| Diana Richardson | |
| Office: | Deputy Borough President of Brooklyn |
| Leader: | Antonio Reynoso |
| Term Start: | January 1, 2022 |
| Predecessor: | Ingrid Lewis-Martin |
| Successor: | Kim Council |
| State Assembly1: | New York |
| District1: | 43rd |
| Term Start1: | May 6, 2015 |
| Term End1: | March 30, 2022 |
| Predecessor1: | Karim Camara |
| Successor1: | Brian A. Cunningham |
| Birth Date: | 16 January 1983 |
| Birth Place: | Brooklyn, New York |
| Party: | Democratic |
| Otherparty: | Working Families |
| Children: | 1 |
| Residence: | Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Education: | Medgar Evers College (BA) Baruch College (MPA) |
| Termend: | October 17, 2022 |
Diana Richardson (born January 16, 1983) is an American former progressive Democratic politician who served as a member of the New York Assembly.[1] She was elected on the Working Families Party line in a 2015 special election to replace Karim Camara in the 43rd district, which comprises the Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhoods of Brooklyn.[2] She also served as the deputy Brooklyn borough president for ten months in 2022, until she was fired.
Richardson was born in Brooklyn, to immigrant parents who came to the US from Aruba in the Caribbean in the 1960s,[3] [4] and raised in Crown Heights.[4] She attended Edward R. Murrow High School.[5]
Richardson has an undergraduate degree in public administration from Medgar Evers College ('08), and a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College, both campuses of the City University of New York.[3] [4]
Richardson was a Brooklyn Community Board 9 member when the Crown Heights Tenant Union, an advocacy organization for tenants that organizes, educations, and helps residents in housing court cases,[6] [7] convinced her to run for an open New York Assembly seat on an anti-gentrification platform.[8]
She won the May 2015 special election with just over 50% of the vote,[9] on the progressive Working Families Party (WFP) ballot line, the first to do so in the state legislature.[9] [10] She also won the general election the following November, on both the Democratic Party line as well as the WFP.[4]
In 2016, Richardson was arrested for hitting her 12-year-old son with a broomstick, leaving bruises on his arm, and was charged with second-degree assault (a felony), endangering the welfare of a child, criminal possession of a weapon, and menacing.[11] [12] [13] She was released from police custody with a temporary order of protection against her, and her son was staying with a relative.[14] The felony charge was dropped in April 2017, though she still faced six misdemeanor charges.[15] Four years later she wrote on social media: "I’ll just call it what it is. I beat him."
In 2018, she allegedly threw a significant temper tantrum at a meeting, verbally attacking New York State Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie during a meeting.[16]
In 2020, Richardson was pepper-sprayed by the New York City Police Department while marching at a demonstration over the murder of George Floyd.[17]
Richardson faced a primary challenge in the 2020 elections from Jesse Hamilton.[18] She defeated Hamilton in a landslide.[19]
In January 2022, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso selected Richardson to be the deputy borough president.[20]
On October 17, 2022, Richardson was fired by Reynoso for creating a toxic work environment, following a string of staff and constituent complaints about her behavior while she was working at Borough Hall.[21] [22] She had reportedly berated and cursed staff, had to be pulled away from a fight with a Crown Heights anti-violence program director before it became violent, set off smoke alarms in her Borough Hall office, refused to use email, and ignored COVID-19 precautions.[23]
In November 2022 she became engaged, and she is now married, to New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie.[24] [25]