Parole Board Drama: Why Tyece Drake's Firing is Making Waves
A former New York State Parole Board commissioner was given the boot after objecting to the release of a convicted killer who allegedly vowed to torture and murder her in a racist tirade after she voted to keep him behind bars, she told The Post.Tyece Drake said she repeatedly warned state officials about threats allegedly made by murderer Matthew Svanberg, 53, before he was granted parole in 2024. Svanberg spent 25 years behind bars for fatally shooting 26-year-old gas station attendant Dennis Folk in the face during a robbery at a Long Island service station in 1993.Matthew Svanberg went on the run for five years before he was captured and found guilty of murdering a gas station attendant. News 12Svanberg, who was 20 at the time, fled to Las Vegas after the murder and evaded capture for five years until he was nabbed by police and extradited to New York.The inmate flew into a rage when Drake, 53, denied him parole in 2023, according to a letter obtained by The Post a fellow inmate sent to the state Parole Board the following year.“He when (sic) on a racist rant about how he will kill that ‘Black B—h Drake, that F—ing N—-r B—h,’ if he ever gets his change (sic),” according to the letter from an inmate in prison with Svanberg at Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Sullivan County.“‘How dare that f—–g black b—h think that she is above a white man like me,'” the letter said. “‘She is beneath us. How dare she gets above her station.'”Svanberg said that one day, “He will teach her to respect a white man like him. That when she beg (sic) for her life, he will torture her then kill her,” according to the letter.Svanberg was “extremely angry” at Drake and “he felt that she was emotionally torturing him,” according to the letter.Dennis John Folk, 26, was shot in the face during a robbery while he worked the night shift at a Getty gas station in Ridge, NY. Change.orgDrake, a mental health professional appointed to the parole board in 2017, said she took her responsibility to protect the public seriously.“He was angry because I asked him so many questions,” said Drake, one of three board members who interviewed Svanberg. “It’s a murder case. I have to be thorough so that I am sure that if I’m releasing someone that the public is going to be safe.”During the hearing, Svanberg didn’t seem to be taking responsibility for his victim’s death, and he bragged about the killing while he was on the run, Drake said.Drake wrote the decision denying Svanberg parole, but he appealed in a Dutchess County Court and won a new hearing after a judge decided the killer couldn’t be denied parole based on the seriousness of his crime. At Svanberg’s second parole hearing, far-left board member Tana Agostini was on the panel, and was among three board members who interviewed him. Agostini was the lead interviewer on the case and wrote the decision to release him, citing the judge’s court decision.Matthew Svanberg allegedly threatened to kill a state parole board member who denied his parole and was later sprung in a second hearing. News 12Agostini was a pro-inmate commissioner who married a felon she helped to get out of prison before she was appointed to the board by then-Gov. Cuomo. She has since been replaced, and didn’t return a call seeking comment.Svanberg was released in May 2024.“I have been afraid for my life for two years,” Drake told The Post. “When I complained, I was fired. It has impacted me psychologically.”Drake insisted Svanberg should be sent back to prison because the board didn’t follow state law that requires members to adhere to the “deprecate standard” and determine whether releasing an inmate would minimize the seriousness of their crime and undermine respect for the law.“We have a parole board being so careless that they’re not following their own law,” said Drake, who was told she was being replaced in June 2025 after complaining about Svanberg’s release. Former parole board member Tyece Drake wrote letters to the board’s leaders and politicians complaining about Svanberg’s release after the alleged death threats. Department of Corrections and Community SupervisionThe state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, which oversees the parole board, said they investigated the threats against Drake but couldn’t prove it.“Subsequently, after a thorough investigation, the threats were determined to be unsubstantiated,” a statement from the agency read.As far as her employment, the agency said Drake was replaced because her appointment term ended. “We do not comment further on personnel matters,” a spokesperson said.Drake fired back that her term actually ended six years before she was replaced.The inmate who wrote the letter stated in it that he would deny writing it if he was asked because “I don’t want to be looking over my shoulder the rest of my life.”When investigators questioned him, the convict denied writing the letter as promised, according to an internal DOCCS email exchange between Drake and an investigator at the agency’s Office of Special Investigations, provided to The Post.And Svanberg, who is living with his brother in Wainscott, LI, denied making the threats when he was questioned, according to the exchange.“It should be noted that unsubstantiated does not mean it didn’t happen,” the investigator wrote in the email.Svanberg was working for his brother’s surf and kayak business in the Hamptons after his release. A working phone number for him coudn’t be found.Drake considers herself a “whistleblower” and wants to see change at the parole board.“I think leadership needs to be removed and have people in there who know what they’re doing,” she said.Drake also would like to see Svanberg go back to prison.“If they can reverse that decision, then they should reverse it,” she said. “He got out illegally.”
