Queens DA's Office To Lower Capacity Amid New Coronavirus Cases

KEW GARDENS, QUEENS — Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz plans to reduce in-person staffing starting Monday as COVID-19 cases continue rising across New York City and amid news that four employees have tested positive for the virus in the last 24 hours.

The Queens District Attorney's Office will operate at 25-percent capacity starting Nov. 23, with new schedules to be determined by executive staff and bureau chiefs, according to an internal email reviewed by Patch.

Katz, who faced her own bout of COVID-19 in March, had ordered staffers to resume working in-person in October.

"As a result of increased cases across the City, DA Katz thinks it is prudent to keep ahead of the curve and reduce our in-person staffing by half to 25% of occupancy capacity," Chief of Staff Camille Chin-Kee-Fatt wrote in an email Monday to employees in the DA's office.

"This reduced in-person plan will be in effect through the end of the year and will be revisited at the beginning of the year."

According to the email, four employees have tested positive for the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, and those who were "directly" exposed have been notified about quarantining.

A spokesperson for the Queens District Attorney's Office did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Some who work for the district attorney have expressed concerns that going to the office is putting themselves and their families at risk, especially as New York City stares down a potential second wave in the coronavirus pandemic that could prompt officials to shutter schools and enact increased health and safety restrictions.

That fear has been magnified by a lack of transparency about COVID-19 cases among employees. Instead, the rumor mill — and even the video-sharing app TikTok — is how staffers have learned about previous positive tests, sources told Patch last month.

The New York Office of Court Administration's webpage alerting the public to COVID-19 cases did not yet list the four new cases reported in the Queens District Attorney's Office as of Tuesday morning. A spokesperson previously told Patch that cases are listed "in a timely fashion" after the agency verifies details.

While the email sent Monday marks an increase in transparency, it did not disclose where the employees worked or any other details about the cases. Staffers with the Queens District Attorney's Office work across four locations in Kew Gardens, including Queens Borough Hall.

The decision to reduce the number of people working in-person in the Queens court system comes shortly after the New York Office of Court Administration suspended new jury trials and grand jury proceedings statewide to prevent COVID-19's spread.

The order was issued Friday, just a day after Queens' first criminal jury trial in months had begun, the Queens Daily Eagle reported.

An employee with the district attorney's office who had been in the central jury room in Queens Borough Hall on Friday later tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Office of Court Administration.

The week before that, a prosecutor who had been in the courthouse on Queens Boulevard, in an area where defendants enter pleas to felony charges, ended up testing positive for the virus, Patch previously reported.

A spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration told the Queens Daily Eagle that the criminal jury trial, for a burglary case, would still continue. But, by the end of the week, the agency issued a memo suspending all new jury trials and grand juries statewide.

Patch reporter Maya Kaufman can be reached securely at mayakaufman@protonmail.com.