Daniel B. Maffei: “On March 14, Lori Bresnahan, a school librarian who lived in my district, and a 10-year-old child were attacked in a…”

“On March 14, Lori Bresnahan, a school librarian who lived in my district, and a 10-year-old child were attacked in a shopping center parking lot. The attacker was facing Federal child pornography charges and was out on bail and ordered to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet. He disabled the bracelet, stabbed Ms. Bresnahan to death and sexually assaulted the young girl. It was later found that he had tampered with the bracelet 47 times, and each time, the Federal probation office in Syracuse did not respond. I wrote to the administrative office of the United States Courts, asking them to investigate this gross negligence. This is their response: The Director says, ``Nothing can excuse the deficiencies in the supervision of this case,'' but he also says, ``Reduced resources due to the sequester is harming the efforts to keep it from happening again.'' He continued, ``We are bracing for even larger reductions next year.'' An innocent woman was stabbed to death, an innocent child was sexually assaulted, and the answer from the courts is that their ability to keep it from happening again is limited because their funding was cut. This is unacceptable. To Lori Bresnahan and that young girl, we owe a full investigation, not excuses. Mr. Speaker, we owe them the guarantee that this cannot happen again. We owe them an end to the sequester cuts, which are affecting our Federal probation system. Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Washington, DC, June 14, 2013. Hon.…”