The hard-working Manhattan bodega employee languishing on Rikers Island on a homicide cost after warding off a violent ex-con was sprung from jail Thursday after a choose agreed to decrease his sky-high bail.
The plight of dad-of-three Jose Alba — detailed in a front-page Submit story Thursday — was eased after his household was capable of put up the diminished bond with the assistance of his boss following a listening to in Manhattan Felony Courtroom.
“He has each intention to return to courtroom and defend this case,” Alba’s legal professional, Danielle Jackson of Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, stated in courtroom.
Alba, 61, was despatched to Rikers Island on a whopping $250,000 bail — half of what prosecutors with Manhattan District Lawyer Alvin Bragg’s workplace had requested at his arraignment Saturday evening, claiming the employee was a flight threat due to a deliberate journey to the Dominican Republic subsequent week.
Below state legislation, Alba would have needed to be launched Thursday as prosecutors had not but introduced the second-degree homicide case to the grand jury — however they may delay the presentation if he was free on bail.
Throughout Thursday’s listening to, prosecutors stated that they had negotiated a brand new bail package deal with Alba’s lawyer and requested Choose Jonathan Svetkey to cut back the quantity to $50,000.
Below the phrases, Alba has to put on an ankle bracelet, give up his passport and isn't allowed to go away the 5 boroughs, which Assistant District Lawyer Jennifer Sigall stated “will guarantee the truth that the defendant is not going to go to the DR as he deliberate to.”
Alba’s son Jeffrey, the proprietor of the nook retailer and a consultant of a metropolis bodega employees group banded collectively to put up the $5,000 wanted to spring him on a bail bond.
Alba can be fitted with a monitoring ankle bracelet by the sheriff’s division earlier than being launched.
Prosecutors postpone presenting the case to a grand jury till July 20, however wouldn’t say if the homicide cost was nonetheless on the desk.
“I might be surprised if this case proceeds as a murder-two case or if this man was convicted,” stated legal professional Mark Bederow, a former Manhattan prosecutor.
“I don’t suppose a grand jury would indict him for homicide within the second diploma, and I don’t suppose a jury would convict him past an affordable doubt given what the justification statute states,” he added, referring to a self-defense declare.
Alba was manning the counter at Hamilton Heights Grocery on Broadway and West 139th Road Friday evening when Austin Simon, a 35-year-old profession legal on parole for assaulting a police officer, stormed behind the counter and shoved him right into a wall, surveillance video exhibits.
The ex-con then grabbed Alba because the frightened clerk tried to get previous him — getting his arms on a knife and plunging it into Simon at the least 5 instances.
Through the struggle, Simon’s girlfriend allegedly pulled a knife from her purse and stabbed Alba 3 times within the shoulder and hand, in accordance with his legal professional.
She has not been charged, with the DA’s workplace saying solely “we're persevering with to evaluate the proof and the investigation is ongoing.”
The video confirmed Alba, bloodied and nonetheless holding the knife, ready for police to reach — solely to search out himself hauled into custody on homicide and legal possession of a weapon expenses.
“He’s not used to this habits,” son Jeffrey Alba, 27, had informed The Submit on Wednesday. “He’s not used to this sort of aggression. In the mean time he was in concern for his life.”
Greater than 20 kinfolk and supporters packed the courtroom Thursday for the video-feed courtroom listening to in assist of the beleaguered bodega employee. The household declined to remark after the proceedings.
Simon’s household, in the meantime, stormed out of courtroom in tears, along with his sister saying, that he “was murdered in chilly blood.”
“If the shoe was on the opposite foot, my brother wouldn’t have gotten bail or bond or nothing,” she stated.
Tina Lee, who stated she has three youngsters with Simon, known as him “a great man” and a “good father” who took “excellent care” of all his youngsters.
Alba is due again in courtroom on July 20 after the grand jury convenes.
The extraordinary case has garnered much more criticism of Bragg — who’s earned a popularity as a soft-on-crime prosecutor, together with for downgrading sure felonies, since taking workplace in January.
“Jose Alba ought to be getting a Congressional Medal of Honor,” Guardian Angels founder and former mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa stated exterior the courtroom Thursday. “As a substitute, he’s locked up on Rikers and that is all Alvin Bragg. He turns free actual criminals and he incarcerates victims who struggle again. What sort of a message is that this?”
Police stated Simon’s beef with Alba stemmed from an earlier encounter between the bodega employee and Simon’s 32-year-old girlfriend.
Alba’s lawyer and his youngsters stated the native of the Dominican Republic got here to the US about 30 years in the past and have become a citizen 14 years in the past.
The daddy of three as soon as owned his personal bodega and has been working on the Hamilton Heights grocery retailer for about three years.
Further reporting by Priscilla DeGregory
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