Disgraced NYC Council Candidate Gets Slap-on-the-Wrist Sentence
by Jordan Arizmendi
In September 2016, Celia Dosamantes, 26 at the time, was arrested for faking donations to her campaign for city council the year before. She was also charged with submitting a digitally altered check. When she finally appeared for sentencing in 2018, she was looking at one and a half to four years in prison on 35 counts of offering a false instrument and attempted grand larceny. But she got just five years of probation and 400 hours of community service, plus four months of weekends behind bars – which she is still completing halfway through 2023.
After swindling city taxpayers of almost $20,000 in six-to-one candidate-matching funds, how did she get such a sweet deal? Perhaps her performance in court helped. Gushing tears, Dosamantes said, “I understand this verdict…but honestly, I ran for honest reasons, and I really care about my community, and that’s why I ran for office.”
Her mother blamed Democrats in the Queens council district where Dosamantes ran – for not voting for her daughter. As Dosamantes wiped away still more tears, Supreme Court Judge A. Kirke Bartley, Jr. was apparently moved. “I find myself in agreement with the defendant,” he declared. “She has the capability of being a benefit to the community.”
“No one mentions the elephant in the room,” prosecutor Emily Farber wryly replied. “She has not once accepted or taken personal responsibility.”
It’s unclear why, but even the ridiculously light sentence that Dosamantes got has also now stretched over five years; the New York Post reported in June 2023 that Dosamantes was still spending weekends at the city’s notoriously awful Rikers Island jail complex. So what has that been like?
At 5:30 p.m. on Friday, a van from the city Department of Correction [DOC] brings Dosamantes and her baby to the Rose Singer Center on Rikers Island – along with a car seat, breast pump, medications, baby bottles and a two-day supply of clothes. When she arrives, jail staffers escort the child to the facility’s nursery and Dosamantes is processed into the jail. Two days later, they both return home.
“[DOC] is literally trying to protect the welfare of a child who did nothing wrong,” a source insisted. “Any characterization otherwise is ridiculous.”
Source: New York Post
As a digital subscriber to Criminal Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login
