The NYPD has no plans to stop calling out judges it deems soft-on-crime — even as it emerged Thursday that it misidentified the judge who let free without bail a Bronx subway crime suspect with a decades-long criminal record.
“Where is the transparency when it comes to judges?” asked NYPD Deputy Commissioner Tarik Sheppard, the department’s top public relations spokesman. “Their positions, their names and their rulings are public record.”
Sheppard spoke to defend criticism like that NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell leveled Tuesday on X in which he wrongly blamed Judge J. Machelle Sweeting for freeing Rudell Faulkner on possession of stolen property and narcotics charges. Chell wrote on X that Sweeting “did not do her job.”
Court records checked by the Daily News show that Sweeting was not on the case at all.
Another judge, Michele Davila, determined Feb. 24 that Faulkner would be freed without bail, records show.
Chell’s original tweet said that Faulkner was freed even though the Manhattan District Attorney’s office had asked for bail. But Faulkner was charged in the Bronx, and the Bronx District Attorney’s Office is handling the case. Davila heard Faulkner’s arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.
Court officials confirmed that the NYPD got its facts wrong.
“The recent social media posts from NYPD officials criticizing a recent bail decision not only indicated that the crime allegedly took place in the wrong county, it also named a judge that did not preside over the case,” said Al Baker, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration.
As for Avila’s bail decision, Baker said: “We do not comment on bail decisions except to say that in New York, judges have discretion in making bail decisions in accordance with the law and based on an assessment of a defendant’s risk of flight.”
Baker also denied police officials’ claims that Chell’s X post was based on information from the Office of Court Administration.
“It is simply not true that anyone within the Court System provided the NYPD with any factually incorrect information in this matter,” Baker said in a statement.
It is correct that Faulkner, 64, has a long arrest record. “This is his sixth arrest this year, with four being felonies,” Chell wrote on X under a mugshot of the suspect.
Faulkner appeared before Judge Davila on Feb. 24, one day after he was busted for possessing a cell phone he allegedly stole in Manhattan in December and later sold to a pawn shop. He was also charged with drug possession.
At his arraignment, the Bronx District Attorney’s Office asked Davila to set bail at $10,000 cash or $30,000 bond.
Davila, who is assigned to Bronx Criminal Court, instead let Faulkner go with no bail. Davila considered in her decision that Faulkner had not missed a court date in 18 years, said a source with knowledge of the court proceeding.
The decision, for a career criminal with 28 convictions, “is why NYC is battling the perception/reality of crime and how it affects them,” Chell wrote in the X post in which he misidentified Sweeting as the judge in the case.
Threats against judges are increasingly common, particularly on social media. There’s no indication Sweeting has been threatened because of Chell’s tweet.
Sheppard said no one seems concerned when threats are lodged against cops and that people need to realize the decisions made by judges are as critical to public safety as what police and prosecutors do.
Sheppard also said Chell’s comments, like others by top brass, are run through his office before they are posted.
There is, he said, no controversy about what Chell said. “We are all in agreement here,” Sheppard said. “This is unified — this is not [Chell] going rogue here.
“I fully support his tweet going out — and it won’t be the last.”
But City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams on Wednesday said she is “not an enthusiast of social media being weaponized in any form or fashion — even though that seems to be the normal practice.”
“To me, it’s very, very troubling that we would see a city agency, particularly as potent as the NYPD, performing these actions on social media.
“It’s not something we would encourage children to do.”
With Chris Sommerfeldt
