Criminal Caught With Guns and Drugs, Still Freed—Now Charged With Murder

A career criminal in New York City was finally locked up, but only after allegedly murdering a man—while still wearing an ankle monitor that was supposed to track his whereabouts.

As The New York Post reported, Tony Harris, a 62-year-old Bronx resident with a staggering record of over two dozen arrests, was inexplicably set free without bail last June despite being caught with loaded firearms, drugs, and ammunition.

Judge Anna Mikhaleva decided that an ankle bracelet would be enough to keep tabs on him. That decision proved tragically wrong.

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Authorities say Harris was still wearing his court-ordered monitoring device when he gunned down Emilio Rosas, 56, outside a Bronx deli last week. Only after that fatal shooting did the justice system finally take him off the streets, booking him into Rikers Island.

Harris’ rap sheet is a laundry list of serious offenses, including robbery, drug and gun possession, burglary, and even strangulation. Yet time and again, he was released back onto the streets.

In his latest run-in with the law last summer, cops raided his apartment on Prospect Avenue and found a loaded .25-caliber Glock, a loaded 9mm pistol, stacks of .32- and .22-caliber bullets, along with 63 vials of crack and drug paraphernalia.

They also had a domestic violence charge against him for allegedly scratching his partner’s neck.

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Prosecutors pleaded with the court to set a reasonable bail, requesting $100,000 cash or $300,000 bond on the gun charges and an additional $15,000 or $45,000 bond on the domestic violence charge.

But Judge Mikhaleva, adhering to the city’s soft-on-crime policies, refused, letting Harris walk free under so-called “supervised release.”

While he technically showed up for court appearances, Harris remained a free man, despite his history and the mountain of evidence against him. That freedom ended on February 17 when, police say, he shot Rosas in the chest, killing him.

One law enforcement source didn’t hold back in his assessment of the situation:

“A man was killed because a woke judge did not do her job.”

Another furious Bronx officer went even further, saying:

“This judge should be removed from the bench and taken to Rikers Island. Letting a suspect out after he is arrested with two guns, ammunition, drugs, and strangling his girlfriend is criminal.”

When officers arrived to arrest Harris for the murder, he pulled the same stunt he had in June—barricading himself inside his apartment for hours. This time, NYPD’s Emergency Service Unit was called in to get him into custody.

Following the murder charges, Judge Audrey Stone finally revoked Harris’ bail in his previous gun and drug case. In court, Assistant District Attorney Sharlene Disla laid out the obvious: Harris posed a flight risk and had clearly violated the terms of his release by possessing firearms.

You won’t be taken seriously when you blame guns for murders when defendants in felony gun cases are freed on supervised release, and are only detained after they finally kill someone.
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Tony Harris — a Bronx man with over two dozen busts on his rap sheet —… pic.twitter.com/4p3V9bqA4e

— US Ship of State (@US_ShipOfState) February 28, 2025

“The police had to call ESU and ask for us to get a search warrant in order to get him into custody for this new matter,” Disla told the judge.

Adding to the absurdity, Harris’ defense attorney tried to dismiss the murder indictment as “hearsay.” Judge Stone wasn’t having it.

“How is an indictment hearsay?” she snapped.

“It is an official court document representing a vote of members of the public, who must find reasonable cause based on substantial evidence.”

Meanwhile, the state’s Office of Court Administration refused to address Mikhaleva’s disastrous decision to release Harris last year, offering only a generic statement that judges have discretion when setting bail. That “discretion” cost a man his life.

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