Nicole Aloise, a Democrat running for Nassau County district attorney, is focusing her campaigning on public safety, community investment, and experience forged in courtrooms.
“I firmly believe in the job of a prosecutor,” she said. “It's all I've done in my career.”
Aloise, 41, has worked as a prosecutor for 16 years in both Nassau and Queens, most recently as a senior assistant district attorney in the Queens Homicide Bureau. She began her legal career in 2008 after graduating from St. John’s University School of Law. While in Queens, she secured more than 20 violent felony convictions and helped establish case law by making use of NYPD body camera footage for the first time in a trial in New York City.
Aloise moved with her family from Astoria to Garden City in 2019. From 2019 to 2023, she prosecuted homicides and violent felonies as senior litigation counsel in the Nassau D.A.’s office. She returned to Queens for a brief period before stepping down in 2024 to launch her campaign.
Despite its staff of hundreds, one of the largest D.A.’s offices in the country, it has fallen behind, Aloise said. “The office now being run,” she said, “is not appropriate for a 2025 D.A.’s office.”
She criticized what she called a lack of courtroom experience in the office’s current leadership, and said that has led to high staff turnover.
The issues that are central to her platform include strengthening the county’s Hate Crimes Bureau, especially when it comes to antisemitic and anti-Asian attacks; supporting a statewide “death by dealer” law to hold drug suppliers accountable in fatal overdoses; and increasing funding for youth, mental health and violence prevention programs.
Aloise has also pledged to pursue tougher prosecutions in drunken-driving cases, and expanding cooperation with local police departments.
“I've got the best experience to be in this job,” she said, “because I won't be asking anybody to do something I myself personally haven't done, and I will know what resources and guidelines to put into place to make sure they're successful.”
Like the Republican incumbent, Anne Donnelly, Aloise has criticized New York’s 2020 discovery and bail reform laws. “It absolutely makes our job harder,” she said. “I've been outspoken about these laws since prior to their inception.”
But, she noted, she successfully worked under the same rules in Queens, and argued that the county badly needs an upgraded functioning discovery system. “They have one in Queens,” she added. “They have one in Suffolk.”
“I won't run a stagnant office,” Aloise said. “I've got the passion, I've got the energy and I've got the vision to make the Nassau’s district attorney's office one of the premier offices in the country — because we have the resources, if used correctly.”
