De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

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TimothyC
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De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

Post by TimothyC »

Shawn Cohen, Larry Celona and Bruce Golding For the New York Post wrote: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

This de Blasio administration official set one heckuva bad example for the teens she was hired to keep out of jail.

Reagan Stevens, a deputy director in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, and two young men were arrested for illegal weapons possession while sitting in a double-parked car near the scene of a Saturday night shooting in Queens, cops said.

A loaded, 9mm semi-automatic pistol with its serial number defaced was hidden in the car’s glovebox, and there was a spent shell casing on the floor near Stevens’ feet in the rear of the 2002 dark red Infiniti SUV, law enforcement sources said.

The trio’s arrest followed a burst of five gunshots that activated an NYPD “ShotSpotter” device in Jamaica at 9:42 p.m. Saturday, sources said.

The listening device pinpointed the shooting at 174th Street and 109th Avenue, and private surveillance video captured the muzzle flashes of five shots fired from the Infiniti, sources said.

The handgun seized by cops has an eight-round magazine and held three cartridges — two in the magazine and one in the chamber, sources said.

Stevens, 42, and the two men — who cops say also had knives on them — were awaiting arraignment Sunday night in Queens Criminal Court, where her mom, Deborah Stevens Modica, has been a judge since her appointment in 1997.

Her stepdad, Salvatore Modica, is an acting Queens Supreme Court justice. They both declined to comment.

Stevens, who lives in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge, manages youth and strategic initiatives, and her main job is implementing a 2017 state law that will raise the age at which kids can be prosecuted as adults for non-violent crimes from 16 to 18.

Stevens, who previously worked for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office and makes more than $90,000 a year, was immediately suspended without pay, said Office of Criminal Justice spokesman Patrick Gallahue.

“We take these allegations very seriously,” he added.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is an outspoken supporter of strict gun control laws, and last month, he joined a student walkout in the wake of the mass shooting that killed 17 students and staffers at a Parkland, Fla., high school.

Stevens was arrested around 10:25 p.m. near the corner of 177th Street and 106th Avenue along with driver Caesar Forbes, 25, and front-seat passenger Montel Hughes, 24, both of whom live in the neighborhood.

Hughes’ sister, Jade, 17, told The Post that her brother and Forbes were longtime friends and that he recently became acquainted with Stevens.

She said she didn’t know anything about that relationship other than that it wasn’t romantic.

Stevens, Hughes and Forbes were each charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon — one for the gun being loaded, another for its illegally obscured serial number — because no one admitted owning the pistol, sources said.

Cops were also weighing charges involving its firing, based on the video that traces the shots to the car, sources said.

Forbes and Hughes also were charged with criminal possession of a weapon related to the knives they allegedly were carrying, and Forbes was also ticketed for double parking, cops said.

Hughes’ rap sheet lists nine prior arrests, six of which are sealed. The others include an October 2010 bust in Queens on robbery and weapons charges, and a July 2016 arrest on firearm, trespassing and harassment charges, sources said.

Stevens has a sealed 2015 arrest that stemmed from allegations of driving illegally, while Forbes has no criminal record, sources said.

Stevens was released on her own recognizance, according to a spokeswoman for the Queens DA’s office. Meanwhile, Forbes was held on $3,500 bail or $7,500 bond, and Hughes was held on $10,000 bail or $20,000 bond. They are due back in court on April 24.

Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones, Reuven Fenton and Yoav Gonen
Gun control outrage over this in three, two, one... Oh wait.
CFR › Title 27 › Chapter II › Subchapter B › Part 478 › Subpart C › Section 478.34:

§ 478.34 Removed, obliterated, or altered serial number.

No person shall knowingly transport, ship, or receive in interstate or foreign commerce any firearm which has had the importer's or manufacturer's serial number removed, obliterated, or altered, or possess or receive any firearm which has had the importer's or manufacturer's serial number removed, obliterated, or altered and has, at any time, been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.
That's up to a 5 year term in the federal pen.
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Simon_Jester
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Re: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

Post by Simon_Jester »

I'm honestly more than a little flabbergasted at this one. It strikes me as some kind of random anomalous thing, because it's very hard to understand what the hell Stevens was doing in the car with a couple of random punk/thug/whatevers engaged in what certainly sounds like a drive-by shooting attempt.
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Titan Uranus
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Re: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

Post by Titan Uranus »

Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-04-11 08:25am I'm honestly more than a little flabbergasted at this one. It strikes me as some kind of random anomalous thing, because it's very hard to understand what the hell Stevens was doing in the car with a couple of random punk/thug/whatevers engaged in what certainly sounds like a drive-by shooting attempt.
She’s 42, mid-life crisis maybe? Attempting to relive her wild, capricious youth? Or experiencing it for the first time, if she was straight-laced in her teens and twenties. It’s about as late as she could do either.
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Elheru Aran
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Re: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

Post by Elheru Aran »

My hot take on this: I have no idea why Timothy is apparently referencing gun control here, as this would seem to be largely rooted in any number of other issues and is overall more of a criminal problem in general than a gun problem. Yes, De Blasio is very pro-gun control, but he's not particularly responsible for the behavior of his staff, particularly when they go off the rails.
It's a strange world. Let's keep it that way.
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Raw Shark
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Re: De Blasio aide busted with gun in car

Post by Raw Shark »

Titan Uranus wrote: 2018-04-11 10:24am
Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-04-11 08:25am I'm honestly more than a little flabbergasted at this one. It strikes me as some kind of random anomalous thing, because it's very hard to understand what the hell Stevens was doing in the car with a couple of random punk/thug/whatevers engaged in what certainly sounds like a drive-by shooting attempt.
She’s 42, mid-life crisis maybe? Attempting to relive her wild, capricious youth? Or experiencing it for the first time, if she was straight-laced in her teens and twenties. It’s about as late as she could do either.
The last older woman that I dated definitely fell into this category. She was 40, I was 38, and she married way too soon due to pregnancy. We sort of lived her missed adolescence together. Did bong hits, listened to metal, and got very physical together, in between me making her dinner. It was sort of juvenile and romantic at the same time, considering that she'd been married 20 years. She really just wanted a time machine to fix her mistakes.

"Do I really look like a guy with a plan? Y'know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it! Y'know, I just do things..." --The Joker
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