A teenage poster boy for bail reform who has racked up more than 15 arrests insists he’s no hardened criminal — and blamed police for his lengthy rap sheet, claiming they won’t stop targeting him.
Pedro Hernandez, 19, spent more than a year on Rikers Island after refusing to take a no-jail plea deal for a 2015 Bronx shooting, insisting on his innocence.
The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Foundation bailed him out in 2017 and turned him into a cause celebre for justice crusaders. The charges were eventually dropped.
But Hernandez, who is suing police and the city for false arrest in the case, keeps landing back in cuffs.
“They’re highly targeting me,” Hernandez insisted to The Post.
“I probably spit on the floor here and there, but I don’t think it’s major,’’ he insisted, wearing a Gucci watch and black T-shirt and sweatpants — and sporting a scar over his left eyebrow from an April fight for which he was arrested on first-degree robbery and assault raps.
That case was dismissed, too.
Hernandez has yet to be brought to trial for any of his alleged crimes, which started with petty incidents in the months leading up to the 2015 shooting and went on to include everything from robbery to a street slashing.
In some cases, the charges were dropped. In others, there were deals in which he did not have to admit any guilt.
Hernandez currently still has two open cases against him, both in The Bronx.
He was busted on a reckless-driving rap June 8 after allegedly blowing through several stop signs while fleeing cops. And Dec. 12, 2018, he was nabbed for allegedly driving without a license — an arrest that prevented him from attending an RFK foundation gala where he was supposed to meet former President Obama.
Hernandez said the alleged cop harassment may force him to flee his beloved Bronx, where his family resides.
“I’m going to be forced to move to get [the police] to leave me alone,” Hernandez said. “For some reason, every precinct knows me.”
He suspects that embattled NYPD Detective David Terrell, who he is suing along with the city for false arrest, might be behind the campaign, but he isn’t sure. Terrell was cleared in January of multiple other police-misconduct lawsuits.
Terrell’s civil lawyer, Eric Sanders, told The Post, “The police aren’t harassing [Hernandez] — the problem is, he doesn’t want to take responsibility for his actions.”
Meanwhile, Hernandez said his time on Rikers still haunts him.
“I always look over my back,” he said. “I got used to being alone in a cell. Breaking out of the environment is always difficult for anyone in the system.”
Hernandez said he is currently enrolled in Iona College in New Rochelle in Westchester County, where he is studying business management. Eventually, he said, he wants to buy and flip properties.
“Growing up, I always wanted to be a lawyer, but after everything I’ve been through, I’m sick of the court system,” he said.
Hernandez’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said, “Teenagers and young people are sometimes around imperfect situations. He spent a year plus of his life in Rikers Island, and every time he takes a turn, it seems like he’s being targeted by law enforcement.”
Spiro wouldn’t allow Hernandez to comment on the pending charges against him.