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Dennis Vacco in News as Possible AG Candidate

By Tony Farina

Dennis Vacco may choose to run.

Dennis Vacco, the 62nd attorney general of New York State and a former high level state and federal prosecutor based in Buffalo, is making news across the state again as the New York Daily News reported last week that Vacco has acknowledged that he has been approached about running for his old office again.

Vacco, a Republican, who still makes his home in Western New York, was a top prosecutor in the Erie County District Attorney's Office and later served as the U. S. Attorney for the Western District of New York for five years before winning the office of state attorney general, serving with great distinction as the state's chief prosecutor from 1995- 1998.

Contacted this week, Vacco, who currently is a partner with the prominent Buffalo law firm of Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman, confirmed that he has been approached by key Republican operatives about running for attorney general this year against incumbent Eric Schneiderman, but added that he has made no decision about possibly seeking his old office.

"I'm currently involved in an important trial, and I'm not even considering [a campaign] at this time," said Vacco who lost his re-election bid to Eliot Spitzer by approximately 0.6 percent of the total votes cast, one of the closest elections in state history.

Vacco would not identify the people who have contacted him about a possible run but Erie County Conservative Party Chairman Ralph Lorigo praised Vacco and said he would certainly be a very strong candidate should he elect to seek his old office again.

Vacco, who lives in the Town of Boston, is one of the few Western New Yorkers ever elected to one of the four top positions in the state. As attorney general, he resurrected the criminal division and formed the nation's first internet child pornography unit targeting online predators.

An experienced litigator, Vacco, as attorney general, successfully argued before the U. S. Supreme Court that physician assisted suicide was not a constitutionally protected right.

If Vacco should decide to run, it would certainly energize the Western New York political environment as operatives would have one of their own in the mix for state office, a very rare occurrence. In this case, it would be a candidate who has run and been successful statewide. Stay tuned!

 

 

Niagara Falls Reporter - Publisher Frank Parlato Jr. www.niagarafallsreporter.com

Mar 25, 2014