Bail-reform poster boy Pedro Hernandez convicted of burglary
Onetime bail-reform poster boy Pedro Hernandez was convicted of burglary in the Bronx on Friday and now faces up to 25 years behind bars.
Hernandez, 24 — who was famously sprung from Rikers Island by a liberal advocacy group in 2017, only to land back in handcuffs again and again — was found guilty after an eight-week trial.
He was convicted for his involvement in an April 7, 2019, incident in which he and a group of friends got into a dispute with two youths, chased them down and busted into an apartment building where the victims fled to, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office said.
A jury convicted Hernandez of first-degree burglary and criminal mischief, while he was acquitted on charges of assault, gang assault, and robbing the victims.
Prosecutors say that during the melee, Hernandez slashed the face of one of his foes, who then cut Hernandez in return.
The rivals fled into a building, where Hernandez and his cohort broke through the entrance, ran upstairs and tried breaking down the door of the apartment where the victims were sheltering, the DA’s office said.
Hernandez and his cohorts were unsuccessful in gaining access to the home and eventually fled the scene, according to the DA’s office.
Hernandez is slated to be sentenced for the burglary May 23, when he will face a minimum of five years in prison and as much as 25 years on the top count of burglary.
He originally grabbed the spotlight for turning down a no-jail plea deal in a 2015 shooting case and spending a year at Rikers on the charges, since he was unable to post the $250,000 bail in the case.
He was only released after his bail was eventually lowered to $100,000 and the liberal advocacy group Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Charity — which turned him into a cause celebre for criminal-justice reforms, including over bail — sprang him.
The Bronx District Attorney’s office eventually tossed the shooting case against Hernandez in 2017, when a key witness decided not to testify and because the victim couldn’t identify his assailant.
He was then sought this past fall for attempted murder for his alleged involvement in an August shooting outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral that erupted during a dispute over a game of three-card monte in which he lost cash and a gold chain.
State Department of Correction records show that Hernandez has been at Rikers since he was arrested in September on the rap. Hernandez was on the run for almost a month before he was arrested in that case, which is pending in Manhattan court.
Jason Goldman, Hernandez’s lawyer in the shooting case, told The Post, “Pedro maintains his innocence and we look forward to fighting the Manhattan matter.”
Hernandez’s lawyer in the Bronx case did not return a request for comment Friday.
