DailyMail.com reveals NYC’s most prolific thief – who Mayor Adams REFUSED to name

New York’s most prolific offender is a notorious thief who has been arrested 101 times for repeated raids on Target and other stores, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Harold Gooding has been busted for dozens of larceny charges – including four heists on the popular department store – since being freed under the city’s lax bail reforms.

The 53-year-old already has 15 convictions to his name, as well as 14 failures to show in court following his prolific crime spree.

He has rocketed to number one on the NYPD’s list for repeat offenders following his torrent of thefts – but somehow remains on the loose to carry out further raids.

His former landlord told DailyMail.com about the ‘tenant from hell’ who would bring prostitutes over, take drugs, viciously argue with his neighbors and trash the apartment.

Henry, who did not want to give his second name, said it led him to fear for the safety of his wife and daughters and left him feeling like ‘a prisoner in his own home’.

Speaking from the south Bronx building, which is Gooding’s last known address, he claimed the thug would steal other resident’s parcels and had the cops called on him at least 20 times.

Meanwhile the local mailman described the criminal as a quiet man who ‘wasn’t the type to make conversation’ but said he was stunned to hear about the crimes he had committed.

He said Gooding would just wait on the street for his mail – because he did not have a key to his mailbox – and would take it inside without any small talk.

It comes after Mayor Eric Adams, along with cops, released the top ten most prolific offenders in the city, with them making up more than 500 arrests between them.

Out of the 10, a staggering six are not behind bars due to lax bail reforms dating back to 2020, which are now overseen by woke District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

It has ramped up huge pressure on lawmakers to crack down on career criminals who continue evade justice and lock them up for good.

Gooding, who also goes by Jamel White, has been busted an astonishing 88 times on larceny charges in the last two years but continues to roam the streets.

Out of these, 74 were on petit and grand larceny charges that were all committed in Manhattan, with two pending cases against him for five alleged thefts from the Target store on Greenwich Street.

The thug has been convicted 15 times, made up of two violent felonies, one non-violent one and 10 misdemeanors. He is also understood to have skipped court hearings at least 14 times.

Meanwhile he has served time behind bars for robbery and burglary convictions, but continues to evade justice in a cell on Rikers Island due to woke bail reform laws brought in in 2020.

DailyMail.com went to the south Bronx home that is Gooding’s last known residence to find out about the city’s most notorious career criminal.

Henry, the landlord, who did not want to release his last name, told Dailymail.com Gooding was ‘the tenant from hell,’ and said there were times he feared for the safety of his wife and daughters, adding he felt like ‘a prisoner in his own home’.

Henry was floored when he learned Gooding had a rap sheet that goes back to 2016 and was arrested 101 times.

He said: ‘We didn’t know. 101 times I can’t believe it. The system made him do that. The politicians make it worse.

‘When they passed bail reform we knew it was a problem. You get arrested and then you get out. I don’t like bail reform and the way the city is run.

‘I am not blaming the mayor, just the politicians who allow criminals not to get arrested.’

Henry, who is from Nigeria and has a degree in mechanical engineering and four daughters, said he worked hard to get where he is today.

He said one of his daughters is a senior advisor to Governor Kathy Hochul and his other two daughters are doctors, while the fourth still lives at home.

He said Gooding would fight with the other tenants while he lived there.

The last time he was at his apartment was on June 22, 2021 when the cops came because he allegedly stole packages from the front of the house. When Henry called him out on it Gooding denied it.

‘He called me a liar. He said the security camera wasn’t right.’

He said he called the cops and they came to the building but Gooding refused to come out of his apartment.

The cops said they would come back in the morning and the next day at 6.30am Henry said Gooding was gone.

‘I haven’t seen him. He left everything in the apartment. He also took the key. I had to change the locks.’

He said the first time he met Gooding was back in March 2018 when he rented him the second-story apartment.

He said he was a veteran and when he asked him for next of kin in case of an emergency and he refused he realized the guy was ‘trouble.’

From March 2018 to June 2021 his behavior became more erratic.

‘The first year we thought he was a good guy. He said he served in Iraq. He had PTSD then we realized he wasn’t normal.

‘He started asking me for money. I would give him $10, $5 and $4 three different times and than I stopped. He wasn’t buying food it was for drugs. He was bringing home prostitutes all hours of the night. I tried to push him out.’

Henry said he called the police at least 20 times but they were never able to arrest him because the police told him it was a landlord/tenant issue.

He said that the tenant in the third floor was complaining of bugs and roaches coming into her apartment. Henry said he gave Gooding 48 hours notice, slipping the note under his apartment to see what was going on.

When Gooding didn’t respond he opened the door with his own key and saw crack pipes and tons of garbage strewn all over the floor, bugs everywhere, the toilet was clogged.

He said: ‘You can’t imagine what was inside that room. Garbage he brought from the outside. Big black garbage bags.

‘I purchased the building in 2000. In 22 years I never had a tenant like that. He was the worst. He did it to punish me.

