Alvin Epstein

I graduated from SUNY Buffalo in 1965 and worked for the NY City Dept. Of Social Services for two years as a social caseworker. In '73 I became a NYS Probation Officer out of Brooklyn Supreme Court. In '76 I was transferred to the Investigations Unit which prepared Presentence Investigation Reports for Brooklyn Supreme Court. In 1980 I was hired by NY State Division of Parole as a Parole Officer and assigned to supervise parolees for 3 years in the 28 Precint, Manhattan's Central Harlem. Then assigned to the Absconder Search Unit covering all NYC and otherwise known as the Fugitive Squad. In '85 I was transferred to the prestigious Bureau Of Special Services which was an Intelligence Unit covering highly sensitive cases. In '86 I was promoted to Senior PO. As a line supervisor I supervised seven PO's whose caseloads had 70 parolees each in Manhattan below 57 St. In '87 crack was born in Queens and I was chosen to form and supervise a Special Offender Unit which targeted high profile sophisticated offenders who had the criminal resources to frustrate normal supervision/surveillance. This included major drug dealers, informants, organized crime, sophisticated white collar cases, etc. The unit covered Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. With handpicked PO's we were able to cooperate with the NYPD & Feds in solving numerous cases including the ambush murders of Parole Officer Rooney and Police Officer Byrne in Jamaica, Queens by the Fat Cat Nichols drug gang. We also worked with the DEA, NYPD & FBI in solving the murder of undercover DEA Agent Hatcher on Staten Island by mob wannabe Gus Farace.
In '92 I was transferred to two upstate prisons and supervised the POs who wrote reports for the Parole Board Commissioners. From '96 to retirement in '01 I supervised seven POs covering Broome and Delaware Counties in upstate NY including the City of Binghamton.