Political gadfly John KenÂnedy O’Hara registered to vote last Wednesday — the first step on a path that the disbarred lawyer hopes will lead to the resurrection of a career destroyed after District Attorney Charles Hynes prosecuted him for listing the wrong address on his voter registration form.
“The last time I voted was for Ross Perot,” said O’Hara, 46, after emerging from the Brooklyn Board of Elections on Adams Street.
“It feels good to be back,” he said.
What a long, strange trip it was.
In 1997, a few years after he ran against Assemblyman Jim Brennan, a Hynes pal, O’Hara was convicted of registering to vote at his girlfriend’s Sunset Park address, rather than at his permanent address 14 blocks away in the same neighborhood.
O’Hara has long contended that his prosecution was merely political payback for the years he spent battling the Kings Country Democratic Party. Not only did O’Hara run against Brennan (D–Park Slope) in 1990, but he also helped another candidate oppose Brennan in 1992.
O’Hara, who ran for office five times in Brooklyn, likes to say he is the first person since Susan B. Anthony to be successfully prosecuted in New York State for voting outside of his district.
When not appealing his felony conviction, O’Hara spent 214 days spearing trash in 16 Brooklyn parks. In New York State, a convicted felon can regain the right to vote once his sentence is complete. O’Hara finished his 1,500 hours of community service by sweeping up in a Bay Ridge park on May 18.
It wasn’t always easy.
“It was a little tough sometimes when you would see someone you know,” said O’Hara. “I got that once or twice, but you gotta take it.”
Now that O’Hara is a full-fledged citizen once again, he has big plans. First, he wants to be reinstated to the New York bar. After that, anything’s possible.
“The race for District Attorney begins in two years, one week, five days and six hours from now,” said O’Hara.
Now that he’s registered in the right place, that is.
Hynes’s office had no comment.
