County Executive’s Corner: “Justice for Paula”

By County Executive Ed Day

Last year, Richard LaBarbera, one of the monsters who brutally murdered 16-year-old Paula Bohovesky in the fall of 1980 in Pearl River, was granted parole. As disturbing as this decision was, our community and Paula’s still-grieving mother, Lois Bohovesky, were granted a brief reprieve when LaBarbera violated his parole by getting drunk just days after being released.

The price for this violation was just one more year in jail – a year that is unfortunately almost up. The relief we all felt at seeing this scum back in jail where he belongs has been short lived. It is once again time for our community to come together in support of Lois.

LaBarbera will be paroled on or around July 23^rd from the Cape Vincent Correction Facility in Jefferson County. We must once again raise our voices as a community and demand that when LaBarbera is released that he live somewhere far from Rockland, be required to report to parole authorities at a distant state office, and that he be barred from traveling anywhere near Rockland.

I will be writing as Rockland County Executive to the New York State Board of Parole and am asking each of you to join me by writing or by calling with these demands. It is the least we can do to support Lois, who has suffered these last nearly 40 years without her beautiful and talented daughter.

Richard LaBarbera Identification DIN:

81A2806

Mailing Address:

New York State Board of Parole

1220 Washington Avenue

Albany, New York 12226

Phone:

518-486-5477

Richard LaBarbera does not deserve to walk free and he most certainly should be allowed to reenter and re-violate a community that he ripped apart with his heinous actions. I remind all that this beast of a man was on parole when he murdered Paula four decades ago. He cannot be trusted nor allowed to walk our streets again.

To paraphrase Irish statesman Edmund Burke, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.” Last year in Pearl River we stood together, more than 1,600 strong to say enough! And I know that the good people of Pearl River and of Rockland County will never “do nothing.”