NEW YORK — The criminal justice system had two recent run-ins with accused subway pusher Christian Valdez before he shoved a woman under a Manhattan train — including a day before the attack, when the suspect removed an ankle monitor but was still allowed to walk free, the Daily News has learned.
The other encounter took place almost three months before the Saturday shove that cost Valdez’s 29-year-old girlfriend the lower parts of her legs, when Valdez was charged with stabbing a woman in the Bronx. Valdez, who was already on parole for stabbing a woman and her young daughter, was locked up without bail.
But not for long.
Valdez’s defense lawyers fought the parole revocation and got him released after a January hearing in Bronx Supreme Court. A condition of that release was an electronic monitoring device.
On Friday, Valdez dodged another potential date with a jail cell, just hours before the Fulton St. station attack. Valdez cut off an ankle GPS monitor, leading to a visit from state parole officers who arranged for him to get medical help.
Before they could return to his home to fit Valdez with a new GPS monitor, the parolee had vanished. They reached him in New Jersey, where he admitted pushing someone onto the tracks, officials said.
State parole officials said Tuesday that removing a GPS monitor isn’t enough to trigger an automatic violation and re-arrest.
“An investigation must be conducted by parole staff to determine if the individual violated the conditions of their release in an important respect before a warrant can be produced,” said Rachel Connors, a spokesperson with the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or DOCCS.
Valdez, 35, had been released to parole a year earlier, in January 2023, after being sentenced to two-and-2/3 to eight years in prison for stabbing Jenny Aquino and her then 4-year-old daughter, Bella, in 2017.
“They let me down,” Aquino told the Daily News on Monday. “They told me he was locked up and then deported to Peru.”
Within the year Valdez was in trouble again.
On Dec. 20, Valdez repeatedly stabbed a woman on E. Tremont Ave. in the Bronx outside a transitional housing facility where they both lived, prosecutors allege. The woman needed about 50 stitches to close stab wounds to her leg, stomach and armpit, according to a criminal complaint.
Valdez was arrested, and after a hospital stay for psychiatric treatment, he was arraigned on attempted murder, assault and other charges, sources said.
A parole official attended the arraignment and asked that Valdez be held without bail pending a parole hearing.
Under the 2022 state Less is More Act, a suspect accused of a parole violation is entitled to a speedy hearing, where law enforcement officials must meet a high standard of proof that a violation took place.
Valdez’s attorneys with the Legal Aid Society filed a motion seeking their client’s release after a Jan. 3 hearing in Bronx Supreme Court.
On Jan. 18, that motion was granted. Defense lawyer Michelle McGrath argued that prosecutors had insufficient evidence in the stabbing case, and pointed out the defense team wasn’t allowed to properly cross-examine the stabbing victim about a prior mental health exam, and about her history of past assault convictions.
“We also were not permitted to know what section of the penal law our client was alleged to have violated,” McGrath said at that proceeding, before Justice George Villegas ordered Valdez freed without bail, and he was fitted for an ankle monitor.
The stabbing case is still pending. Legal Aid declined comment Tuesday.
Valdez removed the ankle monitor on March 8 and triggered an alert, according to prosecutors and parole officials. Parole officers visited Valdez at home that day, said Connors, the DOCCS spokesperson.
“Parole officers determined during the visit that Valdez was in need of immediate medical attention and ensured that he was transported to receive it,” Connors said. She couldn’t comment further on the medical attention, citing federal privacy law.
At some point, the officers returned to Valdez’s home to fit a new ankle monitor. But Valdez wasn’t there.
Even so, Connors said, “For the brief period that Valdez did not have a GPS monitor — including while he was receiving medical care and upon discharge — parole officers actively supervised and engaged Valdez.”
On Saturday at 10:30 a.m., Valdez pushed the subway victim into the path of a downtown No. 3 train after an argument, cops and prosecutors allege.
Medics rushed her in critical condition to Bellevue Hospital, where both her legs were amputated below the knee, prosecutors said.
Valdez’s parole officer called after they didn’t find him at home, and Valdez admitted to pushing someone onto the tracks that morning, Connors said. The officer was able to convince Valdez to return to New York to face charges, she said.
“It is important to note that GPS monitors do not prevent individuals from committing crimes nor do they predict them,” Connors said. “There was no gap in supervision; a GPS monitor would have served to provide his location at the time the crime was committed, which has been confirmed through alternative means.”
She said DOCCS is still investigating the case.
— John Annese / New York Daily News
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