Exclusive | What the buck? NYPD finally nabs brute who attacked me two years ago, and DA Bragg asks for a lousy $1 bail

They finally got him — but forgive me if I’m not popping the bubbly.

The monster who randomly sucker-punched me in the gut while I was walking to work two years ago was arrested on Aug. 18 — and given an insulting $1 bail by infamously soft-on-crime Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.

Luckily, he’s behind bars on Rikers Island — because he allegedly tried to sell drugs to an undercover cop just before he was collared. That case was given to Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan and bail was set at $200,000.

Kamieo Caines, 36, a violent recidivist with 20 prior arrests who was on parole when he attacked me, wasn’t caught for two years — and when he finally was, the statute of limitations on my assault case had already run out.

Police were only able to charge Caines in my assault because cops were actively seeking him in the drug case – which kept the clock in my case legally ticking, a police source told me.

But Caines was always their top suspect, cops told me. So I, like thousands of NYC crime victims before me, am forced to wonder: What took so damn long?

I took a photo of Caines on Chambers Street and Broadway moments after he slugged me as we passed each other at around 10 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2023. He didn’t say a word after hitting me and took off toward the nearby No. 1/2/3 subway line. I gave the photo to detectives.

His parole officer even confirmed his ID to cops after my assault. But I wasn’t able to pick him out in a photo array at the precinct stationhouse.

Cops looked for the ex-con, but their hands were tied because of criminal-friendly bail reform.

No judge would have held him for simple assault — a misdemeanor. Since bail reform laws passed in 2019 the offense hasn’t been bail eligible — and police know that all too well.

Even if officers arrested Caines two years ago, he would have been right back out on the street. The system’s revolving door is one of the things that frustrates police officers and has so many of them racing for the exits.

It’s even more infuriating as a victim.

In what world should a repeat felony offender attack a stranger and walk free for two years without punishment?

This happens more often than it should. There have been 29,963 misdemeanor assaults like mine in the city so far this year, according to NYPD data. That’s a 2.6% drop from 30,754 at the same time last year. But it’s a 37.5% jump from five years ago.

I got the call from Bragg’s office about Caines while I was away on vacation.

Caines was busted at the intersection of Eighth Avenue and West 35th Street in Midtown Aug. 18 after cops saw him selling drugs to another person, according to a criminal complaint against him. When cops searched Caines they discovered 17 vials of crack and seven baggies of heroin on him, the paperwork shows.

Investigators with the NYPD Narcotics Bureau had been looking for Caines since he sold undercover cops almost three ounces of cocaine over two days in November 2022 in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, according to the paperwork. He was charged with three counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance.

Caines has 20 prior arrests for violent crimes on his record, including assault and weapon possession, according to police sources.

He was imprisoned for a conviction in the 2017 attack on two men with a box cutter during the evening rush inside the Fulton Street subway station in Manhattan. That bloodletting happened about six blocks from where he punched me.

Caines was discharged from Collins Correctional Facility in Erie County on Jan. 18, 2022. His parole ended on April 29 this year.

He was convicted in 2013 for injuring a person while confined at Rikers. He was sentenced to three years in prison and five years parole for that. While on parole, his bail was revoked twice for failure to appear, officials said at his Aug. 20 arraignment at Manhattan Criminal Court.

Caines was still raging during that recent court appearance.

At one point, he allegedly kicked another inmate in the head multiple times while waiting in line to be searched. Then, he spit in the faces of two EMS workers who came to take the man to the hospital, prosecutors and a police source said.

Caines also threatened “to kill everyone around him” during the intake process, officials said.

I reported my assault so nobody else would get hurt. It seemed like the right thing to do when so many people have been randomly struck while walking down the street

I have a restraining order to keep my attacker away from me for a year, and Bragg’s office offered to help me with victim’s services. 

I’ve written plenty of stories about crimes — from the horrible to the heartbreaking — as a crime reporter in the Big Apple for more than 20 years.

Stories about random assaults exploded since bail reform went into effect in 2019.

Since my attack, I notice them all.

New York needs to do better by me — and all the other victims of crime in this city.

Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer and Georgia Worrell.