Incumbent Republican Robert Castelli has announced his defeat of Democrat Thomas Roach in the race for the 89th Assembly district, putting an end to nearly six weeks of ballot counts and court litigation.

Roach officially conceded Friday morning after ballot recanvassing at the Westchester County Board of Elections warehouse confirmed Castelli's 112 vote victory, Castelli said during an interview Friday afternoon.

"At this juncture it is over," said Castelli, a Goldens Bridge resident. "The politics are over and we both return to public service."

Roach, 49, has served as the White Plains Common Council President for nine years. He defeated West Harrison's Mark Jaffe in the Democratic primary and had hoped to make the jump to state government for the first time.

The White Plains resident did not immediately return calls from Patch seeking comment Friday.

Castelli, 60, is a state police veteran and former criminal justice professor at John Jay. He will enter his first full term representing the 89th district having served for only 10 months following a February special election victory over Katonah's Peter Harckham. The seat was vacated when Adam Bradley left to become mayor of White Plains.

Roach and Castelli deemed the race too close to call on election night, and waited as court proceedings and absentee ballot counts dragged into December. The final tally left the candidates separated by only a fraction of a percentage point.

Castelli unofficially led the race by more than 300 votes in the days following the election. Since then ballots have been counted from a handful of problem machines in the region and scrutinized through a lengthy appeals process.

Absentee ballot counting began in late November, but it took nearly two weeks to count the approximately 3,800 ballots. When that process was completed earlier this week numbers from the board of elections showed Castelli maintaining a 111 vote lead.

When the vote was certified following the vote recanvassing Thursday Roach made the decision to call the race, Castelli said.

"It's been an incredibly long process," Castelli said. "I'm glad that it's over and I can get back to doing my job."

Castelli commended Roach for his campaign and said that both candidates kept to the issues throughout the lengthy process.

"It was a long and arduous race," he said. "My opponent ran a good race and we both left no stone unturned in the pursuit of trying to get people to listen to our message and vote for us."

The 89th district includes parts of northern, central and southern Westchester County, including New Castle, Mount Kisco, Bedford, Harrison and White Plains.

Editor's note: arduous was misspelt in the original article, the typo has been fixed.