Legislator won't be censured for rape remarks
Chairman: Wappingers Falls lawmaker apologized for comments made in 2016 women might bear some responsibility for crime
POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. » Dutchess County Legislature Chairman Dale Borchet said there will be no move to censure Legislator Joseph Incoronato for remarks he made last year suggesting women might bear some responsibility for their rape because the Wappingers Falls lawmaker has apologized for his comments.
Borchet, R-Lagrange, said Incoronato apologized for his remarks both in a private meeting and in a letter.
During a June 9, 2016, legislative committee meeting with a coordinator for the county’s Sexual Assault Response Team, Incoronato said that “alcohol or drug intoxication” was “a prime mover of rape,” that drugs and alcohol can lower an individuals moral standards and that in those instances, the victims themselves “may be a contributing factor, a self inflicted wound.”
Borchet said it was clear to him that Incoronato didn’t mean what he said during that meeting and said Incoronato expressed “regret” that he had misspoken.
“I was able to meet with him ... he explained to me what he had meant to say, apologized, and put it in writing,” said Borchet. “To me that was enough to say I don’t want to consider a censure resolution.”
“I think sometimes you speak and it doesn’t come out the way you mean. I think that was the case with (Incoronato),” he said.
In July, the Legislature voted to censure Legislator Joel Tyner, D-Clinton, after he repeatedly declined to apologize for remarks other legislators said likened a county official to World War II Nazis. It was the first time in the history of the Dutchess County Legislature that the body voted to censure one of its members.