Henry said he took them to Bronx housing court when he tried to evict him and Covid delayed everything and he just got judgement last month and now he is waiting for Marshall to come.

‘I took him to court two years ago he didn’t show. Every time he was sent a letter he was a no show. He threw garbage in the apartment to spite me and he would use a crowbar and hit the ceiling and floor all hours of the day.’

Henry said he had to hire a cleaning service and spent $850 of his own money to clean the apartment. He said the cleaning service found trash, rodents and rats and crack pipes.

When I asked if there were any weapons Henry said no weapons. Henry said the last year (2020-2021) he was living in the apt he lost a lot of weight from the drugs.

One time at 2:30am in the morning he heard a woman running from his apartment down the stairs screaming. ‘Leave me alone.’

He said the woman fell while she was running trying to get away from Gooding as he was chasing her. ‘He had PTSD. Some days he behaved ok if he wanted something from me.’

Henry said one of the Feiner tenants, who was a single man who worked as a teacher and had a cat, was verbally attacked by Gooding amid a row over the noise his pet made.

That tenant moved out. Another one came in. A single woman from public shelter with two kids. He said Gooding would argue with her because of her children. She also moved out.

His current client, who lives on the third floor, is a nice person with no problems, he said. He is waiting for the marshal to come so he can get the apt back to what it was before Gooding lived there.

He said the city pays him $1500 a month for the one-bedroom apartment Gooding was living in. He said the law firm that placed Gooding was Lopez & Assoc. ‘I believe Gooding is out of the city he knows the NYPD is looking for him.’

Meanwhile Gooding’s mailman told DailyMail.com he never had a key to the mailbox so he would wait on the street for him for hand delivery. He said he has not seen him for at least a year.

When he found out that Gooding was the ‘worst offender’ in the city and had been arrested 101 times he appeared stunned and laughed.

He said: ‘That is wild. That is crazy. I didn’t expect it. It’s people you see every day and you don’t know what people are capable of. I am out here just delivering the mail. I am surprised he actually lived on this route.’

He said he and Gooding never made small talk. ‘He wasn’t the type to make conversation. Not the type to talk about the Yankees game with. We never had any angry exchanges. I just gave him his mail with his name on it nothing else.’

He shook his head in disbelief and added: ‘You got to be somebody if Eric Adams says your name. You know what I mean?

‘You have to be notorious to be doing something bad. Eric Adams isn’t saying my name.’

Gooding topped the list of worst criminals in New York, which was released by Adams and the NYPD on Wednesday.

He was referred to on the document as ‘recidivist number one’ and the mayor and top cops fumed at the fact he remains at large.

Chief of Crime Control Strategies Michael Lipetri said at a press conference: ‘We’ve arrested him 101 times, but how many crimes do you think he really committed? 200? 300? 1,000?’

‘This individual I’m talking about, he has 14 failures to appear. He’s walking around the streets today probably committing another crime as we speak.’

Lipetri was joined by Adams, NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell and other police chiefs at a press conference to outline the list on Wednesday.

The mayor told how the 2020 reforms – ushered in under Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio – made it almost impossible for criminals to be jailed.

The former cop said: ‘You have to work really hard to get to Rikers right now. To get there, you did something that is really bad.’

He allowed some of the cops to dish out details on some of the ten offenders but refused to share their names or mugshots with the press because he had to ‘follow the rules’.

Another of them is a burglar who has been arrested 57 times since 2020, and another has assaulted a police officer and failed to show up to court but remains on the streets.

‘He is a crime wave and guess what? He is walking around the streets of New York City, probably out there committing another crime.’

Despite the fact that some of the men have open crime warrants out against them, Adams refused to name them at the press conference. He claimed he was bound by ‘the rules of counsel’.

Number two on the list, who has not been identified, is another career criminal who has been nicked 67 times in the last two years and 96 times in total.

They have been convicted a staggering 44 times but failed to show up to court 26 times to face justice. Ranking at number three is a thug with 18 open cases against their name for theft and burglary and and 55 arrests since 2020.

Fourth on the list, with 22 convictions and 62 arrests, was a person who has been caught by cops 59 times since bail reform and was charged 47 times for thefts in Manhattan.

Bringing in the top five was another serial burglar, who has been arrest 23 times this year alone, with 12 of them coming in Manhattan.

Sixth place managed a whooping 71 arrests for burglary and misdemeanors but remains out on the streets on parole for theft.

Meanwhile number criminal number seven racked up 33 arrests since 2020, with 17 in Brooklyn resulting in five convictions and six open case. They are also not in police custody.

Eight place is a thug who has 87 arrests in their lifetime – 25 coming in the last two years – as well as 20 convictions for burglary and robbery. They also have a pending sentencing against their name.

The penultimate criminal is a thief with 48 arrests and ten open warrants registered to them. These include 39 since bail reforms and 17 grand larceny charges. Cases include stealing from Sally’s and L’Occitane.

Rounding out the top ten is a thug what has been nicked 39 times in two years, with one of them for assaulting a police office.

