http://nypost.com/2014/12/31/de-blasio-re-appoints-set-em-free-brooklyn-judge/Mayor Bill de Blasio delivered another blow to New York’s Finest on Wednesday when he reappointed a Brooklyn judge who freed without bail two men who threatened cops just days after the Bed-Stuy double police assassination.
The stunning decision came even as one of the suspects — a gang member charged with posting police death threats online — skipped a court date and had a warrant out for his arrest, sources said.Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Laura Johnson had faced a midnight expiration of her term. She was appointed by then-Mayor Mike Bloomberg in January 2013.
Her one-year, interim reappointment by de Blasio outraged law enforcement officials a day after he met with the heads of five police unions to heal his fractured relationship with cops.
“The mayor’s actions of reappointing this judge are completely hypocritical to his argument that he’s pro-police and counterproductive to what he claims to be an effort to open dialogue going forward,” said sergeants union chief Ed Mullins.
“He had the opportunity to demonstrate good will and support for the police, and he once again has demonstrated the opposite.”
The head of the state court officers union, Dennis Quirk, called de Blasio’s decision “a disgrace.”
“It sends a strong message to every police officer and everyone in the law enforcement community that it’s OK to threaten the lives of cops,” Quirk said.De Blasio’s move even contradicted his own questioning of Johnson’s wisdom after The Post revealed how she ignored a prosecution request to set $250,000 bail for reputed gang member Devon Coley.
“While the judge’s decision was in compliance with the letter of the state’s laws on bail — which focus almost exclusively on risk of flight — our judges must take into account all of the circumstances that contribute to the risk of flight, and that certainly includes the seriousness of the offense,” the mayor said at the time.
Coley, 18, was busted for posting a photo on Facebook that showed a gunman firing into an NYPD cruiser, just hours after cops Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu were killed that way on Dec. 20.
Coley also wrote the chilling phrase “73Nextt,” in apparent reference to the 73rd Precinct that covers his Brownsville neighborhood.
On Monday, a warrant was issued for Coley’s arrest when he failed to appear in court to certify he had performed the three hours of community service ordered as part of his plea bargain in the unrelated theft of a Citi Bike, sources said. Coley was caught with the hot wheels July 28 and freed without bail by Johnson, sources said. He copped a plea to disorderly conduct in exchange for the sentence of community service and a surcharge of nearly $1,000.
After The Post exposed Coley’s no-bail release in the NYPD threat case, Johnson was informally admonished by an official with the Office of Court Administration, sources have said. The court administrator told Johnson she “should be setting an example to the public that threatening or assaulting police officers isn’t an acceptable thing,” one source said.
But instead of following the advice, Johnson doubled down later that same day and freed a man charged with attacking a cop outside a Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn.
Travis Maye, 26, told cops “You will die!” after he was pepper-sprayed, stunned with a Taser and put into handcuffs, court papers say.
