A notorious soft-on-crime Brooklyn judge is at it again — refusing to set bail for the gun-wielding thug accused of trying to kill another man and wounding a service dog, The Post has learned.
Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Janice Robinson has already gained a rep for going easy on accused criminals, and remained true to form Tuesday when she released alleged gunman Adrian Benitez at his arraignment.
Benitez, 29, was hit with attempted murder and a slew of other felony charges after he was nabbed for last week’s brazen broad daylight shooting in Greenwood Heights.
The creep allegedly opened fire during a spat with another man, and the stray bullet struck Honey, a 7-year-old Labradoodle service dog for a woman with Down syndrome, according to a police.
Prosecutors in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office had asked that Benitez be held on a $150,000 bail — but Robinson instead released him with only a promise that he’d return to court for his next hearing in three months, according to law enforcement sources.
“We’re not talking about somebody who shoplifts shampoo from a drug store,” one frustrated source fumed Wednesday.
“This is another individual with shots fired, charged with attempted murder, a bullet missing it’s intended target, luckily, only injuring an innocent dog,” they said. “Does it have to be a child in a stroller next time?”
The source also darkly quipped, “well at least this judge is consistent.”
Robinson’s bail-halting ways were revealed by The Post in an exclusive report on Sunday.
The lefty judge, a Democrat elected to the bench last year after two decades as a lawyer for insurance companies, has consistently set no or minimal bail for defendants before her, a review of the cases found.
Of the 13 cases examined by The Post, eight defendants were able to breeze out of court without bail, including two charged with attempted murder, while the remaining five faced low bail that they were able to post.
The Office of Court Administration, which speaks for judges in the state, did not respond to numerous requests for comment before the report was published.
In an email Wednesday, OCA spokesman Al Baker said the office does not comment on specific rulings.
“It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of bail decisions turn on the court’s discretionary weighing of a broad range of factors in order to make an individualized assessment of the defendant’s risk of flight to avoid prosecution,” Baker added.
Police said Benitez got into a beef with a man who was talking to a woman near Greenwood Cemetery around 5:45 p.m. on Aug. 19, pulling out a handgun and pulling the trigger.
The intended target wasn’t hit, but a stray slug struck and wounded the helpless pup, a service dog for 64-year-old Teresa Pezzolla, who has Down syndrome.
Benitez was busted Tuesday and also faces charges of three counts of assault, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and aggravated cruelty to animals, on top of the attempted murder rap.
The accused shooter has no prior unsealed arrests, authorities said. He’s due back in court November 24.
Robinson, the Brooklyn-born daughter of Jamaican immigrants, was elected to the bench in 2024 and took a seat in the borough’s civil court Jan. 1, 2025, according to reports.
She was recently transferred to the criminal bench.
The judge is the niece of Nick Perry, a Democrat who served in the state Assembly nearly 30 years representing parts of East Flatbush, Canarsie and Brownsville and later served briefly as US ambassador to Jamaica.
Robinson graduated from Hofstra University and earned a law degree from American University. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first black sorority, and spent the first 20 years of her legal career as a lawyer for insurance companies before turning to politics.
— Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer and Amanda Woods
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