Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a man of his word. He said he’d do his best to keep people out of jail, and he meant it. And among recent beneficiaries of the DA’s free-a-felon commitment is a 22-year-old one-man crime wave named Charles Lindsay — an alleged Manhattan gang-banger who will have four felony robbery charges dismissed if he promises to be a good boy from now on.
That is, if he agrees to attend five counseling sessions sponsored by Manhattan Justice Opportunities, a so-called alternative sentencing program of the sort littering the cityscape these days.
Bragg, not coincidentally, is into alternative sentencing himself. In his world, bad guys get the breaks and the good guys — like the shopkeepers Lindsay allegedly ripped off for thousands of dollars — are on their own.
As is Manhattan generally. Just look around.
Bragg pulled no punches from the beginning. The George Soros-backed prosecutor was in office only hours before telling his staff they wouldn’t be seeking “carceral sentences” — prog-speak for prison terms — for most felonies. And that they scarcely would be prosecuting misdemeanors at all.
The blowback was considerable, as might be imagined. So the rhetoric was moderated — and now when Bragg’s office lets felons walk, it’s not his doing. At all.
Take Lindsay’s case. The DA’s office says it doesn’t have the “resources” to press the charges — hence the offered “non-carceral” plea deal.
Well now. Who knew that not enforcing the law was so resource-intensive? That not prosecuting farebeaters was so taxing? Ditto, leaving shoplifters alone? Or ignoring drug dealers? Or surrendering to the quality-of-life creeps who are dragging the city back to by-gone times?
Can harried straphangers and struggling shopkeepers begin to imagine how tired Alvin Bragg must be after a hard day of not doing his job?
To be sure, even if Bragg wanted to keep the streets safe, he’d have his hands full. The job has never been easy, and Albany made it harder three years ago with its now-infamous “reforms” to New York’s bail, penal and criminal procedure codes.
Committed prosecutors warned up front about those changes — none more vigorously than former Soros protégée David Soares of Albany County — and they’ve been grappling with their effects ever since.
But while Bragg’s office complains sotto voce about them, the DA himself hasn’t had much to say. Which is a real pity — because if he were to demand reform of the “reforms,” the right people would have to listen. And, just maybe, act.
But what reason is there to believe Bragg supports vigorous law enforcement? None whatsoever.
Fact is, the fellow who holds what until recently was maybe the most prestigious prosecutorial post in America is, at heart, a Legal Aid Society lawyer.
And thus does a gang-banger get a sweet deal for Christmas — and New York, a stocking full of coal.
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