Mom's tough love: Won't bail troubled son from Rikers, so he can learn lesson

Holed up at Rikers Island, Steven Mercado awaits his fate as he faces robbery and crack-dealing charges stemming from three separate arrests in the past two months.


He's 16 years old - and looking at 15 years in prison.
His biological aunt, legal guardian and "mom," Debbie Earhart - who's raised him since birth - wants Steven to learn his lesson, but not by losing more than a decade of his life.

Earhart, 45, of Bedford Park won't post the teen's $3,000 cash bail, believing the only way Steven will stay out of trouble and finish school is if he's locked up.


"He needs to be in a program, he needs therapy - he has ADHD [Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder] and behavioral problems - he's afraid," she said.



Earhart said Steven called her, telling her he had to change cell blocks after jailed members of the Trinitario gang threatened to choke him because he doesn't speak Spanish.



Short and slight, Steven is due back in court tomorrow, when his Legal Aid attorney will try to downgrade his 10 felony and six misdemeanor charges to a youthful offender status, which would land him just one year in jail.



The teen's parents have been in and out of prison and absent from his life, Earhart said.



"I think that's why he's so rebellious and angry," she said.



Steven failed all his classes last year at special education Lewis and Clark High School.



He will have to repeat the ninth grade, after he missing 37 days and being late 46 times.



But Earhart said, "He would do anything for his grandma. If she needed him to go to the store, he would drop everything and go for her."



Steven was first arrested on May 11,near Public School 54 on Decatur Ave. He is accused of selling four Ziploc bags containing crack cocaine to an undercover Bronx narcotics officer, according to a criminal complaint.



The teen was released on his own recognizance after he was arraigned on charges of criminal possession of and sale of a controlled substance.



On June 28, he was arrested along with Marcus Quattlebaum, 17, and Elijah Davis, 18, for allegedly robbing a man of his iPod on Hoffman St. near Middle School 45 - the school Earhart's daughter, an honors student, attends.



According to the criminal complaint, Steven also snatched two gold chains from the victim's neck.



As the baby-faced, scared-looking boy stood before Acting Supreme Court Justice William Mogulescu at his arraignment on June 29, Earhart reeled in the audience.



"They'll eat you alive in state prison. . . . Your mom is tired of seeing you locked up - do you think she likes sitting here?" Mogulescu asked, pointing to a visibly stressed-out Earhart.



Before releasing him into Earhart's custody , Mogulescu issued the boy a stiff warning that if he were caught doing anything wrong again, he'd be thrown right in the clink.



Earhart tried to enroll him in the Fortune Society - a nonprofit social service and advocacy program dedicated to formerly incarcerated individuals - but he got into trouble again.
Just a week later, on July 6, the troubled teen - along with "five unapprehended males" - allegedly kicked a man in the ribs and took his backpack and iPod from the man's pocket.
"There are people that commit murders and only go away for eight or nine years," Earhart said. "Why is he looking at 15?
"I don't condone what he did - he was wrong and he needs to pay for it - but he really needs help above anything."

BY Sarah Armaghan


DAILY NEWS WRITER

Rikers Island Fire Forces Evacuations

A quick-spreading fire in a Rikers Island jail, George Motchan Detention Center, Sunday night destroyed 200 beds and forced the inmates to evacuate. Several of the dormitories were destroyed, according to NY Daily, and the prisoners are being held in other facilities on Rikers Island. A spokesperson for the correction department said it started in a heating unit, but the cause is still under investigation. Over a hundred firefighters battled the two-alarm fire, and the incident caused no injuries.

