COP BIG: UH, SORRY JUDGE
3 days after ripping wrong jurist for no-bail release of serial thief
Police Department brass acknowledged Friday that they misidentified a judge they accused of being soft on crime — but they did not remove the controversial social media posting, and set the blame for publishing the wrong information on others.
NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said he “was given incorrect information through numerous verifications” as to which Bronx judge had freed without bail a career criminal charged with possessing stolen property and illegal drugs.
“My post, my responsibility!” Chell wrote Friday on X. “With that, an apology is owed to the Honorable Judge Machelle Sweeting.”
The department did not identify who or which unit of government provided the incorrect information on which Chell’s X posting was based.
“The NYPD always strives to provide factual information to the public,” the department said Friday in a statement on X.
The mea culpas came three days after Chell railed against the release without bail of Rudell Faulkner, a career criminal who appeared Feb. 24 in Bronx Criminal Court.
“After conferring with the office of Court Administration, we are aware of how to prevent this from happening in the future and we will continue to work with all of our criminal justice partners in furtherance of public safety,” the NYPD said.
NYPD officials said five sources both inside and outside the department told Chell that Judge Sweeting was overseeing arraigments when Faulkner, a serial subway pickpocket with a decades-long criminal history, was arraigned, said chief NYPD spokesman Tarik Sheppard.
Chell said in his initial X post on Tuesday that Sweeting “did not do her job” by setting Faulkner free.
Court papers and other publicly available records show that in fact, Judge Michele Davila was adjudicating cases when Faulkner was brought in. It was Davila who made the decision to free Faulkner without requiring him to post bail, records show.
But the NYPD’s multiple sources still got the information wrong.
“What else can Chell do but verify the information?” Sheppard asked. “He did it five times. Unfortunately it turned out to be a different judge working out of the same courtroom.
“At the end of the day, the principle that we’re standing on we’ll continue to stand on — judges are not entitled to a free pass,” Sheppard said. “Everybody has to be accountable. Everybody.”
A nameplate on the bench at Bronx arraignment court may have led police brass to believe Sweeting was presiding when Davila had taken over, a source with knowledge of the case said.
The New York Office of Court Administration confirmed on Thursday that the NYPD “named a judge that did not preside over the case.” Emails for comment to the OCA on Friday were not returned.
Chell’s original X post from Tuesday that named Sweeting was still online Friday. The post was flagged with a ‘community note’, alerting X users of potential misleading information.
While Chell apologized to Sweeting by name in his new X post Friday, he also stood behind the original post’s message. “The judge still did NOT do their job by releasing this criminal back into our city,” Chell wrote.
Police said they knew of no threats made against Sweeting because of the error-riddled X post, which also wrongly stated the Manhattan DA’s office was prosecuting the case. The Office of Court Administration hasn’t said if it or Sweeting would ask the NYPD to remove the tweet.
Sheppard admitted the department’s mistake, but didn’t think correcting the matter needs to come with a heartfelt mea culpa.
“Yes, it’s wrong but the process to get that information is normally reliable and it’s the right way to go about it,” Sheppard said. “I think you can admit to it being wrong, but a public apology is kinda crazy.”
Instead, the department vowed to do a better job identifying the judges it wants to bash in the future, he said.
“We’re going to be tweaking our verification process,” Sheppard said Friday. “But we’re not going to step away from this issue. The judges are a very big piece of the criminal justice ecosystem and they have to be accountable and they shouldn’t be hidden from their decisions.”
Faulkner is a serial pickpocket suspected of lifting phones from sleeping passengers on city subways, then selling the phones at pawn shops. He has been arrested 47 times and has 28 convictions under his belt, Chell said.
“This is his sixth arrest this year, with four being felonies,” Chell wrote on X under a mugshot of Faulkner.
At Faulkner’s arraignment, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office asked Davila to set bail at $10,000 cash or $30,000 bond. Davila opted to release Faulkner on his own recognizance since he hadn’t missed a court appearance on his other arrests in 18 years, according to court documents.
Mayor Adams didn’t directly address the NYPD’s faux pas on Friday, but said he understood Chell’s frustration.
“It gets to you when you see those repeated offenders over and over again being released back out into the street, and you feel sometimes that the other arms of the criminal justice system are not hearing that everyday New Yorkers are the victims of these crimes,” Adams said.
“Could they have done it better? You know, one could say yay or nay,” Adams said when asked about the screwup. “But I know they are dedicated to keeping this city safe.”