A Brooklyn man paroled after serving 16 years in a notorious 2005 robbery in which the victim died shouldn’t go back to prison because he’s accused of possessing a loaded gun, his lawyers say.
It’s the second time in his life that Javaugh Higgins, 34, finds himself in a controversy over the state’s rules for jailing people accused but not convicted of a crime.
Higgins is sitting in Rikers Island after police reported finding a gun in the basement ceiling of his East Flatbush home on April 28 — a violation of the terms of his parole in his sentence in a string of 2005 robbery cases.
Higgins was arrested on the gun charge and made bail, which in his case had been set at $15,000 cash or $50,000 bond.
But after his release on the criminal charge, he was arrested again and sent back to jail because possessing the gun violated the terms of his parole.
Higgins’s Legal Aid Society lawyers say that under a 2021 state law called the Less Is More Act, he should be allowed free while he awaits trial on the gun charge.
The law is clear, says the Society, which has filed a court case in the Bronx aimed at getting Higgins out of Rikers Island.
“Bail has been paid,” the Society says in court papers. Therefore, the lawyers say, the Less Is More act requires Higgins’ freedom while his case is decided.
“[W]hen a person pays bail on a criminal matter that charges the same conduct alleged in the parole violation, that person must be released,” the lawyers argue.
The Legal Aid Society also says in the papers that the Less Is More Act was meant to upend the idea that “people under [parole] supervision are guilty of every violation or crime of which they are accused” and to “limit … the circumstances under which people subject to community supervision could be re-incarcerated for violations” of parole.
The state has not answered Higgins’ case in public court papers, and state corrections officials declined comment.
But New York correction officials have maintained that under state law, parolees accused of serious violations can be jailed without bail while the parole system decides whether to return them to state prison. The state also says parolees can be sent back to prison under lower legal standards than “beyond a reasonable doubt,” which is required for a criminal conviction.
Higgins was 16 years old when he landed in adult court after the May 6, 2005 robbery and beating of Mofizur Rahaman, 52, steps from Rahaman’s basement apartment in Kensington, Brooklyn — a case that led then-mayor Michael Bloomberg to complain about the state’s bail practices.
Surveillance video showed Higgins pummeling Rahaman and zapping him with a stun gun, reports at the time said. Two other boys, ages 16 and 14, were also charged. Several others got away and were never arrested, said the reports.
Rahaman died of brain injuries 12 days after the attack. Police initially thought the attack was racially motivated, but determined later that Higgins and the other suspects set upon Rahaman to rob him of his cell phone.
Rahaman’s life in New York was one of hard work. He came to the U.S. in 1991, leaving behind his pregnant wife and their children. He worked in a perfume warehouse in the hopes he’d one day have enough money to reunite with his family, including a teen daughter he had never seen, his roommate said at the time.
Rahaman’s funeral drew 2,000 mourners, and his body was flown back to Bangladesh, his homeland.
When Higgins was arraigned in the Rahaman robbery, Brooklyn Judge Margarita López Torres described the suspect as a “known gang member,” and set bail at $150,000.
But that sum wasn’t enough to keep the then-16-year-old incarcerated before trial — his mother put up her home as collateral, and Higgins was released.
Three months later, while he was free on bail, Higgins was arrested again in a pair of street robberies in which he took a cell phone from one man and an iPod music player from another man, at Flatbush Ave. and St. Mark’s Place in Prospect Heights.
One victim ran roughly 500 feet to the 78th Precinct stationhouse. Two NYPD lieutenants responded and caught up with Higgins nearby on Dean St., where they saw him with a fake gun.
The officers opened fire and hit Higgins in the left leg and his cheek.
The next day, Bloomberg slammed López Torres’ bail decision, calling it a “perfect example of turnstile justice.”
Higgins admitted to police that he used a stun gun on Rahaman. “I needed some money, so that’s why we went out to go rob someone,” he confessed, according to court papers.
A jury convicted Higgins of robbing Rahaman, but not of killing him. He pleaded guilty to the other two robberies. In all three cases, he served 16 years in state prison before his parole in October.
Even though Higgins hasn’t steered clear of legal trouble since his parole, the Legal Aid Society insists the Less Is More act requires him to be freed from Rikers Island while the gun case works its way through the courts. The Society says the law is “designed to limit the number of New Yorkers forced to suffer the deplorable conditions of the city’s jail system.”