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A violent career criminal who had a felony robbery charge downgraded to a misdemeanor at the direction of embattled Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was nabbed for a random attack on a sanitation worker, court records show.
Christian Hall, 30, allegedly clocked the city worker in the face from behind in Chelsea on Wednesday, according to a criminal complaint.
AP photo of Alvin Bragg, photo of Christian Hall.
(AP/Craig Ruttle)
“The defendant attacked a uniformed New York City Department of Sanitation worker in an unprovoked assault while the victim was performing his routine duties,” prosecutor Megan Mers said Thursday at Hall’s arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on two counts of assault.
Mers added that Hall committed the alleged crime while he already had 19 open cases, 14 failures to appear and 10 active bench warrants.
The prosecutor highlighted a November 2021 case in which Hall allegedly entered a Manhattan building, slammed one victim to the ground and dragged him across the floor before pulling out a knife and threatening to stab a second victim. He’s charged with misdemeanor assault and misdemeanor possession of a weapon in that attack.
Judge Kevin McGrath ordered Hall held on $25,000 cash or bond in the latest case at the request of the prosecutor.
Mers did not mention Hall’s most recent prior bust on Jan. 6 for allegedly threatening an employee at a Chelsea TJ Maxx with a pair of shears.
When the staffer tried to stop Hall from leaving the store with a haul of bedding, women’s shoes and bath supply products, he allegedly pulled out the scissors and barked “Don’t f—king touch me!” the criminal complaint says.
Cops arrested Hall for third-degree robbery, but prosecutors allegedly wrote up the complaint omitting details about the use of a weapon and the threat to the worker, the New York Post exclusively reported.
The arresting officer refused to sign the complaint until the language was added in, according to the newspaper.
But the robbery charge against Hall was still reduced to misdemeanor petit larceny in accordance with Bragg’s controversial “Day One” memo, and he was freed without bail.
Democratic candidate for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks to the press after casting his ballot in the New York City election in the Manhattan borough of New York, U.S., November 2, 2021.
In the Jan. 3 memo issued two days after Bragg took office, he ordered prosecutors to downgrade commercial robberies to petit larcenies if the brandishing of a knife or other weapon “does not create a genuine risk of physical harm.”
The soft-on-crime policies outlined in the memo drew widespread outrage, and the beleaguered DA was forced to reverse course in a letter issued to staff on Friday.
He wrote that commercial robberies committed “at knifepoint, or by other weapon that creates a risk of physical harm, will be charged as a felony.”
Cops, prosecutors and even defense lawyers hammered Bragg for the criminal-coddling agenda at a time when most categories of violent crime have surged in the city.
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