‘Gun’ aide to get special prosecutor
QUEENS court administrators are scrambling to find a special prosecutor to handle the case of a city criminal justice official who was arrested after cops found a gun in a car she was sitting in.
Suspect Reagan Stevens’ mother, Deborah Stevens Modica, is a Queens Criminal Court judge, and officials are trying to avoid any conflict of interest in her prosecution. The mother did not come to work Monday. Reagan Stevens, who works in the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, was sitting in the back of a parked 2002 Infiniti with two men on 177th St. near 106th Ave. in Jamaica when a nearby Shot Spotter detected five shots fired about 10:20 p.m. on Saturday. Cops who checked out the car found a gun with its serial number scratched off in the glove compartment. All three people in the car were arrested after no one admitted to owning the weapon.
Police also noticed a heavy smell of marijuana, according to court papers.
A superintendent in the Brooklyn apartment where Stevens lived said she had owed about $14,000 in back rent, and was sneaking in and out of the apartment through a fire escape. “One time I see on the camera that she goes up the fire escape when the boyfriend let the ladder down,” said superintendent Roberto Campos, 62.
“She leaves the window unlocked so she can go up that way. They make a complaint for her because the ladder is too heavy to put up again. She don’t talk to me no more because I put the complaint in about the fire escape.”
Campos said Stevens’ Bay Ridge apartment often reeked of marijuana, and neighbors have called to complain. He said Stevens, 42, has a 17-year-old daughter. “She’s a wonderful woman,” said Stevens’ sister Robin. “I can’t say anything else.”
The superintendent said Stevens was forced to pay a portion of the back rent when marshals showed up at her door in February. Stevens was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. She has been suspended without pay.
The two men she was with — Ceasar Forbes, the 25-year-old driver of the Infiniti, and Montel Hughes, 24 — were both hit with an additional charge of carrying knives. Forbes admitted he owned the car, prosecutors said.
Stevens has one prior arrest, from last year, which is sealed, authorities said.
Hughes’ arrest record includes busts for gun possession, criminal mischief and robbery.
Stevens primarily works on the implementation of the Raise the Age bill signed last year by Gov. Cuomo, according to a city website. Her annual salary is about $90,000, according to city records.
Stevens was released on her own recognizance. Forbes and Hughes were held on $3,500 and $10,000 bail, respectively.