Nassau County DA demands Dems distance themselves from candidate over law-school paper
Donnelly calls the 2013 law-school article anti-woman and disqualifying as the county executive race intensifies amid concerns over survivor support and local crime trends.
Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly on Monday urged her Democratic challenger, Nicole Aloise, to publicly condemn fellow Democrat Seth Koslow for a decade-old law-school paper that argued women may fabricate rape claims to hide promiscuity or as a fantasy. Donnelly characterized the writings as disqualifying and anti-woman, telling The Post that anyone seeking the role of Nassau County District Attorney must make clear that rhetoric that could discourage survivors from coming forward has no place in the community.
The 2013 article in The Touro Law Review, written while Koslow was a law student, examined rape-shield statutes and the rise of social media, arguing that the rules had swung “to the extreme” against defendants and should be reformed to allow social-media evidence in court, according to a copy obtained by The Post. Koslow’s campaign and allies have said the passages were cited arguments from other sources, not a personal manifesto, and Aloise’s campaign has thus far refused to distance itself from Koslow. Donnelly said anything short of condemnation is unacceptable, adding that the controversy underscores the stakes in the county’s district attorney race.
Aloise criticized Donnelly for what she described as a failure to protect survivors, pointing to a spike in reported sexual assaults and the shuttering of Nassau’s SAFE Center, the county’s only nonprofit serving sexual-abuse victims, which closed amid funding concerns. “The real test for a district attorney is keeping Nassau County safe — but under Donnelly, rape is up 130%, and she’s botched cases and let sexual predators go free on Long Island,” said Ellen McCormick, Aloise’s campaign manager.
Koslow’s campaign dismissed the attacks as “bulls–t” and said the controversial lines are being ripped out of context. Nassau County Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs also sought to frame the issue within party lines, saying that Koslow’s GOP opponent, Bruce Blakeman, will do anything to distort Koslow’s writings from more than a decade ago to distract from his own record on addressing violence against women.
The resurfacing of Koslow’s article has already generated pushback beyond the DA race. A new television ad features the sisters of 21-year-old murder-rape victim Sarah Goode unloading on Koslow for the article, and the spot was paid for by Blakeman, who is Koslow’s Republican opponent for county executive. The controversy has drawn broad attention from Democratic and Republican operatives alike as they frame the issue around survivor support and local crime trends. Jay Jacobs described Blakeman’s approach as an attempt to weaponize an old academic paper for political gain, while Blakeman’s team argues the ad highlights the seriousness of the issue in Nassau County.
The discussion comes as elected officials and advocates say Nassau County has faced challenges in supporting survivors and funding services, a debate that has implications for the broader election landscape. Donnelly emphasized that the district attorney’s office must uphold a standard that encourages reporting of sexual violence, while Aloise’s campaign has urged voters to consider how the county’s approach to funding and enforcement affects safety and trust in the prosecutor’s office.
In a statement provided by Koslow’s campaign, the candidate’s team reiterated that the law-review article represented academic analysis rather than a personal stance and noted that Koslow has long supported survivors. The debate over the article’s meaning has intensified as challengers in the county executive race scrutinize Koslow and his allies, arguing that the incident reveals larger concerns about governance and accountability in Nassau County.
As the race progresses, observers say the incident has become a proxy for debates over how prosecutors address sexual violence, how survivors are supported, and how political narratives shape public perception of policy outcomes. The fate of the district attorney’s office in Nassau County remains an intertwined question of leadership, policy, and the community’s willingness to confront difficult issues surrounding crime and survivor protection.
