Public defender Tiffany Caban made it official Friday, announcing she is running for the Democratic nomination as a candidate for Queens district attorney.
“Queens can lead the way for the country and show the world, once again, just how visionary we are,” Caban said. “We can end mass incarceration in Queens, end the war on drugs, turn back the tide of the devastating opioid epidemic and model the most progressive DA in the country.”
Caban is a career public defender who has practiced for four years at New York County Defender Services and three years at the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice. Caban has represented over a thousand indigent clients in cases ranging from turnstile jumping to homicide. Throughout her professional career, she has used the law to help New York City’s most vulnerable communities.
“I am running to transform the Queens District Attorney’s Office after years of witnessing its abuses on the front lines,” Caban said. “Queens should be the center of progressive activism and restorative justice — we are the district that sent a generational millennial leader to the halls of Congress, and now we have a unique opportunity to center justice here at home.”
Caban, who was born and raised in Richmond Hill, now lives in Astoria. She earned a Bachelor’s degree in Crime, Law, and Justice from Penn State, and a Juris Doctorate from New York Law School. On the same day Queens DA Richard Brown would not seek re-election to an eighth term, the Democratic Socialists of America released a campaign questionnaire completed by Caban.
“The mission of the DA’s office should be to achieve justice and strengthen communities,” she wrote. “Achieving justice includes righting historical wrongs and breaking the cycle of oppression that has historically marginalized communities. In an effort to achieve this mission, I would enact many reforms including the use of my prosecutorial discretion to thoughtfully and ethically prosecute those who oppress and target at-risk communities, including landlords who unlawfully evict, phony immigration lawyers who defraud immigrants, and those who take advantage of the elderly, among others.”
Caban will face Borough President Melinda Katz, retired Supreme Court Justice Greg Lasak, City Councilman Rory Lancman and State Attorney General’s Office Special Prosecutor Jose Nieves in the Democratic primary on Tuesday, June 25.