Bed-Stuy Bandmate Robber Speaks: It Was The Weed, Man

By Christopher Robbins
Last week we learned that despite the best of intentions, Bed-Stuy can be a scary place to settle down. Now, the man who police say jumped out of a second-story window after stealing musical equipment from a house of Brooklyn College bandmates explains what happened: it was the weed, man. From a Rikers Island jail cell, 23-year-old DuJuan Marshall tells the Times that he doesn't remember storming into the boys' apartment and pistol whipping them while his accomplices unloaded the stolen equipment, because an angel-dusted joint did him in. "I feel their pain," he says, echoing another famous truth-teller.
Marshall says that the day in question began with a benediction, at a church on nearby Quincy Street. "The pastor told me, 'You have a blessing coming your way.'" Doing what anyone would do following that holy edict, Marshall bought a bottle of sparkling wine. He then says that one of the boys who was robbed approached him to ask for cocaine or ecstasy, and he told him he couldn't get any. However, 18-year-old Ian Harris claims that Marshall in fact "mumbled something" about drugs, and he was "just, like, talking to himself."
Then, our protagonist "was smoking with people I shouldn't have been smoking with," and doesn't remember much afterwards. Marshall claims he went to a party at the boys' apartment, and his theory (just level with him for a minute) is that "the police stormed into the apartment, threw him out the window and beat the musicians, forcing them to say that they had been robbed." Told this version of events, one of the victims said: "That's definitely not how it went down."
Regardless of his current status in Rikers, where his grandmother used to be a prison guard, Marshall is an aspiring real estate agent, who feels that Bed-Stuy still has plenty of potential. To someone who's interested in buying the building, he has some advice: "I'd say the values on the block are rising." He's a natural!

Mexican inmate tries to escape in suitcase wheeled by wife after conjugal visit

Police say a woman was caught trying to sneak her common-law-husband out of a Mexican prison in a suitcase following a conjugal visit.

A spokesman for police in the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo says staff at the prison in Chetumal noticed that the woman seemed nervous and was pulling a black, wheeled suitcase that looked bulky.
Spokesman Gerardo Campos said Monday that prison guards checked the bag of 19-year-old Maria del Mar Arjona and found inmate Juan Ramirez Tijerina curled up inside in the fetal position.
Ramirez is serving a 20-year sentence for a 2007 conviction for illegal weapons possession.
Arjona was arrested and charges are pending.

Baysiders Convicted in Fatal Gang Attack - Bayside, NY Patch

Baysiders Convicted in Fatal Gang Attack - Bayside, NY Patch

Man held at Rikers Island Released after "real" crook spotted

By WILLIAM J. GORTA

A Brooklyn man being held on Rikers Island on a robbery charge caught a lucky break when the key eyewitness against him spotted the “real” robber on the street.
The robbery trial of Michael Taylor, 50, was about to begin yesterday when the man who picked him out of a lineup told a prosecutor that he was on his way to court to testify against Taylor when he saw the man who robbed him walking on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
But Taylor, who was accused of robbing a Bensonhurst Radio Shack in 2009, has been in jail for months, first serving out a petit larceny sentence and then cooling his heels while he was unable to make bail in the robbery case.

The prosecutor told the defense and the judge of the ID mix-up and Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Deborah Dowling dismissed the case, allowing Taylor to walk out of court a free man.

“It was beautiful,” said defense lawyer Renate Lunn. “There was no more perfect day to be released from Rikers.”
Lunn said case against Taylor, who served prison terms for robbery and grand larceny, hinged on the testimony of the erring eyewitness.
“There were no prints, no video – even though this was a Radio Shack,” she said. “This has been a learning process on the unreliability of eyewitnesses.”
Taylor said only, “I’m glad the nightmare is finally over.”


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/man_held_at_rikers_released_after_O4y9uDLoi31r3nSTMDpj7K#ixzz1LxTC5qQM

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the amazing mothers, grandmothers, aunties, god-mothers and friends!!
Today is your day! Everyday you give yourself to your children in hopes to teach them valuable lessons to make them responsible and well rounded adults!! It can be a thankless job and it doesn't come with any instructions or manual. Although today I'm not spending it with my Mom but I am honoring a lesson she taught me many years ago! Charity!! Today I'm going to spend time with children whose mothers are incarcerated. I hope to bring them a little joy on a very difficult day for them.When I told my Mom what I was doing today she said it was the best gift I could ever give her!!