BLAS AIDE GUN RAP
Busted near scene of Qns. shooting
Reagan Stevens, a deputy director in the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, wa s arrested in a car double-parked near a Queens shooting scene — with a loaded gun in the glove compartment.
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, was arrested along with two young men for illegal weapons possession while sitting in a double-parked vehicle near the scene of a Saturday-night shooting in Queens, cops said.
A loaded 9mm semiautomatic pistol with its serial number defaced was hidden in the car’s glove compartment, 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 gunfire-detection device in Jamaica at 9:42 p.m. Saturday, the 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, the sources said.
The handgun seized by cops has an eight-round magazine and was holding three cartridges — two in the magazine and one in the chamber, according to the sources.
Stevens, 42, and the two men — who cops say also had knives on them — were arraigned Sunday night in Queens Criminal Court, where her mother, Deborah Stevens Modica, has been a judge since 1997.
Her stepfather, Salvatore Modica, is an acting Queens Supreme Court justice. They both declined to comment.
Stevens, of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, 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 nonviolent 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 de Blasio is a supporter of strict gun-control laws and last month joined a student walkout following the high-school massacre in Parkland, Fla.
Stevens was arrested at 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, said that her brother and Forbes are 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. Forbes and Hughes also were charged with criminal possession of a weapon related to the knives they were allegedly carrying, and Forbes was ticketed for double parking.
Stevens lawyer claimed in court that she never knew the gun was in the vehicle. She was released without bail on Sunday night.
Forbes was ordered held in lieu of $7,500 bail while Hughes was ordered held in lieu of $20,000.
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, according to the sources.