De Blasio Aide Allegedly Committed Felony with Gun Near Scene Where 5 Shots Reported
It is well known that many liberals are duplicitous and hypocritical, perhaps no more so than on the topic of gun control, in which many seem to hold the notion of “guns for me, but not for thee.”
That is one of the biggest takeaways from the recent arrest of a top aide to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who now faces at least two felony criminal charges related to illegal gun possession in a state and city well-known for their strict gun control laws, according to the New York Post.
Reagan Stevens, the 42-year-old deputy director of the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice, was found by police in a parked car in Queens with two young men near the scene of where gun shots had just been reported.
Inside of the vehicle’s glovebox was a loaded 9 mm semi-automatic handgun which had its serial number removed. A spent shell casing was discovered on the floor of the vehicle.
Shortly after 10 p.m., a ShotSpotter listening device picked up five gun shots, and a review of surveillance video in the area showed muzzle flashes coming from the suspected vehicle. The gun found inside the vehicle contained one round in the chamber and two rounds in the magazine, which held eight rounds when fully loaded.
Since nobody would claim to be the owner of the illegal weapon with a defaced serial number, all three occupants were charged with two counts of criminal weapon possession. The other two occupants besides Stevens — 25-year-old driver Caesar Forbes and 24-year-old passenger Montel Hughes — also faced charges for criminal possession of knives as well as being double-parked. Additional charges related to the shooting could be forthcoming.
Hughes had a lengthy prior rap sheet, which included at least nine other arrests, some of which involved weapons charges. Forbes had no prior criminal record and Stevens had been arrested once before for driving illegally.
All three were taken Sunday night to Queens Criminal Court for arraignment, and while Stevens was released on her own recognizance, Forbes and Hughes had a bond set and were held in custody. They will return to court for a hearing on April 24.
Interestingly, Stevens’ mother — Deborah Stevens Modica — has served as a judge in that same court since 1997, and her stepfather — Salvatore Modica — is an acting Queens Supreme Court justice. Both declined to comment on their daughter’s arrest.
According to the New York Daily News, the mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice where Stevens worked released a statement which read, “The employee has been suspended immediately without pay pending investigation. We take these allegations very seriously.”
In her role with the office, Stevens served as deputy director of youth and strategic initiatives, and her chief job was to help implement a recently passed law which would raise the age from 16 to 18 at which individuals could be charged as an adult for criminal offenses.
Stevens, who received a salary of about $90,000 per year, previously worked in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office where she oversaw crime prevention and youth diversion programs which provided an alternative to incarceration for adolescent criminals.
It is no secret that de Blasio is an outspoken supporter of strict gun control measures, and the Post even noted that he had joined students during their school walkout in March to demand even stricter gun control laws in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting.
It is a safe presumption that individuals working within the mayor’s administration would share similar views on gun control for the citizenry — but at least in this case, apparently not for themselves.
This incident reeks of liberal hypocrisy, and if de Blasio hopes to retain any sort of credibility on the issue of gun control with his progressive socialist base, he would be wise to quickly repudiate the illegal gun possession of his employee and make an example of her.
Otherwise, this incident will go down as just the latest glaring example of how liberals believe they can hold themselves to a different standard than they impose on everybody else.
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