Another migrant man accused of participating in the shocking January beating of NYPD cops in Times Square has appeared in court — getting held on bail Thursday after the release of other suspects in the melee sparked outrage.
Wearing a black puffer jacket, Ulises Bohorquez, 21, pleaded not guilty to assault charges before he was led away in handcuffs.
He allegedly kicked and grabbed one of two NYPD officers whom a group of migrants piled on outside a migrant shelter on W. 42nd St. the night of Jan. 27, bruising the cop’s body and cutting his nose.
Out of seven suspects previously arraigned in criminal court, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office only asked for bail to be set for one man, enraging police and raising the temperature of the city’s already heated debate over migrants.
“Frankly it’s nowhere near the culpability of some of these other defendants and some of these defendants … were released,” Bohorquez’s defense lawyer Brian Hutchinson argued before Judge Laura Ward. “I’m well aware, as everyone in the city is, with what has gone on here since the original arraignment in the case. We’re simply asking for equal treatment of the defendant.”
Hutchinson also noted that his client sustained a broken wrist during the attack.
With about a dozen cops watching inside the courtroom, bail was set at $100,000.
After the hearing, Hutchinson called the bail amount “excessive” and said, “This is a reaction to what’s happening with the story.”
Last week, police bodycam footage of the incident was released that appeared to contradict initial accounts from NYPD brass.
They’d claimed that a migrant man had been confrontational with the officers. But the video appeared to show him starting to comply with an order to stop blocking a sidewalk, then getting grabbed by the scruff of the neck and thrown up against a wall as he retrieved a baby stroller. The chaos ensued after that.
Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry applauded Thursday’s decision to hold Bohorquez on bail.
“This should have been from the beginning, from the first four who were released on their own recognizance — that should have never happened,” he told reporters. “They should’ve bailed like this.
“So we’re happy but we’re going to continue to be in these courtrooms to make sure that every single individual who participated in this vicious gang assault is held accountable and behind bars.”
Bohorquez was arrested onWednesday at the New Ebony Hotel in Central Harlem, prosecutors said.
They noted that, in a review of his social media, they found photos of him holding weapons.
“There are Congress members who send out Christmas cards with pictures of them holding firearms,” Hutchinson retorted, an apparent reference to notorious cards from pols including Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado.
Bohorquez, who had a previous bench warrant for not showing up to a court date, will be back in court April 2. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years in prison for his latest charges.
According to ICE spokesperson Marie Ferguson, two other men involved in the Jan. 27 assault — Kelvin Servita-Arocha, 19, and Wilson Omar Juarez-Aguilarte, 21 — were arrested and taken into custody on Tuesday.
They’ve both been identified as members of Tren de Aragua, a powerful Venezuelan gang.
“Both unlawfully present Venezuelan citizens have been charged in conjunction with the violent gang assault carried out on two NYPD officers and are currently detained without bond in ERO New York City custody,” Ferguson said in a statement.
Five others who’ve been indicted in the Times Square incident, including Servita-Arocha, Wilson Juarez, Yohenry Brito, Yorman Reveron and Darwin Andres Gomez-Izquiel, are expected to be arraigned on Friday.
Just hours earlier, former President Donald Trump raged against migrants before his own court date in the same building.
“Migrants are trying to beat up our police officers,” he told reporters. They’re trying to do things that we’ve never seen before. We are going to have a problem with — I call it Biden migrant crime. They’re doing things that nobody’s ever seen before.”
With Molly Crane-Newman