RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Two of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s initial Virginia Parole Board picks have new jobs within the administration after having their appointments to the board rejected by Senate Democrats.
Gov. Youngkin appointed Cheryl Nici-O’Connell and Carmen Williams to the Parole Board days after taking office in January. Virginia Senate Democrats derailed their appointments with a 21-19 party-line vote in March.
On Friday, Youngkin’s office announced that he planned to appoint both to different positions within his administration that do not require lawmaker approval.
According to the release from Youngkin’s office, Nici-O’Connell has been appointed as a policy advisor in the state’s Department of Corrections and Williams will be a policy advisor in the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Nici-O’Connell, a former Richmond police officer, was featured in one of Youngkin’s political spots targeting the parole board appointed by McAuliffe. In the ad, she tells a story about how she was shot in the head in 1984 by a wanted man.
“Every few years I have to rip those wounds open again to plead with the members of Terry McAuliffe’s parole board to keep the man who tried to kill me off the streets,” she says in the ad. But The Washington Post did a fact-checking report that said the ad is misleading as the man who shot Nici-O’Connell has been denied parole multiple times.
Williams is the legal services project manager at Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance, a nonprofit that aims “to strengthen how communities across Virginia respond to and prevent sexual and intimate partner violence,” according to its website.
Williams is a member of the Chesterfield County Republican Committee, according to a Facebook post from the group congratulating Williams when her appointment to the Parole Board was announced.
