Killer LI driver taunted cops over reform: DA
Beaten kids’ kin: Too little, too late
A Long Island man cursed cops and defiantly boasted that he would be back on the street “tomorrow” thanks to bail reform as he was arrested for DWI in a fatal crash this month, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Jordan Randolph, 40, was indeed a free man one day after the Jan. 12 collision in Shirley that killed Jonathan Flores-Maldonado, 27 — a smashup that Randolph purportedly told cops was “just a DWI.”
Details of the boozy bust were revealed in a Suffolk County court as Randolph was hit with a 24-count indictment for the crash, including charges of aggravated vehicular homicide, vehicular manslaughter and felony DWI.
“As Jonathan Flores was left taking his last breaths and dying, this defendant was hurling expletives at both officers and EMTs who were trying to render him aid,” said Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Jacob DeLauter at Randolph’s arraignment.
“At one point, the defendant completely trivialized this deadly collision by stating to police, ‘F- -k you, January 1st the laws changed,’ ” DeLauter said.
On New Year’s Day, a package of sweeping criminal-justice reforms went on the books statewide, among them a controversial initiative barring judges from setting bail in most misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies. Those include felony DWI, the top charge on which Randolph was initially arrested.
“I’ll be out tomorrow, and I will come find you,” Randolph told the cops, according to DeLauter.
“He also stated to an EMT that when he gets out, he’ll come find her,” the prosecutor said.
True to his word, Randolph was initially freed on the case, despite allegedly driving his Cadillac at more than 135 mph at the time of the William Floyd Parkway crash — and having three prior DWI convictions among his tangled criminal history.
While already on parole for a 2017 conviction in Nassau County, Randolph was busted on New Year’s Day in Suffolk for harassment, aggravated unlicensed operation and tampering with a courtordered ignition interlock device.
Although those charges are not baileligible under the reforms that became law that very day, a judge could have ordered Randolph held for violating his parole, law-enforcement officials have argued.
Instead, he was cut loose — this time, it’s alleged, leaving him free to kill.
Randolph was also released following his initial court appearance on the fatal Jan. 12 crash, because he was initially charged only with DWI, which is not bail-eligible under the law.
Soon after, politicians from both of Long Island’s counties came together to form a bipartisan task force to draft proposals to tweak the state’s bail reforms.
But that effort came too late for Flores-Maldonado’s mom.
“My son is Jonathan Flores-Maldonado, and he was the one that was mowed down on the damned highway,” FloresMaldonado’s mother, Lillian Flores, said outside the Suffolk courtroom in Central Islip, where Randolph pleaded not guilty on Thursday.
“I’m here to advocate for my son and for any other victims that are subject to the injustices of these new laws.”
Randolph was finally remanded to state custody on Jan. 16 after Nassau County Judge William O’Brien issued a warrant on the parole violation.
On Thursday, Judge Fernando Camacho ordered Randolph held without bail on the new indictment charges.
After enduring outrage for two weeks, Chancellor Richard Carranza finally apologized to two Queens parents whose kids were assaulted on school grounds — but both parents said it was too little, too late.
“I in no way, shape or form want to show any disrespect to any parent that wants to be heard and I apologize,” Carranza said at a Wednesdaynight meeting of the Panel for Education Policy. “Because as a parent myself, I can only imagine the pain that parents are feeling when their children have been hurt.”
He also offered to meet personally with both parents from MS 158 Marie Curie in Bayside, but added he did not want it to be a “public spectacle.”
Carranza walked out of a District 26 meeting in Queens on Jan. 17 after Katty Sterling, the mother of a girl beaten in a school cafeteria, and the father of a girl who was sexually assaulted in class demanded time to speak amid a chaotic and contentious gathering of more than 500 people.
Despite Carranza’s belated olive branch, both parents told The Post Thursday that too much bad blood had already been spilled.
“It’s too little, too late,” the father said. “I’m a forgiving person, but the way he handled this has just been unbelievable.”
Carranza at the packed Jan. 17 meeting had accused the parents of “grandstanding” and intimated they were part of a “setup” aided in part by mercenary “agitators” and bigots opposed to his controversial agenda for city schools.
Sterling said her concerns about her daughter’s pummeling were taken seriously only after her story — and a video of the assault — hit the media.
Both she and the other parent said school administrators blew off their concerns and never removed the two assailants from class.
“I was ignored for weeks,” Sterling said “My daughter was ignored for weeks like she was nothing. I don’t accept his apology. This is an arrogant, calculating man.”
Carranza tangled online with several critical politicians — including state Sen. John Liu, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Rep. Grace Meng — after an unrelated Tuesday press conference with Mayor de Blasio.
Carranza — who argued that the rowdy meeting had served no productive purpose — remained on war footing through Wednesday morning, when he tweeted that Sterling had retained a lawyer.
Sterling said she was furious about his suggestive tweet and argued that she sought external help only because of the Department of Education’s dismissive behavior.
A source said that although there was no “concerted effort” to get Carranza to apologize, City Hall did tell the chancellor to “stop tweeting.”
While Carranza reversed his appraisal of the two parents Wednesday night, he continued to argue that it was Community Education Council 26 President Adriana Aviles who aborted the meeting, not him or his staff.
Aviles and CEC 26 have denied that account, insisting that DOE personnel pulled the plug out of safety concerns.
Carranza and the DOE have said there is a probe underway of MS 158’s disciplinary practices.