court corner
Last of defendants sentenced for vicious gang beating
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, AUGUST 30-BTR SEPTEMBER 5, 2019 65
Action
Association
District Attorney Darcel
D. Clark announced that
a Bronx man has been sentenced
to eight years in prison
and fi ve years post-release supervision
in a brutal gang
assault on a street vendor in
May 2017. He is the last of six
defendants to be sentenced.
Clark said, “In a cowardly
act, the defendant and fi ve
others brutally assaulted a
53-year-old street vendor, kicking
and punching him in the
middle of a busy Bronx area.
The beating, which happened
in front of the victim’s wife and
children, left him in a coma
with life-altering injuries.”
Clark said the defendant,
Octavious Profi t, 25, of 2846
Heath Avenue, was sentenced
today to eight years in prison
and fi ve years post-release supervision
by Bronx Supreme
Court Justice James McCarty.
Profi t pleaded guilty to
second-degree Gang Assault
on April 22.
Three other men who participated
in the attack, Richard
Williamson, 35, last of
1214-16 Hoe Avenue; Jay Ortiz,
47, of 873 Elsmere Place;
and Joshua Cruz, 24, of 3219
Corsa Avenue, have been sentenced
for the assault. Cruz
pleaded guilty to second-degree
Gang Assault on April 22
and was sentenced on May 23
to seven years in prison and
fi ve years post-release supervision.
Williamson pleaded
guilty to fi rst-degree Gang
Assault on April 25, and was
sentenced on May 16 to fi ve
years in prison and fi ve years
post-release supervision. Ortiz
pleaded guilty to seconddegree
Assault on April 25,
and was sentenced on June
17, to two and a half years in
prison and two years post-release
supervision.
Two other defendants, William
Burgess and Enrique
Foote, were sentenced last
year for their roles in the attack.
Burgess was sentenced
to four years in prison and
three and a half years post-release
supervision after pleading
guilty to second-degree
Gang Assault, and Foote was
sentenced to three years in
prison and three years postrelease
supervision after
pleading guilty to second-degree
Assault.
According to the investigation,
on May 2, 2017, at the corner
of 149th Street and Third
Avenue, the defendants repeatedly
struck Souleymane
Porgo, 53, a street vendor,
after he tried to stop one of
them from stealing his merchandise.
Video of the attack
showed the defendants beating
the victim to the ground
as he lay unconscious.
The assault left Porgo in
critical condition with multiple
facial fractures, and he
also required multiple surgeries
for swelling and bleeding
in his brain. He still
undergoes rehabilitative
treatment.
The case was prosecuted
by Assistant District Attorney
Michelle Villaverde, Supervisor
in Trial Bureau
50, under the supervision of
Lawrence Piergrossi, Chief of
Trial Bureau 50, and the overall
supervision of James Brennan,
Deputy Chief of the Trial
Division, and Theresa Gottlieb,
Chief of the Trial Division.
District Attorney Clark
thanked Detective Richard
Simplicio of the 40th Precinct
Detective Squad for his assistance
in the case
49TH PRECINCT NCO BUILD THE BLOCK MEETING
The 49th Precinct Neighborhood Coordination Offi cers Sector A hosted a Build the Block Meeting on
Thursday, August 15 at 1824 Bronxdale Avenue. Van Nest and Morris Park residents were able to met and
express their concerns with the NCOs present at the meeting.
(Above, l-r) Police offi cer Braincatelli, Horizon’s Patricia S. and police offi cer Avila shared domestic violence
resources and programs with the community. Photo by Michael Carlo
BY FRANK VERNUCCIO
Those searching for the
reasons that American politics
has become so discordant
need look no further the events
of July. The Progressive Left’s
actions, in assaulting journalists,
slandering and threatening
the political opposition,
and attempting to dismantle
constitutional institutions
such as the Electoral College
are geared towards a larger
and deeply unsavory goal.
No single incident demonstrates
more clearly the
current mentality of the Progressive
Left than that which
happened to a reporter covering
an Antifa demonstration
in Portland, Oregon. This is
Andy Ngo’s own words, which
he wrote in the Wall Street
Journal:
“I was suddenly slammed
on the back of my head with
something hard… I was…
punched and kicked by perhaps
a dozen masked people
in black. At an Antifa event
… I, a gay journalist of color,
was beaten so badly that I was
hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage…
I have been targeted
by Antifa and its allies for my
critical coverage of their violent
extremism. I’ve reported
those incidents to the Portland
Police Bureau, and in
some cases I’ve identifi ed suspects,
but there were no arrests.
The mainstream media
describe Antifa as ‘antifascist,’
but in fact it is a far-left
paramilitary-style movement
of anarchists and communists
agitating for a revolution.”
Progressive Left Mayor
Ted Wheeler, a Democrat, has
steadfastly refused to protect
Portland’s citizenry from Antifa,
the stormtroopers of the
increasingly militant wing
which now dominates the
national Democratic Party.
Much of the media has downplayed
the story.
Antifa is not an outlier. It
is, in fact, simply the most visible
example of what the Progressive
Left is. When some
disappointed Clinton voters
took to the streets and engaged
in violence to protest
the results of a fair and honest
election that they lost in 2016,
they expressed their ideology
precisely: Surrender to us or
be attacked. Hillary Clinton,
when asked during a debate
what her defi nition of what the
‘enemy’ is, didn’t say poverty,
discrimination, disease, war,
Russia or China. She said “Republicans.”
To the left, fellow Americans
who refuse to kowtow to
them are indeed the enemy.
And all is fair when fi ghting
the enemy, including violence
and lies. The lies are extraordinary
in size and scope, and
survive because a partisan
media, both traditional and on
the web, refuses to adequately
expose them.
Consider the slander,
timed precisely for the 4th
of July week, that the ‘Betsy
Ross’ 13-star Revolutionary
War fl ag was a symbol of
white nationalists. The claim
is sheer nonsense, but at least
one major corporations, fearful
of the economic and physical
threats of the Progressive
Left, surrendered in the blink
of an eye.
One of the most signifi cant
issues on the current political
scene concerns the mass infl
ux of illegal immigrants, estimated
to number 100,000 per
month at an annual cost to the
U.S. taxpayer of over $134 billion.
Unlike other immigrants
of the past from Latin America
or elsewhere, this massive
wave is so large that reasonable
safeguards including checking
for contagious disease, membership
in criminal gangs,
and affi liations with terrorism
cannot be effectively accomplished.
But those bringing up
these legitimate concerns are
branded as “racists.”
The Progressive Left’s central
lie in all this is that individual
issues are the point.
Economics, immigration, medical
coverage, all are merely
buzzword issues used to recruit
support in the larger cause: the
establishment of a far more
powerful central government
with the capability of shutting
down individual rights, a
necessity if socialism is to be
implemented. This has been
trending since the Obama Administration.
Lois Lerner used
the IRS to attack the Tea Party.
Loretta Lynch used the Justice
Department to suppress critics
of the former president. Slander
was used (unsuccessfully)
against Supreme Court nominee
Brett Kavanaugh. Rep.
Frederica Wilson, a Florida
Democrat, seeks to ‘prosecute’
anyone who criticizes lawmakers
online.
The American public,
shielded from the truth by
a partisan media, has yet to
fully awaken to the reality
that there is a powerful, militant
movement that seeks to
destroy the freedoms that they
have enjoyed for so long.