GRIM BAIL FAIL
Out in fatal DWI case, man stabs witness: DA
A BROOKLYN MAN — out on bail on charges he drunkenly plowed his car into nine people, killing one — was busted for stabbing a witness in the neck, authorities said.
Naquan Ricks, 23, was already facing murder charges in the September wreck in Bushwick when he was arrested in the knifing of his friend Sharief Davis, 21, earlier this month.
Ricks plunged a blade into Davis’ neck in the hallway of an apartment building on Bushwick Ave. near Decatur St. in Bushwick on May 4, prosecutors said.
Investigators believe Ricks attacked Davis because he was riding in the car during the crash and could supply prosecutors with damaging information, a law enforcement source said.
The slashing left Davis with a lacerated carotid artery — requiring multiple surgeries, according to a criminal complaint.
Ricks fled the scene but was arrested five days later.
“He shouldn’t have been out on the street,” Davis’ father said. “My son damn near died.”
Ricks was arraigned on attempted murder charges in the stabbing. His bail was set at $499,999 — 10 times the amount for the fatal drunken driving wreck.
Jean Powell, whose daughter Lindsay, 36, died from injuries she suffered in the crash, said Ricks should never have received bail.
“How do you take a life and are allowed to walk away and free to hurt other people?” she said.
Prosecutors say Ricks was plastered when he drove his black 2007 Infiniti onto the sidewalk on Sept. 4, mowing down nine people on Halsey St.
The luxury car lost a wheel in the 5 a.m. wreck but that didn’t stop Ricks from trying to hightail it out of there, prosecutors said.
With a victim splayed across the hood of the car, he drove off on three wheels.
The victim fell to the pavement, and Ricks zoomed away from the scene.
But he didn’t get far — the Infiniti T-boned a taxi at Halsey St. and Bushwick Ave., prosecutors said.
Ricks’ hellish ride came to an end, police said, when they surrounded his car a few blocks away.
His blood-alcohol level was 0.17 — more than twice the state’s legal limit of 0.08, authorities said.
After his criminal court arraignment, Ricks posted $10,000 bail as his victims recovered from injuries including fractured arms and broken ankles.
One, Lindsay Powell, was released from Brookdale Medical Center a day after the crash.
Powell collapsed in her bedroom two days later. An ambulance rushed to the family’s E. 104th St. home, but the woman could not be saved.
Ricks was arraigned in March on a 41-count indictment including upgraded charges of depraved indifference murder and vehicular assault
Justice Vincent DelGiudice increased his bail to $20,000 cash or $50,000 bond. He posted the bond, only to commit a new crime two months later, prosecutors said.
In a jailhouse interview, Ricks denied stabbing Davis and claimed he didn’t even remember that the man was inside his car because he was so drunk at the time.
“How would I even know he was a witness?” Ricks, wearing a beige jumpsuit, told the Daily News at Rikers Island.
“All I remember is that they pulled me out of the car and threw me on the ground. And I remember going to the hospital. That’s it.”
Ricks suggested the episode does have a silver lining — it led him to God.
“I started reading the Bible recently,” he said. “I’m not religious but maybe if I had God earlier, all this wouldn’t have happened.”