Court officials insisted that a judge wasn’t notified about a federal warrant on a sex offender migrant from Mexico who strolled free from her Manhattan courtroom last week — even as New York’s Finest doubled down Tuesday and said the jurist was alerted.
The NYPD said Judge Sheridan Jack-Browne should have seen a notation in the file that the career criminal Gerardo Miguel Mora was a wanted, deported felon.
Mora, 45, was in Manhattan Criminal Court on Jan. 29 to face a shoplifting charge from a day earlier, records show.
But Mora was wanted on a federal arrest warrant. He had been deported from the US in 2014 after serving a year and a half in an upstate prison for an attempted rape in Midtown, and he had a long rap sheet – including a recent crack-possession charge in Manhattan.
But he waltzed out of the courtroom, leading vigilant federal marshals to collar him near a rear exit of the courthouse, according to records and law enforcement sources.
Federal authorities had been looking for Mora on an arrest warrant under a section of the US code that concerns “reentry of removed aliens,” and were there to arrest him, The Post exclusively reported on Sunday.
Law enforcement sources blamed Jack-Browne for not acting on information that was in her “packet.”
But “the judge didn’t know about the warrant,” a court insider said. “It wasn’t in the file.” Further, court officials claim an NYPD note in the file said the warrant should not be honored.
The warrant was sent to the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, notes in the court records show.
And NYPD officials now insist that even if the warrant was not in the judge’s file, a note identifying Mora as a federal fugitive was.
The NYPD is bound by sanctuary city laws to not cooperate with ICE.
“The NYPD does not have control over court proceedings and cannot decide what a judge does or doesn’t do,” an NYPD spokesperson said.
After he was allowed to walk free at his courtoom appearance, Mora tried to leave through a back exit that is primarily an employee entrance, law enforcement sources said. ICE agents were in the front of the courthouse waiting for him, and the marshals were in the back.
Mora is now in federal custody. But court and police officials are still pointing the finger of blame at each other. And law enforcement sources said several other warrants for migrants have not been recently honored.
One observer said that whether the court, the DA or the NYPD is at fault in this case, it is clear the NYC criminal justice system is obstructing ICE in its mission.
“Thank God the feds made this apprehension,” said Michael Alcazar, a former NYPD officer and a adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“If you arrest a guy who’s wanted on a warrant, you have to work with federal agencies to make sure they’re deported again,” Alcazar said. “Politics shouldn’t be in criminal justice. Do the job you’re supposed to do.”
In 2011, Mora followed a 21-year-old woman home when she got out of a taxi in Midtown, forced his way into her home and attempted to pull her clothes off while strangling her, criminal records show. He was stopped by a bystander who heard the woman’s cries, holding Mora down until cops arrived.
Mora pleaded guilty to burglary, criminal obstruction of breathing and attempted rape and was deported on Sept. 12, 2014, records show.
“He is exactly the person who should be deported,” one police source said.
