JOSE'S FIRST WORDS SINCE DELI SLAY
‘I didn’t want to do that,’ bodega worker says amid murder charge
The Manhattan bodega worker charged with murder for fending off a violent ex-con broke his silence Monday, apologizing to the dead man’s family and saying he is “very sad” over the whole ordeal.
“I didn’t think this would happen,” José Alba, 61, said in Spanish from his upper Manhattan apartment.
“At that moment, I was in shock,” he said of the July 1 incident, which involved him fatally stabbing a man who was attacking him from behind the counter of the Blue Moon convenience store on Broadway near West 139th Street.
“I didn’t know what to do and what to say,” he added. “I feel very sad.”
Asked if he had a message for the dead man’s grieving family, Alba said he was sorry any of it ever happened.
“I’d tell them that I didn’t want to do this,” he said. “This happened. I don’t know in the moment how this happened. But I’m also sad. I know what the pain is.
“I ask that they please forgive me because I didn’t want to do that.”
Alba was charged with murder for fatally stabbing 35-year-old Austin Simon after the younger man stormed behind the counter of the Hamilton Heights bodega and accosted him.
The clerk grabbed a knife and stabbed Simon five times in the shocking, caught-on-video melee.
Simon was incensed that Alba refused to sell his girlfriend a bag of chips because her EBT card was repeatedly declined at the counter.
The woman, 32, later told cops she felt Alba was rude, and said he grabbed the chips out of her 10year-old daughter’s hand.
She ran home and returned with Simon, who the woman claimed was demanding an apology from Alba.
Simon stormed behind the counter and threw Alba into a wall and began to scream at the
clerk, surveillance video shows.
Girlfriend’s role draws ire
Video of the deadly encounter obtained by The Post appears to show Simon’s girlfriend also stabbing the bodega clerk in the arm during the incident. She has not been charged in the case.
Defense lawyer and former Bronx prosecutor Michael Discioarro was floored as to why she’s dodged charges thus far.
“I have no idea why she’s not charged,” Discioarro said. “Her boyfriend was the aggressor. She does not get to protect the aggressor.
“We’re getting a good look at how the system works for the average person,” he said. “Imagine if there was no video. José Alba would never be released from Rikers, and [Simon’s girlfriend] would testify against him, likely perjuring herself.”
Alba was arrested, with the NYPD and prosecutors charging him with second-degree murder. He was initially held on $250,000 bail.
Last week, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who had initially asked that Alba be held on a higher $500,000 bail, negotiated a lower bail with Alba’s lawyer amid widespread outcry over the charges against the clerk.
In court, he was released on a $5,000 bond while awaiting trial.
Recovering after Rikers
Meanwhile, Alba’s own knife wounds became infected while he was held at Rikers Island, but he said Monday that he is healing thanks to antibiotics.
Francisco Marte of the Bodega and Small Business Association Group, one of several grass-roots advocacy organizations lobbying Manhattan prosecutors to drop the murder
charge, said Alba is hurting.
“He will need profeshave sional help to his mind more clear,” Marte said outAlba’s side home.
“He’s taking care of himself,” Marte said. “[He’s] been using some Dominican antibiotics that have helped dry up the huge cut that he has.”
He said Alba has not seen a doctor because he’s afraid to leave home. Alba also said he was unaware that a group of bodega owners is scheduled to meet with Bragg on Tuesday to lobby for the charges against him to be dropped. On Sunday, the group, United Bodegas of America, called for the Big Apple to enact a version of Florida’s controversial “stand your ground” law to protect workers in self-defense situations.
The push appears destined to fail in the Democratic-dominated state Legislature.
“I don’t believe that there would be significant support in the Assembly for legislation on ‘stand your ground,’ ” Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx), who chairs the Codes Committee tasked with criminal justice matters, said to The Post on Monday.
Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer and Zach Williams