Drug Treatment Court Program Graduates Five

YONKERS – At its recent graduation ceremony, there were five new graduates of the Yonkers Drug Treatment Court, a semi- annual event that has taken place since the creation and implementation of the program in 2001.

According to Chief Judge Michael A. Martinelli, who presided over the graduation with Judge Arthur J Doran III. Participants in the program, enter voluntarily by pleading guilty to the criminal charges that they are accused of. They are then required to complete a minimum of one year’s supervision by the Drug Court Team in order for them to be eligible to have their guilty pleas vacated and the charges against them dismissed.

Judge Martinelli added, “Each participant must agree that if they fail to complete their supervised treatment the will receive exactly the same sentence they would have received had they not been a successful participant and that would mean a drug conviction and jail time in the Westchester Penitentiary.”

Judge Martinelli also pointed out that the treatment programs are offered with the full acquiescence of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office and is limited only to those defendants charged with non -violent drug possession or other similarly related criminal offenses.

Judge Martinelli noted, “That at the inception of the drug court program, seventeen years ago, it was viewed as experimental and was the only one of its kind in the metropolitan New York area. It was initially limited to the Yonkers and Mount Vernon City Courts.”

Judge Martinelli, together with his colleague, Judge Arthur Doran, said, “That they firmly believe that “rehabilitation rather than incarceration” is a win-win, not only for the individual participants in the program, but also for their friends, family members, Yonkers taxpayers, and the entire Yonkers Community. In my twenty-two plus years on the Yonkers City Court Bench, nothing has given me greater personal satisfaction than to have the parents of a graduate or the graduate themselves, thank our team for giving them their life back.”