’17 hopeful’s felony raps
Sex crime, break-in cloud Browder bro
GREEN PARTY mayoral candidate Akeem Browder is a registered sex offender and twice-convicted felon, public records show.
Browder pleaded guilty in 2000 to an act of sodomy with a 12-year-old girl that took place in 1997, when he was 15, according to the national sex offender registry, which classifies him as a Level 3 sex offender.
More recently, Browder pleaded guilty to burglary and identity theft charges in 2006, and served about a year and a half in prison, according to records.
Browder, 34, is the brother of Kalief Browder — who spent three years on Rikers Island awaiting trial on charges he stole a backpack, and later died by suicide — and has assailed Mayor de Blasio for not acting fast enough to close the jail.
“My past has shaped me to be the man that I am now,” Browder told the Daily News. “I’m always out in the open. I’m always the topic of scrutiny because of my first run-in with the law as a kid.”
That run-in came in February 1998, when Browder, then 15, was arrested in connection with a string of assaults and attempted abductions of school-aged girls.
Browder, who according to news reports was later indicted on charges related to seven girls, said then and now that he had nothing to do with the string of offenses. The lone sodomy charge to which he pleaded guilty came after he and the girl, who he said was his girlfriend, got caught cutting school and engaging in oral sex.
“We’re talking about things that average white kids would do or any kids would do when it comes to learning their sexuality,” Browder said. “You make mistakes.”
He was sentenced to one to three years behind bars and said he served three months at Rikers Island and five months in state prison.
Browder discussed the arrest in a recent documentary about his brother’s life and death, and it was mentioned in a recent Green Party press release about his mayoral run. His more recent conviction was not.
He pleaded guilty to burglary and identity theft in November 2006, court records show. The criminal complaint charged he stole a credit card and a check and used them to make purchases at stores.
Asked about that arrest, Browder said when you’re in the system, you’re “always pegged for something.” He took the burglary plea, he said, because he was being threatened with 20 years in prison at trial. But Browder acknowledged “there was a credit card” he’d used. “I’m not putting myself as some innocent person and they’re always coming after me. But when you’re accused of a crime, it makes your living situation to be what it is,” he said, if you don’t have the proper means for rehabilitation. “Where we have a real bad system in America or in New York, simply, we like to judge people over and over again — because we can, I guess? How does that promote anything positive?” he asked. “My candidacy isn’t about what I’ve done in the past, and of course it should be spoken on, but my candidacy will not be all about my past.”