JAILHOUSE SHOCK
Charity mass bailout plan prompts warning call tto victim from DA
A Kennedy charity plan to bail out minors from city jails prompted the Bronx DA to warn Mary Griffin, 76, that the teen who allegedly mugged her may get out.
A Bronx prosecutor warned a granny mugging victim that her alleged attacker may get sprung from jail — thanks to a Kennedy family nonprofit — and now she is terrified he will come back for her.
“I got a call from the DA’s office yesterday telling me he’s probably going to be out by Monday. This coming Monday. And I’m furious,” Mary Griffin, 76, told The Post at her Bronx home Wednesday.
“Then [the prosecutor] said to me, ‘ Do you still have your order of protection?’ And I went, ‘Oh, no. God, is he going to come after me again?’ He has all my information. He stole it.”
Abdoul Bah, 16, is charged with armed robbery and assault for allegedly bashing Griffin and stealing her credit cards as she walked to church with a friend last April 17.
A plan by the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights foundation would dole out $150,000 to bail out Bah.
The Post revealed Tuesday how the organization is planning to spring all bail-eligible women and 16- and 17-year-old defendants in city jails.
Griffin is still on the mend from the attack and says she hasn’t left her house since she got the frightening news.
“I cried. I didn’t leave the house today. And it’s a beautiful day out. And I usually go out. But I couldn’t go out today. I just lay on the couch all day,” she said. “Oh, it is awful. It’s completely ridiculous to let this guy out and walk the streets again.”
Law-enforcement sources have said the get-out-of-jail-free program is a terrible idea, because defendants would have no incentive to actually show up in court after being bailed.
And even the lawyer for a Queens mom accused of a fatal assault against her own child admitted the plan could backfire.
“To some extent I agree with them [law enforcement],” said Michael Jay Schwed, a Queens attorney representing Phyllis Reinoso.
Reinoso is being held on $1 million bail for allegedly letting her 5-year-old son fatally overdose on anti-seizure pills — and she’s a candidate for the RFK foundation’s bailout program.
“It’s not a bad idea when you’ve got a lot of people sitting in jail on $100 bail, $500 bail. But when you get to the point where you have someone on $100,000 because they did a robbery or shot somebody — bailing them out, you don’t know they’re going to come back,” Schwed said.
The foundation has not reached out to Reinoso or Schwed, who said he’s skeptical the nonprofit would even bail out Reinoso.
“She deserves to be released, but her bail is a million dollars — I can’t imagine they would put that up,” the lawyer said.
The RFK foundation did not respond to multiple requests for comment.