CITY-SUE FELON’S ‘ROB & SOB’ STORY
That’s some chutzpah. A man who was once described as among the most violent gang members in Brooklyn and who was busted in a smash-and-grab robbery in Soho this month says he’s a victim — claiming in legal papers that cops were too rough on him in two previous arrests.
Ricardo Forde, 25, of Brooklyn claims in a 2021 federal lawsuit that the NYPD left him injured, “deprived of his liberty” and unable to enjoy his life.
One law-enforcement expert scoffed at the claim.
“Criminals feel they’re always in the right now. They’re being persecuted by the police,” said Joseph Giacalone, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former NYPD sergeant. “Right now, they view the criminal justice system as weak, and they’re going to take advantage of every avenue given to them.”
Forde was allegedly among five men who ransacked the Rebag boutique at 390 West Broadway on May 5, shattering display cases with hammers and snatching eight handbags worth $24,700 as employees and shoppers fled to the back.
He allegedly fled in a Jeep Wrangler and crashed into a police car before jumping out and bolting. Police caught him, and he was charged with robbery among other counts.
“Well, that doesn’t help his case, for sure,” said Craig Phemister, Forde’s former lawyer in his 2021 federal suit.
The suit stems from a September 2018 arrest in which Forde was nabbed in Crown Heights after allegedly pulling a loaded .380-caliber Cobra Enterprises pistol from his waist and tossing it aside while running from cops.
An NYPD detective’s affidavit claims that police “struggled” to arrest Forde, who was on supervised release from an earlier conviction.
Forde is reputed to be a member of Brooklyn’s Gates Fam gang, lawenforcement sources say.
He was charged with attempted murder in the 2015 shooting of a 17year-old in Brooklyn. He pleaded guilty to weapons possession and served 17 months in state prison, records show.
Forde alleges that he was beaten by officers in the 2018 arrest and that they handcuffed him too tightly and then delayed getting him medical treatment, according to the legal papers. The city’s gun case was dismissed, but he was then charged with a federal count of gun possession as a felon. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 months in prison and three years of supervised release.
Forde claims in another lawsuit that when he was arrested again in April 2020, officers abused and sexually assaulted him.
They placed him in a “dirty, infested and overcrowded holding cell” and refused to give him a mask to protect him from COVID-19, according to the suit filed in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn in 2021.
Both that lawsuit and the federal one seek unspecified damages.
Forde got another six-month sentence in 2021 for violating the terms of his probation including by allegedly hanging out with gang members. He was released under supervision on Dec. 7, 2021, five months before his most recent arrest.
Ellie Silverman, the lawyer representing him in both suits, noted that an “arrest doesn’t make somebody guilty.” “I will say there is a pattern of harassment that has happened in
Mr. Forde’s life from particular officers from particular precincts in New York City,” Silverman said.
Silverman said she had no information on Forde’s alleged gang affiliation. “Very often people are wrongfully identified as gang members,” she said.
Forde is now being held without bail in federal custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn after being charged under the Hobbs Act.
The NYPD declined to comment. The city Law Department said it was fighting both of the suits.