Ex-EDNY Prosecutor Saritha Komatireddy: “New York Must Restore Law and Order”
I came to the United States in the 1980s from the island where I was born. Growing up, I heard stories about my father’s village being taken over by communist rebels. He came here to escape that. And if our city, our state, our country is taken over by socialists and communists, there’s nowhere else to go. We have to stop it—now.
Let me tell you a bit about my background and why I’m in this fight. In college, I decided I wanted to become a terrorism prosecutor. I wanted to go after the people who attacked us. That’s what I did with my career.
After Harvard College and Harvard Law School, I worked for Brett Kavanaugh when he served on the D.C. Circuit. Then I came back to Brooklyn and became a prosecutor. I prosecuted al-Qaeda. I prosecuted ISIS. I prosecuted major Mexican drug cartels.
But while I was focused on taking dangerous criminals off the streets abroad, I watched public safety collapse right here at home. We live in a city and a state where everyday New Yorkers are being stabbed and robbed. People are being attacked in the subway. Homeless Americans are freezing to death on our sidewalks. Across New York, repeat offenders are being released again and again. That is wrong—and it has to end.
This is personal for me. I have dedicated my entire career to public service and public safety, and I have seen the breakdown up close. The last time I was in court in Brooklyn, I saw a defendant with an astonishing number of prior arrests—yet he was still out on probation. He was caught with a loaded gun, heroin, and cocaine, dealing drugs across the street from a middle school. State court gave him what I believe was a slap on the wrist—so the case was pushed into federal court because something had to change. That kind of failure happens every day across this state.
And it doesn’t just happen to “other people.” A member of my family was assaulted in the subway while taking my kids to school. A friend of mine had a stray bullet tear through her bedroom and fly over her head while she slept. For years now, law enforcement has been treated like the problem—while criminals are portrayed as the victims and everyone else is left to fend for themselves. New Yorkers are tired of it. I’m tired of it.
In the last five years, more than a million people have left New York. This has to end, and we can end it—this November—by restoring the rule of law and enforcing it fairly.
We can take dangerous criminals off the streets while still acting with compassion and humanity. We can protect the vulnerable, including the homeless and the mentally ill, by getting them help in a way that is humane and responsible. And we can stop corruption and fraud. The right Attorney General can do all of that.
But to do it, New York needs an Attorney General who is a prosecutor—focused on protecting New Yorkers and keeping them safe. I am that prosecutor.
Leticia James was never a prosecutor. She was a public defender, and she has governed like a politician—focused on political enemies instead of public safety. She went after President Trump. She went after local Republican officials across the state. She went after lawful gun owners. She went after corrections officers—union members—who were simply demanding safer working conditions.
So here’s the message: this November, we are taking this fight to the ballot box. From now until Election Day, I will make the case to New Yorkers that we need a real prosecutor as Attorney General. I have never lost a case—and I’m ready to win this one.
God bless you.
Brooklyn GOP GALA 2026
February 12, 2026 El Caribe Country Club 5013 Strickland Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11234, USA
Saritha Komatireddy is deputy chief of general crimes in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. Komatireddy was a law clerk to then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh from 2010 to 2011, when Kavanaugh served on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
On May 4, 2020, President Donald Trump (R) nominated Komatireddy to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Click here for more information on Komatireddy’s federal judicial nomination.
