The monster who admitted to killing, molesting and burning an aged Queens couple was roaming the streets due to a little-known change to the state parole regulation championed by mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Jamel McGriff, an ex-con intercourse offender on parole, did not register his handle this summer time — a violation that might have landed him again within the slammer three years in the past.
However “Much less Is Extra” parole reforms enacted in 2022 allowed him to remain free.
The laws retains parolees out of the clink whereas a prolonged court docket course of performs out to find out their guilt or innocence on the brand new costs, and in addition created a three-strike coverage giving them a move on their first two violations.
The measure handed two years after Albany enacted the equally disastrous bail reform legal guidelines, which at the moment are blamed for the revolving door of justice that lets profession criminals again on the streets. But it surely didn’t seize the eye of the general public and media that bail reform did.
The parole invoice was authored by lefty Phara Souffrant Forrest, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and co-sponsored by her socialist comrade, Assemblyman and mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, and dozens of others.
“Our system is constructed for life-long punishment, not rehabilitation,” Mamdani mentioned on the time. “Much less is Extra is an important step in direction of making certain that when our neighbors return residence from jail, they will keep at residence. I’m proud to be a part of the passage of this invoice.”
Mamdani didn’t return messages from The Submit asking him to elucidate his place on parole reform — or about this week’s horrific Queens homicide.
A plank of the DSA’s soft-on-crime platform particularly requires the finish of imprisonment for parole violations.
The invoice was pushed via by Meeting Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx) and Senate Majority Chief
Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers), and signed into regulation by Gov. Hochul.
The parole change has unleashed violent criminals on NYC streets.
Out of 20,968 ex-cons on parole who dedicated new crimes in New York state final 12 months, 17,825 — a surprising 85% — had been freed whereas going through pending new costs, a Submit evaluation of Division of Felony Justice Companies knowledge discovered.
In 2021, earlier than the regulation went into impact, out of 17,633 parolees committing new crimes, 10,121 — or 57% — remained free.
“Bail reform isn’t almost as dangerous as parole reform,” mentioned a critic who works within the legal justice system who requested to not be recognized for concern of retribution. “These are already confirmed felons.”
Earlier than “Much less is Extra,” a sex-offender registry violation would have been sufficient for a parole officer to have a suspect like McGriff detained pending the result of a listening to.
McGriff’s case is even worse as a result of he was the prime suspect in at the very least two armed robberies within the Huge Apple this summer time, police mentioned.
The parole reforms additionally raised the burden of proving a parole violation from a “preponderance of the proof” to “clear and convincing proof.”
“It made it very tough to revoke somebody’s launch on parole,” Rafael Mangual, a authorized fellow on the Manhattan Institute, advised The Submit.
“Parole is a privilege, however sadly, New York state lawmakers of their infinite knowledge have chosen to reorient the legal justice system across the pursuits of defendants and never a lot across the curiosity of victims,” Mangual mentioned.
“The reform has actually eroded the potential protections for the general public,” he mentioned.
The variety of folks locked up after violating parole because the reforms had been enacted fell from 2,332 in 2021 to 1,437 in 2024, a 38% drop, in keeping with the latest Division of Corrections knowledge.
“The meant impact of reform was to make it tougher to revoke parole releases, even for people who’re going through costs, and it’s rooted within the misguided perception that ‘mass incarceration’ is pushed largely by parole revocations,” Mangual mentioned.
McGriff, 35, was on parole after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence for theft, housebreaking and intercourse assault when he allegedly slaughtered Frank and Maureen Olton inside their Bellerose residence in chilly blood.
Different surprising examples of violent ex-cons allowed to roam the streets of Gotham regardless of committing new crimes whereas on parole embrace:
- Jeffery “Zay” Mackenzie, launched on lifetime parole in 2022 after serving 21 years for fatally blasting a girl at a Brownsville laundromat. He has since been arrested at the very least 4 instances on drug dealing costs, together with on June 4 when he was allegedly caught red-handed in Greenwich Village peddling rocks of crack cocaine in mini-Ziploc baggage, police mentioned. The case nonetheless earlier than the courts.
- Lateef Inexperienced, a homeless man arraigned for tried homicide April 18 in an unprovoked brass knuckle knife assault on a Bronx straphanger. Inexperienced, 50, served slightly below 4 years behind bars in connection to a March 2016 hate assault that broke one other man’s nostril in Manhattan. He was PAROLED in 2021 and WAS arrested for turnstile leaping two months earlier than the subway assault, which remains to be pending.
- Waheed Foster, an ex-con vagrant accused of beating a girl in a Queens subway station in 2022, was free regardless of being arrested whereas on parole weeks earlier than the caught-on-video assault. The profession legal’s rap sheet included killing his grandma when he was 14.
- Charles Rowe, on lifetime parole after almost 35 years’ arduous time for the brutal rape and homicide of a 10-year-old Queens woman, was charged with sexually assaultING a girl and raping one other in 2023, regardless of being arrested whereas on parole a number of months prior for automobile theft — and blowing off his court docket appearances twice.
“A variety of crimes at this time could not have occurred if we had violated parolees,” mentioned the system insider. “Earlier than, in case your parole officer involves your own home and also you’re excessive they may lock you up for that.”
Mangual identified that the reforms had been “primarily taking the tooth out of any potential sanction for failing to conform.”
“The very fact they’re on parole just isn’t going to discourage them in the identical manner that it might need previous to the reform,” he mentioned. “And . . . the general public goes to undergo offenses which may not have in any other case been dedicated.”
