NYC's ‘worst drug dealer,' 20, busted again with crack cocaine, heroin
Brandon Hunter was arrested Feb. 5 after he was caught with crack cocaine, heroin and the club drug MDMA, or ecstasy, records show.
Hunter, 20, was picked up for dealing drugs in at the same Midtown spot he's been caught in at least two times before, according to police sources.
Hunter — who this time ran from cops trying to arrest him — was almost immediately released because his crimes weren't bail eligible, according to court records and officials.
Cops spotted Hunter at the corner of West 37th Street and Eighth Avenue around 4:30 a.m. and saw him 'reach into his right jacket pocket and hand a small object' to another person, according to a criminal complaint.
As soon as an officer tried to step out of his vehicle, Hunter took off running, authorities said in the complaint.
'I then observed Hunter stop, throw a backpack that he was wearing into the middle of the street and run back westbound on West 38th Street,' the cop wrote in the complaint.
Two other officers caught up with Hunter and 'had to perform a forcible takedown' to get him in custody, according to the complaint.
When cops searched him, they allegedly recovered 'a plastic twist bag containing 37 vials of alleged crack/cocaine and $20 in U.S. currency' along with four packs of alleged heroin.
In the backpack, cops discovered a plastic twist bag containing a rock of crack/cocaine, another plastic twist bag continuing 103 pills of alleged MDMA and $274 in cash, according to the complaint.
At his arraignment, prosecutors asked for bail, but Judge Ilona Coleman released him with non-monetary conditions because the charges weren't bail eligible under the state's 2019 bail reform laws, according to court documents.
Coleman, who has been on the bench since Jan. 1, was previously legal director of the left-wing legal advocacy group Bronx Defenders.
The arrest this month marks the third time Hunter has been nabbed in the same area, records show. Hunter could be sent to jail after he appears in court for one of the other cases, officials said.
But Hunter has gone to jail before.
He was sentenced to nine months at Rikers Island after a May 4, 2023, arrest at the same corner after cops found him with 51 vials of alleged crack in his pants pocket and $59 on him, according to an indictment.
He pleaded guilty to attempted drug possession with intent to sell on Feb. 7, and was hit with nine months at Rikers Island, which covered his other open cases, officials said.
He was out on July 25 after just five months behind bars — and busted again three weeks later, on Aug. 9, records show.
This time, the notoriously lenient Judge Valentina Morales — who last year released a Venezuelan migrant without bail after he allegedly stabbed a tourist in Times Square — set him free.
'I am concerned about the new allegations given that he was just released,' Morales said, according to a court transcript.
She then released Hunter without bail.
'Shame on the justice system because here it is — the revolving door,' the police source said. 'God knows how many people he's hurt and he's right back out selling over and over again in the same spot.'
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