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Jaia Cruz, a 24-year-old repeat offender from New York City who pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing U.S. Postal Carrier Ray Hodge III during an argument in a Harlem sandwich shop in January will serve just 15 years as part of a plea deal from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office.
Hodge was 36 years old and had two children. His family had vehemently opposed the deal, relatives told Fox News Digital.
Cruz picked a fight with Hodge over who was first in line at the restaurant on Manhattan’s Lenox Avenue, between West 118th and West 119th Streets, according to prosecutors.
Fellow postal workers look on as police investigate the murder of their colleague Ray Hodge III during his lunch break in New York City. (Peter Gerber)
And they may not think twice about going back to prison after they get out, she added.
“She’ll kill again. Why? Because she only got 15,” she said. “She didn’t have to do the whole 15. What’s going to stop her?”
Cruz, who is transgender and previously went by the name Alvin, is expected to get 15 years behind bars and another five years of post-release supervision at a formal sentencing on May 29.
Rice said she hopes that federal prosecutors will take up the case, since her son was a U.S. government employee who died while on the job.
Cruz was initially charged with second-degree murder but took a plea deal for first-degree manslaughter. (Kyle Mazza/Sipa/IMAGN)
“The family didn’t see justice today in the courtroom,” Hodge’s brother, Ed Rice, said Wednesday. “The DA asked what the family wanted twice, and we said, ‘No deal. Let Cruz do all the time needed for the premeditated murder of my brother.’”
Hours after Cruz killed Hodge, the New York Post revealed that the suspected killer had “a history of knife violence” that included a knifepoint mugging, menacing another person with a box cutter and resisting arrest.
Bragg drew criticism for investing significant resources into prosecutions of President Trump as well as subway chokehold suspect Daniel Penny, the latter of whom was found not guilty after his defense said he placed a homeless madman in a headlock to protect other passengers.
But his office did not respond to questions about why Cruz’s case didn’t receive a similar level of resources.