‘Smirking Young Thug’ With Links to Tren de Aragua Charged in Robbery of NYC Prosecutor

An illegal alien with suspected ties to the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua robbed one of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s prosecutors, New York police say.

Around 2 a.m. Sunday, police said, Brandon Simosa robbed Bragg’s employee, a 38-year-old woman, in her apartment building on 44th Street, the New York Post first reported.

Simosa, 25, fled with the woman’s smart phone and bank cards after she discovered him as he “performed a lewd act” in a hallway, WABC-TV/Channel 7 Eyewitness News reported. The man was masturbating, the Post reported.  

Bragg is probably best known for his successful, high-profile prosecution of former President Donald Trump, now the president-elect, for falsifying business records before and after the 2016 election. 

Simosa illegally crossed the southern border into Eagle Pass, Texas, in October 2023, the Post reported.

Police tracked the stolen phone to find and arrest Simosa on Tuesday night outside a hotel being used as a migrant shelter in Midtown Manhattan. He was using drugs and had stolen items with him when police located him, according to Eyewitness News.  

Charges against Simosa include sexually motivated robbery, grand larceny, and criminal possession of stolen property, the Post reported.

Cameras caught Simosa smirking Wednesday as authorities led him out of the New York Police Department’s Midtown South Precinct.  

“This utterly unrepentant, smirking young thug is just one of thousands allowed in under the Biden administration’s open border and then encouraged to come to New York City by its blank checks for housing, income, health care, education, and other services Americans don’t get for free,” Simon Hankinson, a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told The Daily Signal.  

Over 10 million illegal aliens have crossed the border into the U.S. during the Biden-Harris administration, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.

New York Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, has said that over 223,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in the Big Apple and “sought city services” since the spring of 2022. 

“While living off the taxpayer, [illegal aliens] can rob and assault with little fear of timely prosecution, and they are usually let out on cashless bail,” Hankinson said.  

Shortly after taking office at the beginning of 2022, Bragg, a Democrat, directed his prosecutors in a memo to seek jail time only in “very serious cases.”

After receiving pushback from New Yorkers, Bragg revised his direction, telling prosecutors: “You were hired for your keen judgment, and I want you to use that judgment.”  

Heritage Foundation legal fellows Cully Stimson and Zack Smith, authors of the book “Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers Are Destroying America’s Communities,” have accused Bragg of furthering “pro-criminal, anti-victim policies.”   

Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.  

The district attorney in Georgia “who took the death penalty off the table for Laken Riley’s killer—another Tren de Aragua associate from Venezuela—was as woke as Alvin Bragg,” Hankinson said. 

Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was found dead Feb. 22 near a running trail in Athens, Georgia. Authorities said she died of blunt force trauma to the head and suffocation.  

A Georgia judge on Wednesday found illegal alien Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, guilty on all 10 counts in Riley’s bludgeoning death. Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard sentenced Ibarra, who had waived his right to a jury trial, to life in prison without parole.

Athens-Clarke District Attorney Deborah Gonzalez, a Democrat, appointed a special prosecutor to take on the Riley case but said her office wouldn’t seek the death penalty when prosecuting criminals.  

In the Nov. 5 election Republican challenger Kalki Yalamanchili defeated Gonzalez by 60% to 40%, the Post reported.

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