Copyright New York Daily News
A man accused of carrying out a string of attacks against Asian New Yorkers was remanded on hate crime charges in Manhattan on Friday, following a years-long cycle through the system that apparently saw him slip through the cracks of city and state-funded programs designed to aid defendants with a mental illness. Clive Porter, 33, was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court, charged with committing assault, attempted assault, and grand larceny as hate crimes and related offenses for the alleged incidents on Wednesday that left a group of people terrorized. Prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office allege Porter set out on a spree of violence, punching or forcefully elbowing three elderly people and pickpocketing another person within a span of 15 minutes after 9:35 a.m. Wednesday. After 4 p.m., he allegedly punched a man who’d just gotten off a J train at the Bowery subway station, bloodying his nose and causing cuts and bruises, after screaming slurs. The man, stunned by the assault, fell back onto the subway tracks after Porter allegedly fled the scene, according to authorities. He managed to hoist himself up and flag down the police. All of the victims were of Asian descent, and nobody was seriously injured, according to the NYPD. Friday’s charges represent the most serious Porter has faced out of dozens of arrests in recent years, according to a Daily News review of his record. On at least 12 occasions, police determined he had a mental illness or was emotionally distressed, according to the NYPD. Speaking to the Daily News after Friday’s proceedings, Porter’s public defender, Joseph Payne, said his client had a prescription for psychiatric medication, but that it had been stolen or misplaced in the days leading to the alleged attacks. “He was without access to medication for the last couple days, and now, here we are,” Payne said. One of the key debates in the current mayoral race has been how to handle people with severe mental illness entangled in the criminal justice system. Porter’s experiences, like those of so many defendants constantly cycling through the worn-out revolving door in arraignments, expose glaring shortcomings in city- and state-funded programs that exist for treating, monitoring, and rehabilitating repeat offenders living in extreme poverty with poorly or untreated mental illness, and in the jails themselves. In the four years preceding Wednesday’s alleged incidents, prosecutors and judges in Brooklyn and Manhattan have taken turns confronting Porter’s issues. The East Midwood, Brooklyn, man, who is set to turn 34 in two weeks, has served two jail sentences, apparently returning to sleeping on the streets both times after his release, and at least twice has been ordered to comply with the city’s supervised release program. In August 2021, he was arrested for hurling a bottle through the front window of a woman’s car, shattering it as she drove down Nostrand Ave. near President St. in Crown Heights and leaving her with cuts on her arms and stomach. The case was referred to Brooklyn’s mental health court in November 2023, where Porter was ordered to comply with a court-mandated treatment program and pleaded guilty to attempted assault in September, a court official told The News. He faces two to four years in prison when he is sentenced in that case on Nov. 12. The mental health courts, which tailor case outcomes to treat people’s specific needs, have seen strong results but receive little funding from the city and state and are available only to a select few. In an interview with The News, Porter’s mother, a 61-year-old home health aide who did not wish to be named, said that he doesn’t find himself in trouble when he’s taking his medication. She said she last saw him the Friday before Wednesday’s alleged attacks, when he had the meds he picks up each month from a pharmacy near her home, and she gave him $60 for some food. “He’s nice. He’s a nice person. He’s a good person,” Porter’s mother said through tears. “When he don’t take his medication, he goes off,” she later added. “When he takes the medication, he’s fine.” After a year with no arrests, police took Porter into custody in February and March 2023 on misdemeanor tampering and aggravated assault offenses. He was sentenced to five months in jail the following June after taking a plea deal. Shortly after his release, he was arrested for a graffiti incident on Valentine’s Day 2024 and subsequently pleaded guilty, receiving a conditional discharge. The following Halloween, he was arrested for striking a man in the pinky with an ice pick following a verbal dispute that turned into a physical fight in lower Manhattan. He was sentenced to six months in jail in April after pleading guilty in that case. Not long after his release, Porter was arrested again in Brooklyn in September for allegedly smoking a K2 cigarette on the southbound L train platform at Broadway Junction. At his arraignment, a judge ordered him to comply with the city’s supervised release program. He was arrested less than a month later, on Oct. 14, for allegedly threatening two men with knives in the Times Square subway system. He was arraigned on non-bail-eligible offenses and ordered by a Manhattan judge to comply with the city’s supervised release program. It was not clear from prosecutors or court records whether Porter had complied with the city’s supervised release program. The Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice manages the program’s contracts. When participants don’t comply, operators are supposed to contact defense attorneys. If the lawyers can’t speak to their clients’ whereabouts, operators are required to notify all parties. Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to inquiries about whether it had ever referred Porter to the mental health courts, as prosecutors had in Brooklyn. Porter’s mom on Friday said he had been employed as a cashier many years ago, but that mental health issues and drug addiction had totally derailed him. She expressed frustration at the mishmash of outcomes in his cases and the lack of consistent treatment available. Distraught at the prospect of her son going to jail, Porter’s mother said she feared his psychiatric condition would go untreated and inevitably get worse. “If you are the judge and you see this person coming in every time, you see something wrong with him,” she said. “I’m begging these people to help him. He’s my only son.”
