NEW YORK – Tali Farhadian Weinstein, candidate for Manhattan District Attorney, today announced the endorsement of Victor A. Kovner. Kovner, who served as Corporation Counsel for the City of New York under David Dinkins is one of the nation’s most esteemed First Amendment attorneys, with a career dedicated to ensuring civil rights and ending hate crimes.
“To every resident of Manhattan, the skills of whomever is our District Attorney is critical. And while there are several capable candidates in the Democratic Primary, including a number with substantial prosecutorial experience, there is one who stands head and shoulders above the rest. Tali Farhadian Weinstein has a truly remarkable record. That is why Former Attorney General Eric Holder has endorsed her and why former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has been so supportive of Tali throughout her career, including now. Tali has served as General Counsel to Eric Gonzalez, the District Attorney in Brooklyn, and won extensive praise for the leadership she brought to that office. She has taught at the law schools of NYU and Columbia, and earlier earned a Rhodes Scholarship and a degree at Oxford. She clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and at the U.S. Court of Appeals for Judge Merrick Garland, soon to become the next Attorney General of the United States. She was born in Iran and immigrated with her family as a child in 1979. When she worked in the Justice Department in Washington, her focus was in criminal and immigration law. As one who is proud to have supported Cyrus Vance, I now have no reservations giving my enthusiastic endorsement to Tali Farhadian Weinstein,” said Kovner.
“Victor Kovner’s work has been instrumental in creating a fairer, freer, New York City,” said Farhadian Weinstein. “Victor’s commitment to our city and the public good is an example to attorneys everywhere, and I am honored to accept his endorsement.”
Tali has also received endorsements from US Attorney General Eric Holder, Congressman Ritchie Torres and former NAACP president Ben Jealous and the personal endorsement of Jackie Rowe-Adams, co-founder of Harlem Mothers S.A.V.E.
Victor A. Kovner is a prominent New York attorney who has been instrumental in strengthening First Amendment protections for the media. In addition to his work as a private attorney, Kovner has an unblemished history in public service, formerly serving as the Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Chair of the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct, and as a member of the Taskforce on Hate Crimes under former Public Advocate, and current New York Attorney General, Letitia James. Kovner is the co-founder of the Media Law Resource Center.
Tali Farhadian Weinstein is a prosecutor who most recently served as the General Counsel of the Brooklyn Attorney General, where she led the design and creation of the nation’s first Post-Conviction Justice Bureau, a unit dedicated to reviewing and correcting some of the excesses and mistakes of the past. She is also a former federal prosecutor having worked in the U.S. Department of Justice throughout the presidency of Barack Obama. Tali is a graduate of Yale College, Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and Yale Law School, Tali was a Law Clerk for Judge Merrick B. Garland at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and at the U.S. Supreme Court for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
