“It is an honor to be here,” Komatireddy said, thanking party leaders and adding, “I’m just honored to be a part of Bruce Blakeman’s ticket.”
She told attendees her campaign would focus on grassroots outreach.
“This is about old-fashioned, meeting people face-to-face, and earning every vote,” she said.
“My commitment is I will work hard every day … to make sure that Bruce Blakeman is our next governor.”
Komatireddy sharply criticized what she described as rising crime and public safety failures across the state.
“Everyday New Yorkers are being stabbed at random. People are burned alive in the subways. Homeless Americans are freezing to death in the streets and repeat offenders are being released over and over again in every county in the state,” she said.
A former federal prosecutor and national security official, Komatireddy built her career in law enforcement after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
She spent more than a decade prosecuting leaders of Al Qaeda, ISIS and Mexican drug cartels as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of New York, handling cases involving terrorism, cybercrime, narcotics trafficking, money laundering and public corruption.
She later served as chief of staff of the Drug Enforcement Administration, overseeing a 10,000-person global agency.
Komatireddy has received multiple U.S. Attorney General’s Awards and national law enforcement honors.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, she clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh and later served as counsel to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. She is now a partner at Holtzman Vogel, teaches at Columbia Law School and is the mother of four.