Fool me once…
A career criminal who is set to have committed hundreds of burglaries has reportedly been arrested 101 times – and somehow managed to be let go on almost every occasion.
53-year-old Harold Gooding, a serial shoplifter who New York‘s Mayor Eric Adams has labelled “Recidivist No. 1”, is said to have been arrested on 101 different instances and that grand total only looks to keep rising as he remains a free man.
On Wednesday, sources identified Gooding as the unnamed person at the top of the NYPD’s list of “Career and Violent Criminals”, according to the New York Post, citing that thief is among the “worst of the worst” when it comes to reoffenders.
So why is he let go time and time again? Well, the long and short of it is New York’s broken bail-reform law introduced back in 2019, which essentially eliminated the need for bail and allows those arrested for misdemeanours and several other nonviolent felony charges to walk free – often just hours later.
In Gooding’s case, despite being estimated to have committed anywhere between 200 and a thousand different offences according to the NYPD’s Chief of Crime Control Strategies, Michael LiPetri, he only served three prison terms.
His first was a short one-to-three-year sentence for an attempted-burglary conviction in Brooklyn back in 1994; the second was under the alias Jamiel White, when he was sent upstate in 1996 for an attempted-robbery in the same borough, according to the state records.
His most serious conviction was for first-degree robbery – again in Brooklyn – which landed him a 10-year sentence in 2001 before being paroled in 2008. Since then, he has continued to be one of the most notorious recidivists (repeat criminal) in NYC and the climate for prosecution only seem to have gotten easier for him.
Gooding is said to steal everything from $430 worth of towels, bedsheets and cookware to blenders, coffee makers and air-fryers. One particular haul was estimated to have been worth a total of $2,000, regularly choosing to shoplift popular American department store, Target.
Despite currently being investigated in connection with 17 different thefts from the same branch of the shop, he continues to be granted supervised release without bail. Make it make sense.
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