Metro

Bronx DA’s office has the city’s worst record for prosecutions

Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson’s office has the worst record of any prosecutor when it comes to actually putting away violent thugs arrested by the police, according to statistics obtained by The Post.

The veteran prosecutor convicts only 42.8 percent of those arrested for violent felonies compared with 53.7 percent across the rest of the city. It also takes his assistant DAs an average of 27.7 hours to arraign suspects — which is nearly four hours past the legal deadline.

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Gun offenders in The Bronx are rarely sent to prison — only 31 percent of felony gun convictions result in prison time.

The stats are sickening to cops on the beat who risk their lives to make collars — especially considering how many suspects are packing heat.

“When a guy has a gun, obviously there is a good chance he’s going to use that gun, so you’re putting your life on the line,” said one police source. “And then the DA is going to let him go free?”

Another source said, “It’s frustrating when you arrest a guy and you recover a gun and by the time you do all the paperwork and work into the early morning hours, by the time you get back to the precinct, the guy is already let go.

“It’s a joke. He’s already home sleeping in his bed.”

Johnson’s office came under scrutiny last month after it was revealed that it declines to prosecute nearly 25 percent of all cases — but that was only the tip of the iceberg.

The DA, who has clung to his perch as the crime-ridden borough’s highest-level lawyer for 23 years, also runs the most inefficient shop, the statistics show.

Not only does his office have the longest arrest-to-arraignment time, but it also takes the longest of all the DAs’ offices to file complaints in court. They require an average of 5 hours while the other DAs range from 2.7 to 4.3 hours.

A spokesman for Johnson declined to comment on the stats.

Bronx residents shared the cops’ frustration.

“The entire just system here is a disaster. They send [to jail] the wrong people . . . and they’ve let rapists free,” said Hilda Guzman, a 57-year-old cleaner from Tremont. “I’m very scared to live here. I wish I could move but I can’t afford to.”

Ray Ramirez, 60, a security guard who lives in Fordham, said, “We have a saying in Spanish which translates to, ‘If it is no good, get rid of it.’ There are qualified people who can replace those who are running it now.”

Additional reporting by Kevin Fasick