Shoplifters and petty criminals are making a mockery of New York City’s criminal-justice system, and Anthony White is the poster boy for the problem.
White, 63, is a serial shoplifter with a whopping 254 arrests, The Post’s Matthew Fischetti and Vaughn Golden report.
In May, he was nabbed again on burglary charges — allegedly hitting stores he’d already been banned from — and once again set free, per court records.
White was accused of stealing two shirts from a shop at Rockefeller Center, and prosecutors asked for $3,000 cash or $60,000 bond.
Judge Kacie Lally nonetheless released him on supervised release.
Then again, Lally even freed Edwin Wright after he allegedly beat up a 15-year-old Manhattan school girl — only for Wright to be accused of clubbing a 94-year-old woman over the head with a metal object just months later.
Davaugh Gethers, meanwhile, isn’t far behind White, with 235 arrests. Laron Mark, collared 203 times, is also in the running.
Jacob “Jessica” Poole has amassed 103 shoplifting arrests.
In April he stole $215 worth of chicken from a market in the South Street Seaport.
In each of the most recent arrests, prosecutors did ask for some sort of bail to be set, which makes for a change.
Don’t forget Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s infamous “Day 1” memo, which instructed staff not to prosecute low-level offenses, and to avoid asking for incarceration when they do.
But even when bail is requested, judges set the perps free.
And you’ve got to assume these hoodlums have gotten away with several crimes for every time they’ve been arrested, since cops don’t always get their man.
How can they manage to carry on a life-long career of theft without being stopped?
Simple: New York lets them.
As we’ve often noted, the city and state are plagued with a tragic combination of softie judges, pro-criminal prosecutors, disastrous “criminal-justice reforms” like cashless bail, anti-cop laws and regulations — and progressive elected officials, from Gov. Kathy Hochul on down, who can’t or simply won’t make it a priority to have these people reined in.
Cops know when they arrest perps for minor crimes like shoplifting, they’re set free soon after they’re booked — thanks to bail reform.
More than likely, these perps never pay any serious penalty, no matter how many times they get caught.
Can anyone blame cops for not making the capture of shoplifters a top priority?
Indeed, storeowners often don’t even bother calling in the crime, knowing it won’t do much good.
The result of all this, of course, is toothpaste locked in cases in drugstores.
And tragic stories like that of CVS worker Scotty Enoe and homeless serial shoplifter Charles Brito.
Enoe found himself fighting for his life after Brito threatened to steal from the store and then attacked him.
The employee was forced to fatally stab his attacker in response.
Clearly, letting shoplifters run wild does no one — not even them — much good.
But New York’s bleeding-heart, pro-criminal progressives have stuck their heads in the sand.
They won’t care if someone breaks 1,000 arrests.
And if they could live long enough, you can bet one would.
