One alleged drug dealer has been arrested 20 times in two years for dealing crack, heroin, fentanyl and other drugs in Manhattan — but keeps getting let back out on the street, records show.
“We call him the worst drug dealer in New York City,” a police source said of Brandon Hunter, 20.
“He just laughs. He’s like ‘I’m getting out anyway. It don’t matter.’”
Hunter was most recently arrested Oct. 27 for allegedly selling crack at 6:50 p.m. on West 37th Street and Ninth Avenue in Midtown, according to a criminal complaint.
An alleged customer gave him cash and Hunter “threw him a small plastic vial, which the unknown individual retrieved,” according to the complaint.
When cops stopped Hunter, they found 84 vials of crack cocaine in his right jacket pocket and 39 glassines of heroine and a rock of crack cocaine in his left pocket, authorities said in the complaint.
Hunter received supervised release for the criminal drug possession charge, Special Narcotics Prosecutors Office spokeswoman Kati Cornell said.
The Special Narcotics Prosecutor’s Office has handled all narcotics cases made by patrol officers in the Midtown South Precinct for the past two years “in response to serious concerns about open and disruptive street dealing in the area, as well as high rates of overdose,” Cornell said.
It’s the second time Hunter has been arrested in the same area, records show.
He was nabbed around 9 a.m. May 4, 2023 at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West 38th Street, after cops found him with found 10 empty vials and loose alleged crack cocaine in his jacket pocket, 51 vials of alleged crack in his pants pocket and $59 on him, according to an indictment.
He pleaded guilty to attempted drug possession with intent to sell on Feb. 7, and was hit with nine months at Rikers Island, which covered his other open cases, Cornell said.
He was out on July 25 after just five months behind bars — and busted again three weeks later, on Aug. 9, records show.
This time, Hunter, whose nickname is “Peanut,” had six blue glassines of alleged heroin inside a black baggie, one clear bag containing alleged crack cocaine and $146 on him, according to a criminal complaint.
At his Aug. 9 arraignment, the notoriously lenient Judge Valentina Morales — who last year released a Venezuelan migrant without bail after he allegedly stabbed a tourist in Times Square — acknowledged Hunter had recently gotten out of jail.
“I am concerned about the new allegations given that he was just released,” she said, according to a court transcript.
Moralez freed Hunter on supervised release anyway. An attorney listed for Hunter didn’t return calls seeking comment.
Hunter, who was busted again less than three months after his most recent arrest, is now being considered for a drug treatment program, court records show.
“But he’s not a drug user,” the police source said. “He’s a drug dealer!”
