Teen Gangster Who Terrorized NYC Since Age 14 Still Gets Breaks Under New Law

The Rise of a Young Criminal: A Case Study in New York’s Juvenile Justice System

A 21-year-old individual has been causing significant concern in Staten Island due to the state's Raise the Age Law, which has allowed him to avoid substantial punishment despite multiple serious charges. According to law enforcement sources, this young man has been involved in attempted murder, robbery, assault, and felony gun possession for years without facing real consequences.

Lloyd Francis was first arrested at the age of 14 and has since been arrested at least six times on various serious charges. Despite being convicted of his sixth crime last month, he had only served about two years in prison due to the lenient juvenile justice statutes in New York. Additionally, half of his arrests are sealed, making it difficult for the public to access detailed information about his criminal history.

Francis, who is suspected to be a member of the local Town Savages Only gang, was finally sentenced to a 10-year prison term after being convicted of his second attempted-murder charge earlier this year. A law-enforcement source described his criminal record as that of someone three times his age before he even turned 21.

The New York youth statute, implemented in two stages in 2017 and 2018, raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 and allowed defendants up to 21 to be held in juvenile facilities. This change meant that suspects as young as 16 could no longer be automatically tried in adult criminal court. In addition, lawmakers adopted measures that prohibited judges from setting bail on nearly all criminal cases, except for the most violent felonies.

Despite some modifications introduced by Governor Kathy Hochul, most crimes still do not qualify for bail. Francis benefited from these laws starting with his first arrest in 2019 when he was charged with attempted murder for a stabbing on Staten Island. He was convicted and served just over a year in a juvenile facility.

Later, he was charged with felony gun possession but managed to plead down to attempted weapons possession, resulting in another year in a juvenile facility. After being released, he was charged with second-degree criminal possession of a weapon but was released because the charge did not qualify for bail under the state's criminal justice reforms.

While that case was still pending, Francis shot a man in the chest at a local park and was convicted of his second attempted-murder charge. The district attorney’s office prosecuted the gun case in the Youth Part of Supreme Court, which would count toward his record and make him a predicate felon if he were arrested again.

However, his lawyers appealed the gun prosecution and won. The Appellate Division court ruled that the facts of the gun case did not meet the "extraordinary circumstances" required to keep the case out of the more lenient Family Court. The ruling stated that treating a single re-arrest as dispositive of the defendant’s future potential would undermine the core purpose of the Raise the Age legislation.

This decision effectively removed the gun case from Francis’s record. His public-defender lawyers declined to comment, referring questions about the case to the Appellate Advocates of the New York State Defenders Association, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Francis is currently serving his 10-year sentence at the Elmira Correctional Facility in upstate New York. In an op-ed piece published in The Post, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch criticized the "tragic unintended consequences" of the state’s youth law on crime. She noted that between 2018, when the law was enacted, and last year, the number of youths arrested with guns in New York City increased by 136%, and the number of juvenile gunshot victims rose by 81%.

Tisch argued that without actual repercussions or adult authority, young offenders are not using repeated forgiveness for their crimes to learn mature judgment. Instead, they are escalating to more reckless violence, perpetuating feuds to enhance their own status.