Serial corona ‘crook’ busted – and set free
A Manhattan burglar broke into a string of struggling restaurants closed because of the coronavirus — wearing a surgical mask as he robbed them of tens of thousands of dollars in goods, authorities say.
“That’s an attack on civilization, on humanity,’’ a disgusted police source told The Post on Monday.
Adding insult to injury, when cops finally busted Terrance Brown on Sunday, he was quickly dumped back on the street because of New York’s controversial bail-reform law.
“Bad guys are going to do bad things — and if you keep giving them opportunities they are going to take them,” another police source griped.
Brown, 59 — who already had more than 20 busts under his belt — is suspected of pulling off 18 burglaries across Manhattan, targeting mainly eateries closed amid the pandemic between April 21 and May 4, sources said.
In a spree that one police source called “heartless,’’ Brown wore a surgical mask as he cut through the vinyl vestibules of restaurants and then broke through their glass front doors, sources said.
In all, Brown made off with around $30,000 in cash, liquor and electronics, police said.
He was finally nabbed just after 1:30 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of West 34 Street and Seventh Avenue — after being spotted allegedly with a stolen bicycle and a crack pipe.
Most of the eateries that Brown allegedly targeted couldn’t be reached for comment Monday because either they had closed down or their phone lines were busy.
But a person who answered the phone at one of the targeted joints, J.J. Kinahan’s, a bar on Sixth Avenue near West 25th Street, said he is worried it could happen again.
“There’s nothing these cops can do because of these new bail rules,” said the worker, who asked not to be named. “All they can do is bust them, and they can’t hold them.”
Brown was charged with several counts of burglary, attempted burglary, criminal mischief and criminal possession of stolen property involving four of the break-ins, court records show. He is suspected in the other 14 incidents, law-enforcement sources said.
Brown’s previous arrests range from burglary to petit larceny. It was not clear if he had been convicted in the cases.
He was released with a future court date Monday afternoon after an arraignment in Manhattan Supreme Court. His lawyer did not respond for comment.
Brown’s arrest comes as the NYPD reports a nearly 43 percent uptick in burglaries citywide over the last month — the majority of which happened in Manhattan.
Patrol Borough Manhattan South has seen the largest increase, recording a jump of more than 70 percent — up from 100 to 171 over the last four weeks, according to department data released Monday.
The northern Manhattan Patrol Borough also saw a nearly 60 percent increase over the last month, with 141 break-ins reported this year compared to 89 last year, the data show.