Another thug sprung
Jurist’s leniency shocks battered gal
A notoriously lenient city judge who recently sprung a Venezuelan migrant without bail after he stabbed a man in Times Square has struck again — releasing a vagrant who randomly bashed a woman in Union Square as she walked to work, cops said.
Jill Burke, 24, only learned her alleged attacker, Eric Taylor, was cut loose when she showed up to testify against him to a grand jury.
Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Valentina Morales released Taylor — who has two prior felony convictions and 22 misdemeanor convictions, records show — despite a prosecutor’s request for $20,000 cash bail.
Burke said she was walking around 10 a.m. to work at a startup financial firm on Jan. 31 when she was suddenly struck in the face with a heavy object and knocked to the ground.
“He was carrying a plastic bag full of things in one hand and kind of pointed at me with the other hand like he was aiming,” Burke, of the East Village, told The Post.
“He took the plastic bag and hurled it at my face from about two feet away. I fell to the ground and then he just walked away.”
Police took the bag as evidence — Burke said it felt like it had glass bottles in it — and tracked Taylor to an electronics store.
Taylor, 50, told cops he attacked Burke because “he thought she was a spy,” court records show.
Burke suffered a black eye and a cut above her eyebrow. Taylor was charged with felony assault, a baileligible offense.
“This is a stranger assault in which the defendant threw a shopping bag filled with various hard objects at a complete stranger’s head for no reason,” according to prosecutors. Taylor faces three years in prison.
But when Burke showed up to the grand jury on Feb. 21, she learned the jurist appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio sprung Taylor.
“I don’t know how a judge would let someone like this walk free,” Burke said.
“I looked up the judge’s name immediately. Just seeing the history and how many times she has repeatedly let very violent criminals go is just disgusting to me, really shocking.”
Morales, a Columbia Law School graduate, previously released Venezuelan migrant Walter Almachi Leal without bail after he slashed a 43-year-old man with a busted beer bottle on West 39th Street on Oct. 2, 2023, police said.
In 2022, Morales was working as a Bronx jurist when she released ex-con Frankie Centeno with electronic monitoring for gun possession charges. Centeno fled the country.
Morales once ran The Women’s Project at the nonprofit Fedcap Group, which pushed for alternatives to incarceration.
Burke’s attacker finally landed in jail six days after Morales released him — thanks to a different judge.
He was arrested for burglary at a closed Home Depot on West 23rd Street — and sent to Rikers on $10,000 bail by Judge Michael Gaffey, jail records show.
“We don’t comment on bail decisions except to say that in cases like these . . . judges have discretion in making bail decisions . . . based solely on an assessment of a defendant’s risk of flight,” Office of Court Administration spokesperson Al Baker said.