A man from E. Greenbush arrested for threatening with machete

Man released pending grand jury action

COLONY – An East Greenbush man was arrested by police on Friday, May 17 for an incident that occurred in August in Colonie.

Court records show Colonie police requested and received an arrest warrant Aug. 15 for Myron Graves, 55, who lived in Albany at the time, after an investigation into an incident that occurred five days earlier in Stover Place.

According to records, on August 10 around 6:50 p.m., Graves allegedly got into a verbal disagreement with a person and verbally threatened them over the phone and, a short time later, drove to the person's home . Graves honked his horn outside the person's house until the person emerged, then chased the person across the lawn while holding a machete. The person was able to get in and Graves allegedly said “I'll get you” the next time he saw him. he was going to slit her throat, while tapping the end of the machete on the glass door of the facade. He then left.

The individual went to the Colonie police station, filed a complaint and requested a full restraining order.

After investigation, detectives filed a complaint and issued an arrest warrant for criminal possession of a weapon – third degree, felony menacing – second degree and aggravated harassment – ​​second degree. Graves was also convicted of Criminal Possession of a Weapon – Third Degree and Attempted Sale of a Controlled Substance – Third Degree on the same date in 1990.

He was arraigned in court by Judge David Green of Colonie Town at 6:45 p.m. on May 17 and released on his own recognizance. According to Colonie Municipal Court records, he is scheduled to appear in court June 17, but the case could be moved to county court.

According to state law CPL 530.10, when arraigning a defendant on a felony charge, which applies in this case, “a municipal court, town court, or village court may not order recognizance or bail when (i) the defendant is charged with a Class A felony, or (ii) the defendant has two prior felony convictions.

This order, however, was not followed by Green on May 8 when he released another man with two felony convictions, Garry McFadden, after another felony arrest. We reported this story last week, but the situation may be different when both felony convictions stem from the same incident.

In court decisions, it has been held that multiple felony convictions stemming from the same incident are counted as one when calculating the number of convictions used to determine whether a defendant is a frequent felony offender.

Spotlight News reached out to Green and he agreed to speak generally about the process, but would not talk about this specific case.

“Case law provides discretion to ignore the warrant if the crimes occur on the same date,” Green said.

In the Graves case, because both of his convictions were from the same date, Green had the option to consider bail or other non-monetary release options.

When a judge releases a defendant on his own recognizance, no preliminary hearing is set, but a defense attorney and assistant prosecutor must be able to weigh in on the decision.

According to CPL 530.20 2. (B), “No local criminal court may order recognizance, non-monetary conditional release, or bail with respect to any defendant charged with a felony unless and until that: (i) the District Attorney has been heard in the matter or, after receiving knowledge or notice of the application and having had a reasonable opportunity to be heard, has failed to appear at the proceeding or further waived its right to do so.

When asked if the ADA was present at the arraignment or if it had been contacted, the Colonie Municipal Court responded in an email that there was “no reference in the notes folder “.

Spotlight News then asked the Albany County District Attorney's Office if they had been contacted.

“This accused was MMR after being arrested out of schedule. The attorney who was on duty this weekend has not been contacted regarding this matter. No one from our office has been contacted for a bail recommendation,” the office said in a statement. “The accused has been RORed, so there will be no preliminary hearing on the case.”

The arraignment took place at 6:45 p.m., while court was not in session.

Green said standard practice is to contact a representative from the district attorney's office whenever there is a felony indictment. Judges have several ways to contact the ADA and receive a recommendation. The judge is not obligated to always follow the recommendation, however, he added.

Green also issued a “no unlawful contact” protective order between Graves and the victim.