Prosecutors in Arizona refused to extradite a 26-year-old man accused of killing a woman at a New York City hotel this month because of what they said was the Manhattan district attorney’s lenient treatment of violent criminals.
Rachel Mitchell, the Maricopa County attorney in Arizona, said at a news conference on Wednesday that her team would not work with Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who is expected to charge the man, Raad Almansoori, in the killing of 38-year-old Denisse Oleas-Arancibia.
After hotel workers on Feb. 8 discovered the body of Ms. Oleas-Arancibia in a rented room at SoHo 54, Mr. Almansoori flew to Arizona, New York police officials said on Wednesday. He was arrested there after stabbing a McDonald’s restaurant employee on Feb. 18. Mr. Almansoori has been in custody in Maricopa County since.
“Having observed the treatment of violent criminals in the New York area by the Manhattan D.A. there, Alvin Bragg,” Ms. Mitchell told reporters. “I think it’s safer to keep him here and keep him in custody, so that he cannot be out doing this to individuals either in our state, county, or anywhere in the United States.”
Police unions and Republican officials in New York City and nationwide have complained that too many dangerous people are being released on bail before trial, and that Mr. Bragg has failed to prosecute them as aggressively as he might. But there was no indication that Mr. Bragg’s office would not seek to keep the suspect behind bars.
On Wednesday, Emily Tuttle, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bragg, called Ms. Mitchell’s remarks an insult.
“It is deeply disturbing that D.A. Mitchell is playing political games in a murder investigation,” Ms. Tuttle said in a statement. She also noted that murders and shootings had dropped since Mr. Bragg took office.
“New York’s murder rate is less than half that of Phoenix, Ariz., because of the hard work of the N.Y.P.D. and all of our law enforcement partners,” Ms. Tuttle said. “It is a slap in the face to them and to the victim in our case to refuse to allow us to seek justice and full accountability for a New Yorker’s death.”
The gesture by Ms. Mitchell, a Republican who has held office since April 2022, is an extraordinary breach of criminal justice norms and appears to be a continuation of an effort by the party controlled by former President Donald J. Trump to embarrass Mr. Bragg. His office is set to try a criminal case accusing Mr. Trump of orchestrating the cover-up of a hush-money payment to a porn star in an attempt to conceal her story of an affair before the 2016 election.
After Mr. Trump was indicted in Manhattan last March, prominent Republicans including Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, held a hearing that they said would highlight crime in New York City. They painted Mr. Bragg as a hypocrite who was focused on a political crusade rather than bad behavior in his backyard.