Metro

Bronx DA may lose power to prosecute Rikers crimes

Everyone’s heard of “judge shopping” — but the state Legislature has just authorized “DA shopping.”

In an extraordinary development, lawmakers have quietly passed a bill that would transfer prosecution of alleged crimes committed in Rikers Island prison from Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson to Queens DA Richard Brown.

Rikers, technically part of The Bronx, sits in the East River ­between the two boroughs and is reached via a Queens bridge.

The measure breezed through the Assembly and the Senate last month after the correction- ­officers union complained that the Bronx DA zealously pursues criminal cases against officers, but not inmates.

The bill now goes to Gov. Cuomo to sign or veto.

“We believe we will be treated a little bit differently in Queens, in Richard Brown’s county. Johnson doesn’t give the correction officers the benefit of the doubt,” said Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association President ­Norman Seabrook.

He said Johnson is indicting every officer accused of roughing up an inmate because the DA fears being second-guessed.

“So he’s indicting ham. He’s indicting ham and cheese. It doesn’t matter. He’s indicting it all,” Seabrook said at a meeting of the Post editorial board.

Seabrook complained that inmates who assault officers don’t get such aggressive prosecutorial treatment in The Bronx.

“I only ask that we be treated fairly . . . but the Bronx DA’s ­Office is not going to prosecute . . . They’re not going to give that level of interest in the inmate ­assaulting an officer as they do an officer ­allegedly assaulting an inmate. It’s not going to happen. That’s totally unfair,” Seabrook said.

The Queens and Bronx DAs oppose the switch and have written a joint letter to Cuomo ­urging him to cast a veto.

The Rikers venue swap “would send a chilling and disturbing message to independently elected prosecutors across the state about their ability to exercise their discretion freely,” Johnson and Brown told Cuomo.

The prosecutors said such ­Albany interference could discourage DAs from pursuing “difficult or controversial types of cases.”

Johnson defended his office’s handling of Rikers cases.

“The Bronx DA’s Office has conducted investigations involving allegations of inmate assaults and allegations of the use of excessive force by correction officers on a case-by-case basis and brought prosecutions, or declined to prosecute, as was appropriate,” he said.

Assemblyman Joe Lentol ­(D-Brooklyn), chief sponsor of the bill that would move Rikers cases to Queens, said the transfer makes sense because Bronx courts are more backlogged than those in Queens.

He noted that inmates allegedly committing crimes at Rikers are first sent to the local Queens station house.

Lentol insisted the bill was not intended as a slap at Johnson.