Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance will face another 2021 challenger as Janos Marton, an attorney and former member of the now-defunct Moreland Commission, announced his candidacy Monday morning.
“I’m running because Manhattan needs a new vision for justice. Over the last 10 years, Cy Vance has been overly punitive to communities of color, and overly attentive to people in power,” Marton, 37, told The Post in a phone interview, declaring his candidacy two years ahead of the face-off.
“I would rigorously examine which cases the office requests bail for and look at trying to keep as many people out of the prison system, and focus on other methods for accountability. I will spend more energy on the types of issues Vance’s office has paid scant attention to. For example, wage theft and anything else beyond street crime.”
Marton, a state campaigns manager for the American Civil Liberties Union, endorsed Democratic socialist candidate Tiffany Caban for Queens district attorney.
He served as special counsel on the Moreland Commission — an investigation committee set up to root out political corruption — and remained a vocal critic of Gov. Andrew Cuomo for its 2014 shuttering.
“I think the Epstein case is emblematic of the questionable relationship between powerful people and the unwillingness of Vance’s office to prosecute people in power who have obviously committed harm,” Marton said.
“It’s just a pattern of obfuscation and not really credible.”
Vance has come under fire for his lenient handling of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
At Epstein’s 2011 sex offender registration hearing, Vance’s office requested the perv be registered as a level one sex offender, rather than the higher level three designation.
That position was later reversed.
Several outraged state lawmakers called upon Attorney General Letitia James to investigate Vance for his judgment of Epstein earlier this month.
Marton is the second Democrat to throw his hat into the ring with more than two years until election day. New York Law School professor Alvin Bragg has announced his candidacy, and Manhattan Assemblyman Dan Quart, a former Legal Aid Society attorney, is also considering a run, according to Patch.