BUFFALO, N.Y. — With 99% of the vote in, Acting Erie County DA Michael Keane is currently leading Republican James Gardner.
Keane has been acting DA when John Flynn resigned to take another job on March 31.
The two had debated each other at St. Joseph's High School where much of the debate centered around television ads by Gardner’s campaign that aired after a 2 On Your Side Investigates story about the decades-old drunk driving arrest of Acting District Attorney Michael Keane, a Democrat.
“I accepted responsibility for my mistake,” Keane said. “It was 40 years ago. I was 21 years old. I was a senior in college in upstate New York, and I pleaded guilty to a non-criminal violation. He’s characterized it as a crime. He characterized me as a criminal. That is false.”
Gardner responded, “I believe that ad is factual. It’s factual in the charges that he was charged with, and just because my opponent accepted a plea offer to a non-criminal disposition doesn’t mean that he didn’t commit those crimes.”
Gardner’s ad took select passages from a 2 On Your Side story about Keane’s 40-year-old guilty plea to driving while ability impaired, which is a non-criminal violation. Two other charges of assault and resisting arrest were later dismissed.
Keane later sought to turn the use of the ad on Gardner’s campaign, which obtained the arrest reports from the Town of Colonie. The Colonie town attorney later acknowledged that details of the dismissed charges were mistakenly disclosed despite being sealed by a judge in the 1990s.