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Greece Supervisor objects to release of some jail inmates

UPDATE: On Monday, Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich said he has been told that former inmates who were listed as level 2 and level 3 sex offenders, who were being housed at a Greece hotel have been moved. He was not told where they were relocated. He says they were not residents of Greece.

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A local town supervisor is upset with the way the state has handled the release of some county jail inmates in recent days.

The concern was expressed by Greece Town Supervisor Bill Reilich on Sunday after Monroe County Sheriff Todd Baxter said that 51 people have been released from the county jail at the direction of the state division of parole.

They are among several hundred prisoners released statewide, who officials say had been in local jails around the state on for low-level technical violations, often involving things like violating parole. The move was made as part of efforts to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19.

But Reilich doesn’t feel the state handled the situation very well.

This is an order that the governor ordered late on a Friday afternoon with no warning to anybody; the sheriff gets the order and he has to carry it out, has no choice. But I’m asking now, all that agree with my position to reach out and let the governor know and say, we don’t appreciate this decision,” Reilich said. 

A spokesperson for Governor Andrew Cuomo said that politics should be put on the back burner now, since the state is fighting a pandemic. Reilich says he’s concerned because 9 of the people released from the Monroe County Jail were dropped off in his town, and he says three of them have been sex offenders.  

State corrections officials emphasize that the people released from jail remain under community supervision.  

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.