Despite the sickening attack, the criminal is still at large, even though they have 13 arrests for grand larceny, 19 convictions and three pending grand larceny auto cases against them.

Others who have also benefitted under the lax bail reform laws – but were not named in the document – including gunman, subway attackers, arsonists and burglars.

Among them is the subway shooter who killed a Goldman Sachs worker on his way to brunch weeks after being granted bail over car theft.

Andrew Abdullah shot and killed Daniel Enriquez in an unexplained attack on the subway on May 19. Weeks earlier, a judge let Abdullah out on no bond, despite him having tried to steal a car.

Prosecutors asked the judge to keep him behind bars on a $15,000 bond but the judge – Leigh Cheng – denied their request, and let him out.

He went on to kill Enriquez on a Manhattan-bound Q train, then handed himself in days later after a fruitless effort by the NYPD.

Another is a criminal who smeared feces on a woman’s face but was let out on bail after attacking someone in a store.

Just one week before the horrifying subway attack, Frank Abrokwa had been arrested for allegedly threatening a hardware store employee with a screwdriver but had been released without bail.

The 37-year-old was also arrested on January 7, for allegedly punching a 30-year-old man on a subway platform at 125th Street and Lenox Avenue and on February 5, for hitting a 53-year-old man at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

But each time, thanks to New York’s lax new bail reform laws, the career criminal did not have to post bail and was released.

A few days after threatening the store employee during a robbery, Abrokwa allegedly lunged at the woman at the East 241st Street subway station on February 21, smearing feces on her face

Meanwhile, last year, Craig Tamanaha set fire to the Christmas tree outside the FOX News studios in New York City. Luckily, no one was hurt.

Weeks before the incident, Tamanaha allegedly flashed outside Ghislaine Maxwell’s trial court and according to a criminal complaint from December.

The 49-year-old has a lengthy criminal record spanning at least 20 years and two states, and he was arrested last month for exposing himself outside the Ghislaine Maxwell trial in the city.

In 2002, the then-30-year-old Tamanaha was picked up in Abilene, Texas, on a public intoxication charge. Between 2017-2018, he was arrested on three occasions and charged with public intoxication, burglary and resisting arrest.

Another who remains freed is Christopher Elder, 31, who was charged with flipping over a three-year-old girl’s stroller in March.

The little girl was being walked in her stroller by her grandmother in the Bronx. She was left with injuries on her face and body and had to be treated in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time he hurt a child.

On December 11 the 31-year-old was charged for throwing a nine-year-old girl on the ground in the same Queens neighborhood, the Post reported.

‘He took away the confidence I had as a woman and a single mother with two kids to go out there. Now I don’t feel comfortable walking alone, like I used to with my kids.

‘I’m constantly watching my back,’ the mom of that alleged December assault told NBC New York. She said she was also hit by Elder when she instinctively shielded her daughter from an attack from the 31-year-old.

Elsewhere, Michelle Kelley, 41, allegedly confessed to authorities she was a ‘professional booster’. ‘Y’all are stopping my hustle’ she told police after her 97th arrest, according to the paper.

Her favorite store was Manhattan’s Upper East Side Target store. McKelly kept her crimes to petit larceny, which is a non-jailable offense after the law went into effect in 2020.

She was finally held on $5,000 bail after her 101st arrest for second-degree assault after she allegedly kicked, bit, scratched and spit on two NYPD officers on July 30 during an attempt to swipe paper towels from a Duane Reade.

Meanwhile sticky fingered Charles Wold, 59, said he was ‘grateful’ for bail reform because ‘I’m too old to go to jail. I’m way too old. I can’t do it.’ Wold allegedly broke into 10 businesses in Brooklyn and Manhattan over.

He hit three more spots near his home in the upscale neighborhood of Park Slope and was finally put behind bars.

Prosecutors told the judge $10,000 bail was the only way to ensure he would show up to court after skipping his appearances in two pending cases and violating parole.

Another, Isaac Rodriguez, was dubbed the ‘Man of Steal’ when he went on a larcenous bender wracking up 47 arrests for retail theft.

One Walgreens in Jackson Heights, Queens allegedly became a favorite spot. According to the NYPD, he was arrested 23 times taking items like nutritional shakes, skincare lotion, toothpaste and sanitary wipes.

His nonviolent offense kept him out of jail for awhile, but he violated a restraining order and returned to a Walgreens in Corona, Queens after he had allegedly shoplifted from it 13 times, according to the Post. That score landed him behind bars on $15,000 bail.

And another, Nolan Gonzalez, aka ‘GoGo,’ pilfered $350 worth of Tommy Hilfiger clothing from the Macy’s flagship store in Herald Square in May.

Gonzalez became such a frequent offender at the department store that Macy’s put out a ‘trespass notice’ on him to prevent him from returning to any of their outlets.

Police hit him with grand larceny, burglary and criminal possession of stolen property, but the Manhattan DA reduced the charges and he was released without bail.