An angry city lawmaker said Thursday that Mayor Eric Adams should demand the resignation of a Queens judge who freed an ex-con nearly three months before he wounded an NYPD policeman in a fatal shooting.
Councilman Robert Holden said in a scathing statement that Queens Criminal Court Judge Edward Daniels, who was appointed to the bench by Adams in April, dropped the ball. Career criminal Gary Worthy released He is being held without bail – despite appeals by prosecutors and a parole officer to lock him up.
Worthy, 57, allegedly tried to rob two Jamaican businesses on Tuesday before shooting and wounding a 26-year-old woman and NYPD policeman Rich Wong. returned fire and killed the former thief,
“Mayor Adams called Judge Daniels one of the best and brightest and said that public safety is a prerequisite for prosperity,” Holden (D-Queens) said in the statement.
“Nevertheless, Daniels’s decisions show an astonishing lack of judgment,” he criticized. “Rejecting Worthy’s request to detain someone with a violent record does not reflect the integrity required in our judges. Mayor Adams must act quickly to remove the judge he appointed before more violence occurs.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Post reported this week that when Worthy went before Daniels on Aug. 27, he was on lifetime parole with two stints in state prison and a rap sheet that included 17 arrests.
Worthy’s parole officer told the judge that he had not appeared for required meetings with him in three months, and asked Daniels to hold him without bail in Rikers Island, while a Queens prosecutor requested that Worthy be charged with new felony assault. He is being held on $120,000 bail. And he was accused of theft.
Instead, Daniels ordered that Worthy be released without bail.
Earlier this month, Worthy – whose prison sentence also included a murder conviction – was rearrested on drug and resisting arrest charges and remains free.
In a statement to The Post on Wednesday, a spokesperson for the state Office of Court Administration, which oversees the judicial system, said the agency does not comment on bail cases.
New York state judges are banned from setting bail in most cases because of controversial 2019 criminal justice reforms passed by Albany lawmakers. However, due to the serious charges Worthy faced in August, as well as his parole status and lengthy record, bail may have been mandatory.
Daniels is a former public defender in Queens, who heads the firm’s homicide bureau.
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