One of the city’s most chronic criminals — recently charged with his 135th crime — scoffs at the notion he’s a career offender.
“I’ve done some of it, but I haven’t done all of it,” said Benjamin Doctor during a jailhouse interview on Rikers Island Friday.
Doctor has been busted on charges ranging from aggressive panhandling and drug possession to petty theft and lewd conduct over the course of his 30-year criminal career.
He was profiled in The Post as one of the “Dirty Dozens” targeted by Mayor Bloomberg — persistent misdemeanor offenders who account for 5 percent of the 25,000 low-level crimes committed in the city each year.
Doctor’s currently cooling his heels in jail after he was busted selling crack to an undercover cop on Dec. 1, police said.
Originally, police believed they had caught the bad Doctor working with another ne’er-do-well, making the drug charge a felony. But prosecutors have since dropped the case to a misdemeanor.
A felony conviction could have meant at least a year in prison, rather than the 30-day stints Doctor regularly serves. But it appears he’ll be on the streets in no time.
Bloomberg is pushing a bill in Albany that would allow a chronic offender’s seventh misdemeanor charge in a year to be upgraded to a felony.