Posted on August 5, 2022

Meet the NYC Shoplifter with 101 Arrests — And Let Go Almost Every Time

Tina Moore et al., New York Post, August 4, 2022

The career crook whom Mayor Adams dubbed “Recidivist No. 1” as a symbol of the city’s revolving door of criminal justice has been identified as Harold Gooding, a 53-year-old serial shoplifter — who has been arrested 101 times.

Harold Gooding

Harold Gooding

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On Wednesday, sources identified Gooding as the unnamed person at the top of the NYPD’s list of the “Worst of the Worst” repeat offenders — let free again and again thanks to New York’s broken bail-reform law.

Gooding has served three prison terms, starting with a one- to three-year sentence for an attempted-burglary conviction in Brooklyn in 1994, according to state records.

Using the name Jamiel White, he was sent upstate again in 1996 for an attempted-robbery conviction in Brooklyn, according to the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision.

Gooding’s most serious conviction, for first-degree robbery in Brooklyn, got him a 10-year sentence in 2001, and he was paroled in 2008, records show.

In February, he pleaded guilty to petit larceny in another Manhattan case and received a conditional discharge that required him to stay out of trouble and return to court periodically, records show.

After failing to show up, he was arrested on a bench warrant in July, and his conditional discharge was extended for a year, records show.

In an alleged string of robberies this year, Gooding shoplifted from a Target store in Tribeca multiple times — all while wearing the same distinctive white hat, the Manhattan DA’s Office charged.

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He also is being investigated in about 17 other thefts from the same Target, according to the DA.

Under the state’s bail-reform law, he was freed without bail on supervised release in the robberies, the DA’s Office said.

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