Four of the Big Apple’s most troublesome transit nightmares were picked up by alert NYPD cops in the span of just 24 hours this week — but soft-on-crime state laws put them right back on the street.
Eagle-eyed cops recognized the career criminals, who were wanted for a series of thefts, in separate busts in Manhattan on Monday and Tuesday — but three of them were already back on the streets Wednesday, while the fourth was awaiting arraignment but is also expected to be cut loose without bail.
State bail reform laws bar judges from setting bail on non-violent crimes — giving them another break.
“Most of these cases get [declined] by the DAs, or they’re released from court to go find another victim,” one frustrated cop told The Post. “There’s a ‘permission structure’ that’s created.”
The accused crooks include Joseph Zimmerman, 56, who has 47 arrests on his rap sheet, who was arrested Monday and charged with two pickpocketing incidents earlier this month, sources said.
Zimmerman is charged with stealing a wallet from one man’s bag on Friday and making off with a debit card and $300 cash, and stealing $100 and a card from another victim on Feb. 2, then allegedly making illegal purchases at a local Foot Locker.
Ronielle Howell, 34, who lives at a Brooklyn homeless shelter, was picked up Wednesday and charged with snatching a phone from a Manhattan straphanger on Feb. 7.
Sources said Howell allegedly followed the victim into the subway and snatched their phone.
Luis Maldonado, 49, has a dozen prior arrests.
He was arrested Tuesday at a subway station at St. Nicholas Avenue and 184th Street when cops on patrol recognized him — Maldonado, who was already on probation, was wanted for allegedly stealing a phone from a sleeping straphanger on Jan. 16.
Finally, Danny Rijos, a 50-year-old repeat offender with at least 36 arrests on his rap sheet, was picked up in the Bronx shortly before 1 a.m. on Tuesday and charged with grand larceny and drug possession stemming from a Feb. 8 incident on White Plains Road and East 241st Street, the sources said.
Rijo’s arraignment is pending because he is hospitalized, and authorities are sifting through several alleged crimes linked to him in different boroughs, according to the sources.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch has pushed to clamp down on subway crime, which has been a constant source of complaints from New Yorkers in recent years — but it has been frustrating.
The Post reported in September that 63 career transit offenders with more than 5,000 busts between them had been charged with a variety of crimes, and yet only five of them remained behind bars.
In March, police rounded up five of the worst transit terrors, who had racked up nearly 600 arrests as part of Tisch’s quality of life crackdown, with three of them temporarily jailed.
NYPD crime stats show that transit crime in the five boroughs has been trending downward over the past two years, with a 7% dip — but is up 11% this year compared to the same time span last year.
Through Sunday, the department reported 293 transit offenses this year, compared to 264 in 2025.