo instead chose to resign.

After the controversy, Strollo and Doorley remained in touch.

"She is very supportive of her staff when they are going through difficult times," he said. "... She is someone who genuinely believes in redemption."

Sandra Doorley: 'I am solely to blame'

Doorley has her supporters, especially among crime victims who say she and her office brought them justice.

“She fought for our family and I will forever admire and respect her," Lynn Mazurkiewicz, the wife of slain Rochester Police Officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz, said in a statement.

Doorley successfully prosecuted Kelvin Vickers Jr., who fatally shot Mazurkeiwicz and was also convicted of the murders of Richard Collinge and MyJel Rand.

"I am grateful for her care and love during our trial and would pick her every single time," Lynn Mazurkeiwicz said in the statement. "Until you have seen the worst of the worst every single day like she has, don’t be so quick to judge."

There are many calls for Doorley to resign, and many, like Mazurkiewicz, stepping forward in support. There were protests at her office Monday.

"The actions of the district attorney are totally unacceptable," said Assemblyman Demond Meeks, who with other officials is calling for a state Attorney General's investigation into Doorley's conduct.

Had the offender been Black, refused to stop for the police, and then, ignoring the police orders went into her home before returning, the treatment would have likely been very different, he said at the protest. Doorley did all of this.

In her video released Monday, Doorley is alone, speaking directly to a camera.

The video lasts all of 30 seconds. In those seconds Doorley utters words that are unlikely to be challenged by anyone, regardless of their opinion of her actions.

"I am solely to blame," she said.

— Gary Craig is a veteran reporter with the Democrat and Chronicle who has been writing about criminal prosecutions and the DA's Office for nearly 30 years. During that time, he has interviewed dozens of prosecutors who have cycled through the office and still keeps contact with a number of them.

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Sandra Doorley email highlights tensions in DA's Office amid controversy