An infamous serial bank robber with a whopping 34 prior arrests is back on the streets after getting busted for a new string of heists, thanks to a soft-on-crime judge first put on the bench by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio.
It’s a reminder of the pernicious harms a Mayor Zohran Mamdani would inflict.
Dubbed the “Burberry Bandit” for his distinctive garb, Cornell Neilly was out on parole for a 2021 bank robbery charge when he was busted again on Monday for holding up five more banks in August and September.
He’s a poster child for a determined repeat offender who belongs behind bars, but Manhattan Judge Jeffrey Gershuny ignored all that, and flipped off prosecutors’ pleas that he be held on bail or bond, to let Neilly walk on supervised release.
It’s a mystery why Gershuny was able to make that call; he’s supposed to be barred from overseeing felony criminal cases after he whipped out his personal firearm in the middle of a hearing last month.
De Blasio put this numbskull on the bench in 2019, and apparently the court system can’t protect the public from him even after that lunacy.
Expect a lot more such stinkers to join him on the bench if Mamdani wins in November — judges who’ll long outlast his mayoralty as Gershuny has Blas’.
Picking criminal court judges is one of any mayor’s most direct influences over the justice system.
There’s no pesky confirmation process; possible choices get screened and recommended by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee on the Judiciary — which is. . . filled by the mayor.
Mamdani’s committee would likely see Gershuny (packing heat in the courtroom aside) as the ideal: a soft-on-crime bleeding heart who never runs out of second chances for recidivists, no matter how many New York residents and businesses pay the price.
That means at least four years of a guy who doesn’t believe in incarceration tapping the judges who’ll apply that philosophy.
You can take that to the bank — except it’s likely to be held up by the forever-free “Burberry Bandit.”
