Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota has held off Republican primary challenger Raymond Perini with about 56 percent of the vote, setting up the 12-year district attorney to run unopposed for a fourth term in November.
The unofficial count from the Suffolk County Board of Elections after polls closed Tuesday was 11,711 to 9,260 with 1,034 out of 1,052 districts reporting.
Perini, a criminal attorney who had worked in the district attorney's office in the narcotic division until the 1980s, was forced to primary Spota, a Democrat, after the Republicans gave the sitting attorney general their endorsement. Spota also has endorsements from Democrats, Conservatives and the Independence Party.
Perini also launched a lawsuit to bar Spota from running this year based on the county's term-limit law, but lost that bid after a state judge ruled that the district attorney's post falls under the rules of a state office.
Spota, 71, lives in Mount Sinai.
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