New York’s crime history is riddled with violence committed by ex-cons who’ve been paroled.
Here are just a few cases that not only made headlines with their jarring depravity, but have added fuel to the growing debate about the wisdom and justice of the parole system.
*NATHAN GILES JR. – The 32-year-old paroled murderer committed one of the most heinous crimes of the ’70s, killing 25-year-old Bonnie Ann Bush, an obstetrics nurse at Roosevelt Hospital. At the time of the Nov. 24, 1978 murder, Giles had been on parole for the murder of a 68-year-old woman whom he stabbed with a screwdriver during a robbery.
*JOSE SERRANO – The 30-year-old drug-smuggling parolee was killed in May 1998 in a wild gun battle with Officer Anthony Mosomillo, who also died in the struggle. Serrano’s alleged accomplice, Betsy Ramos, was on federal probation, and was later charged with murder for helping Serrano grab the gun of Mosomillo’s partner, Officer Miriam Torres. It was the weapon used against Mosomillo.
*ANGEL DIAZ – The 27-year-old Diaz, who killed Officer Kevin Gillespie during a robbery in March 1996, had been paroled in 1987 after serving two years for a 1985 Bronx jewelry store robbery. Later in 1987, he was sentenced to up to seven years for robbery and assault after a grocery holdup. He was denied parole twice, but state sentencing guidelines mandated his conditional release in October 1995. Diaz committed suicide in jail while awaiting trial for the Gillespie murder.
*SHATIEK JOHNSON – The 17-year-old Staten Island youth charged with the fatal July 1998 shooting of Officer Gerard Carter, was paroled the previous April after serving 1 years on a 1996 manslaughter conviction. He was later arrested on a fare-beating charge but slipped through the parole system to roam free. Carter recognized him as the man wanted for questioning in an earlier murder and approached him in a housing project, igniting the fatal shooting.
*LONDEL STEELE – The 23-year-old homeless man was on parole for criminal possession of a weapon when he was charged with raping a 16-year-old girl at knife point in November 1998. Steele, released from jail Nov. 10, 1997, had apparently disabled his electronic ankle-monitor before committing the crime.
*DEMERIS TOLBERT – The 30-year-old parolee was charged with shooting and wounding two cops in November 1998 as the police were looking for the robber-killers of a Brownsville pawnshop owner. Tolbert stunned cops by admitting to other violent crimes since he was freed Jan. 27, 1998 after serving 2 years on a drug conviction. He told cops he was responsible for a gang-related killing Sept. 22, 1998, the 1990 slaying of a counterman in a bodega in East New York, the 1991 slaying of a guard in Crown Heights, a Brownsville slaying that cops are trying to pinpoint, and a shooting and robbery Oct. 28, 1998, at a GreenPoint Savings Bank branch.