Here’s All the Crimes Alvin Bragg Shrugged Off to Go After Trump Mia Cathell
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/miacathell/2023/04/02/alvin-bragg-double-standard-on-crime-n2621354
While police are catching criminals on New York City’s unsavory streets, Soros-tied Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has caught a chronic case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). The politically ambitious Bragg, whose self-styled crowning achievement is indicting a former U.S. president for the first time ever in American history, is using what he alleges to be a federal campaign-finance violation as a means to upgrade an otherwise-misdemeanor charge to a felony via an untested legal theory.
Simultaneously, as Bragg seeks to prosecute President Donald Trump, the GOP’s top 2024 contender, to the fullest extent of the law no matter the cost, the soft-on-crime DA has downgraded felonies to misdemeanors in a majority of his cases, handing get-out-of-jail-free cards to hordes of hardened criminals with little regard for the victims of these violent crimes in his own jurisdiction.
Dropping Cases
Bragg’s double standard on taking down whom he deems “the bad guys” has left the crime-infested Big Apple to rot.
The New York Post reported in December that because Manhattan prosecutors supposedly have too much on their plates, instead of trying a case, Bragg’s office proposed dropping four felony charges of grand larceny against gang member Charles Lindsay, requiring only that the gangbanger attend five counseling sessions sponsored by the Manhattan Justice Opportunities, an alternative sentencing program that assigns social workers to criminals convicted of both felonies and low-level offenses.
Lindsay, a member of the “Rich Fam” gang who was also a suspect in the rape of a 15-year-old girl, allegedly pulled off a string of pricey high-end heists snatching almost $25,000 in expensive loot from boutiques along Madison Avenue. Prosecutors told cops that “the heck of a deal,” which didn’t even stipulate that Lindsay pay back what he was accused of robbing, was struck because the DA’s office was trying to clear up its court calendar while contending with a heavy caseload, a law enforcement source said.
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(Afforded a second chance from the no-jail bargain, Lindsay was nabbed later after he allegedly punched a 14-year-old boy in the face, stealing the child’s cash and iPhone in the gang mugging, and carried a loaded pistol on a playground as he fled police.)
Serial shoplifter Wilfredo Ocasio, likewise, received lax treatment from Bragg’s staff, which claimed it would’ve been “a waste of resources” for the DA’s purportedly overworked office to pursue more than two cases against Ocasio, out of 23 separate thefts.
Bragg let accused murderer Tracy McCarter, who stabbed her estranged husband James Murray to death, off the hook. Pre-primary victory, Bragg had tweeted support for the defendant, which the Color of Chance PAC, a vocal advocate of McCarter’s release, believed to be a campaign “promise” that he, at first, failed to keep. The anti-police political action committee had pledged $1 million to Bragg’s campaign, although it quietly withdrew half over a “disturbing” allegation against Bragg, in May 2021, when liberal mega-donor George Soros donated $1 million to the Color of Chance PAC ahead of Bragg’s packed primary.
The court found “no compelling reason to dismiss the indictment, but for the District Attorney’s unwillingness to proceed,” Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Diane Kiesel wrote of Bragg’s “recommendation for dismissal,” noting that “the public could perceive this dismissal as bought and paid for with campaign contributions and political capital.” Court documents had cited the Color of Change pressuring Bragg to use his prosecutorial discretion in favor of the PAC’s stance on the McCarter murder case.
After the DA won his bid to drop the murder charges, the slain man’s family felt betrayed by Bragg, asserting that the remaining $500,000 campaign contribution was “100%” behind Bragg’s decision to reverse course on prosecuting the alleged murderer.
Downgrading Charges
Upon being sworn in, Bragg moved to turn his progressive agenda into policy. In his controversial “Day One” memo to staffers, which he since rolled back following immense backlash, Bragg ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for a slew of offenses, reduce felony charges in cases involving armed robberies and drug dealing, and drop some misdemeanors.
Before Bragg’s backtracking, weapon-wielding career criminal William Rolon was arrested for stealing over $2,000 worth of merchandise by threatening a female drugstore manager with a knife. Cops slapped Rolon with felony first-degree robbery and criminal possession of a weapon, but when the suspect was arraigned in Manhattan criminal court, he was only charged with misdemeanor petit larceny, in line with Bragg’s “Day One” directives. Based on the ex-convict’s lengthy rap sheet, the repeat robber should “feel lucky” and would’ve faced “a long period of time in jail,” if not for Bragg, a judge told Rolon at the arraignment.
A similar case of armed shoplifting at a TJ Maxx took place days before, in which Manhattan prosecutors reduced what would’ve been a felony robbery charge to misdemeanor petit larceny, per Bragg’s first-day marching orders. NYPD’s Sergeant Benevolent Association, a police union, had accused Bragg’s office of underplaying the incident by “intentionally omitting” key information from the criminal complaint—an accusatory instrument used to charge suspects—pertaining to a pair of cutting-shears brandished at employees in the violent theft. Leaving out those details, regarding the forcible taking of goods with the threat of physical injury, set the difference in charging and led to assault-and-robbery recidivist Christian Hall’s release without bail.
Last summer, a man accused of raping his teenage relative secured a sweetheart deal—a mere 30-day jail sentence plus probation—from Bragg’s office in August 2022. After agreeing to plead down to a coercion charge in the teen-rape case, Justin Washington then allegedly went on a sex-crime rampage and sexually terrorized five victims just a month later. Washington was first hit with first-degree rape and first-degree sexual abuse, but Bragg’s prosecutors downgraded the charges after determining there wasn’t enough evidence. Under the “sweet” plea agreement, Washington wouldn’t have had to register as a sex offender.
That same year, Bragg’s office cut a plum plea deal that was considered a slap-on-the-wrist arrangement with longtime offender Marcus Wright, who was first charged with grand larceny, a felony, for stealing from a Soho boutique, but was allowed to plead down to misdemeanor petty larceny and walk away without any jail time. Upon being let go, the freed thug allegedly punched an innocent woman in a random attack. Again, Wright was released without bail, thanks to the state’s liberal bail-reform measures.
This year, the embattled anti-Trump DA courted controversy once more by offering a lenient six-month-prison-stay plea deal to Waseem Awawdeh, one of four suspected assailants arrested for a brutal 2021 antisemitic attack on Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man who was wearing a yarmulke en route to a pro-Israel demonstration. As captured on camera, the gang of Arab-American men pepper-sprayed, punched, and kicked Borgen, with Awawdeh, who reportedly declared he’d “do it again” and called the man “a dirty Jew” mid-attack, allegedly striking the victim multiple times with a crutch. Borgen was left hospitalized from the beating.
Statistically, there’s nothing to Bragg about when examining the chief prosecutor’s performance overall.
New York City’s convictions plummeted while downgraded charges skyrocketed under Bragg’s watch, according to a late November 2022 analysis by the New York Post. Since taking office in January 2021, Bragg’s track record shows he had downgraded more than half of his felony cases—about 52%—to misdemeanors, compared to 39% in all of 2019, the analysis found based on data made publicly available by the Manhattan DA’s office. In contrast, between the years 2013 and 2020, the percentage of criminal cases the DA’s office downgraded never exceeded 40% under Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr.
Meanwhile, Bragg managed to lose almost half of his serious felony cases, winning a conviction just 51% of the time, which is down from a victory rate of 68% in 2019, right before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted courts in New York and nationwide. By the end of last year, Bragg had declined to prosecute approximately 35% more felony cases than in 2019. Misdemeanor convictions had also taken a dramatic downward turn, falling to 29% at the time of the data analysis, from 68% in 2019.
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