Judge who allegedly let gun-toting squatting migrant off hook despite DA’s bail plea previously let cop beaters go
A Venezuelan migrant busted on gun and drug charges while squatting with seven others in a Bronx home was sprung by a judge who previously released two men who beat a cop, The Post has learned.
Bronx Criminal Court Judge Eugene Bowen, a Democrat who ran unopposed in 2023, freed Hector Desousa-Villalta despite prosecutors asking the jurist to set bail in the case, records show.
He was arrested after someone called 911 to report that he allegedly flashed a gun at another man outside the home last week.
In November, Bowen, 48, released two men allegedly caught on video beating a cop who’d asked them to put out their cigarettes inside a Bronx subway station.
Kaream McClary, 23, and Izayiah Jessamy, 20, were hit with assault charges for allegedly beating up Officer John Hernandez at the Freeman Street station Nov. 13, according to court documents and the NYPD.
Bronx prosecutors requested bail set at $10,000 cash or $30,000 bond for them — but Bowen set them free with zero bail, according to court records.
“Our failing criminal justice system is creating an incredibly dangerous environment for both cops and the communities we protect,” Police Benevolent Association President Pat Hendry told The Post.
“Judges have the authority to keep criminals who attack cops or carry illegal guns off the streets,” he added. “They are finding every excuse not to use it. New York City police officers are doing our job. Judges need to start doing theirs.”
Bowen wrote in a survey at BallotPedia.org that as a public defender with the Legal Aid Society of NYC he “won the dismissals of hundreds of cases, reversals of convictions obtained unlawfully, and I negotiated countless favorable dispositions that spared my clients jail, onerous probation or parole requirements, and the potential loss of employment, immigration status, parental rights or housing.”
“Most importantly, I made certain that my clients’ voices and concerns were heard, and their rights respected and protected,” he wrote.
The call about Desousa-Villalta allegedly flashing a gun at 3259 Hull Avenue on March 27 led to the arrest of eight migrants who were in possession of four guns, ammo and drugs, cops said.
Desousa-Villalta was cut loose on supervised release despite the district attorney’s request that Bowen set bail at $150,000 cash or $450,000 bond, records show. Charges against him were still pending.
Prosecutors argued in court that Desousa-Villalta had “a loaded firearm in hand at the time of arrest” in the Bronx and an open attempted murder case against him in Yonkers. But the defense argued that he was released after three months of being in jail and no new court date was set in Yonkers. NYPD officials said the victim in that case declined to participate.
Office of Court Administration spokesman Al Baker said his office doesn’t comment on bail decisions and that judges “have discretion in making bail decisions in accordance with the law and based solely on an individualized assessment of a defendant’s risk of flight.”
Desousa-Villalta, 24, was picked up at the house again on Wednesday — this time by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with two other migrants and is facing deportation, federal officials said.
Also arrested at the home, Javier Alborno, 22, was allegedly in possession of a semi-automatic pistol, cops said.
Alborno had been arrested in September on a weapons possession charge and was cut free with no bail, police said.
This time, he was sent to Rikers Island jail on $100,000 bail with charges pending, records show.
But NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell was angry that his cops were confronted by the gun-toting migrants just a week after Police Officer Jonathan Diller, posthumously promoted to detective, was shot by an armed repeat-offender.
The two suspects in that case — alleged shooter 34-year-old Guy Rivera and accomplice 41-year-old Lindy Jones — had long lists of priors.
“Why are we confronting people with guns again that shouldn’t have them?” Chell fumed at a news conference Wednesday. “Why is a person locked up for a firearm out on the street?”
It wasn’t clear how the men got the guns and the drugs or if they were involved in a gang, cops said.
