IT’S BAIL TIME!
Sprung under reform, $75G tab for new raps
A Brooklyn man with a lengthy rap sheet who was released from Rikers Island under the new bail reform law was behind bars again on various burglary and robbery charges.
Arjun Tyler, 20, was ordered held on $75,000 bail late Sunday after cops busted him for two alleged thefts committed since he was sprung Dec. 19 after spending nearly a year at Rikers under $20,000 bail he couldn’t pay. Brooklyn prosecutors also slapped him with charges stemming from a 2018 crime spree.
Police had initially reported that Tyler was also arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman at the 95th St. subway station in Bay Ridge on Jan. 27. Cops said he was wearing a ski mask when he followed the 31-year-old victim into a station bathroom, punched her in the face and tried to pull down her leggings. Tyler fled when a passerby heard the woman screaming, but was caught on security video after he removed the mask, according to police.
An NYPD source said Tyler wasn’t charged with sexual assault at Sunday’s arraignment because prosecutors wanted to interview the victim, who couldn’t be located. Police remain convinced Tyler is responsible for the attack, the source said. An officer who had previously arrested him saw the wanted poster and identified him.
“The attempted rape is still under investigation,” a spokesman for the district attorney said.
He was arrested Friday for allegedly stealing $120 from a Bensonhurst laundromat earlier that night, and also charged with grand larceny and criminal trespassing after entering a store Jan. 13 and stealing money from the register.
Brooklyn prosecutor Tziyonah Langsam said bail could not be requested for the two January crimes Tyler is charged with because they are not bail offenses. But one of the three open cases from 2018 does qualify for bail.
Tyler was accused of punching a victim in the face and trying to take his laptop and phone on Dec. 21, 2018, before making off with his expensive headphones. Six days later he allegedly stole a cell phone and iPad from an elderly couple’s apartment after they left their door unlocked. And on Dec. 30, 2018, Tyler allegedly climbed through a 72-year-old woman’s bedroom window and stole her iPad.
In each of the cases, Tyler was spotted on security video wearing a reversible purple and blue jacket and camouflage sweatshirt with white lettering, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors had requested $250,000 bail Sunday. But Tyler’s lawyer Jacob Rolls, arguing against bail, said his client had gotten his high school diploma while at Rikers and was a top student who even gave a speech at graduation.
“While he was at Rikers he was very good at mentoring younger kids who were there. He’s also completed a job training program since he’s been out,” Rolls said. “It makes it sound as if he just went out and started committing crimes all over town the moment he was released and that did not happen.”
Tyler had been arrested nearly a dozen times in Brooklyn and Manhattan before he was jailed in 2018, according to sources.