Alleged NYC serial shoplifter Lorenzo McLucas busted for 129th time — weeks after release due to bail reform
July 14, 2022
Lorenzo McLucas was nabbed Wednesday at a Target on the Upper East Side, with Vaseline and lotions worth $80 on him
A repeat shoplifter who even soft-on-crime DA Alvin Bragg thinks should be behind bars was busted again this week — less than a month after he was released thanks to New York’s controversial bail reform laws.
Lorenzo McLucas, 34, was nabbed Wednesday at a Target on the Upper East Side, with Vaseline and lotions worth $80 on him, police sources told The Post. Cops charged him with petit larceny and possession of stolen property.
McLucas — who already had more than 120 busts under his belt — was also slapped with charges for six other thefts that took place between May 6 and June 9, all at Manhattan Targets.
It comes just weeks after the alleged serial shoplifter notched his 122nd arrest for allegedly stealing from the cosmetics counter at a Duane Reade in Midtown — and then released on his own recognizance.
The cases McLucas was charged in Wednesday include a June 4 incident where he allegedly stole $510 worth of goods from an Upper West Side Target; a June 25 caper where $481 worth of goods were stolen from an East Village Target; and another episode just last week when an Upper East Side Target was robbed of $210 worth of hairspray and makeup.
McLucas has more than 120 busts under his belt
“These are places that everyday New Yorkers need and these places are closing every day,” a police source said of the chain stores that are being robbed. “He has 129 arrests, 108 misdemeanors and 21 felonies. He keeps getting out and going back.”
The Manhattan detective with more than two decades of experience said cases like McLucas’ make “a mockery of the system.”
When McLucas was busted June 22, his 122nd arrest, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office had no choice but to let him off without bail.
Lorenzo McLucas was arrested for shoplifting one month after he was
let go on supervised release from a previous shoplifting charge
Bragg’s office told The Post at the time that it would have requested McLucas be detained if it could, keeping in line with the DA’s announcement that he wanted to clamp down on serial shoplifters.
Prosecutors can only request bail on this sort of misdemeanor if the perp has other cases pending against him, and McLucas did not have any then and still doesn’t now.
McLucas has previously been convicted of two felonies and 29 misdemeanors. He also has 20 missed court appearances.
A rep for Legal Aid, which is representing McLucas, did not immediately comment.
Marvin Mayfield, who works for the Center for Community Alternatives, argued McLucas’ case is an example of how the city criminalizes poverty and fails to provide resources to struggling New Yorkers, rather than an “indictment of bail reform.”
“It’s easy to point fingers at a person who is arrested again and again, but we must reckon with the fact that incarceration has not and cannot solve the problem of inequality and lack of community resources,” Mayfield, who was formerly incarcerated, told The Post.
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