CVS clerk slams DA Alvin Bragg for charging him in self-defense stabbing

New York Post

4 days ago

Enough is enough.
The former CVS worker cleared in the stabbing death of a violent shoplifter slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for charging him at all — instead of standing up for hardworking New Yorkers.
'I don't know why he decided to bring the case to me, but I feel like this case shouldn't even go to trial,' Scotty Enoe, 48, told The Post in an exclusive interview Monday.
10 Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. at a press conference.
Steven Hirsch
'I feel like they're trying to put me away for something that's their fault,' he added.
'As a hardworking person, the minute you stand up for yourself, they come after you.'
Enoe, who lives in Brooklyn, said serial shoplifter Charles Brito never should have been allowed out on the streets, free to harass and threaten Big Apple shoppers and workers.
'It's the prosecutor's fault,' he said, 'because this guy had a record … this guy shouldn't even be on the streets to begin with.'
10 A former CVS worker cleared in the stabbing death of a violent shoplifter slammed Bragg for charging him at all.
Helayne Seidman
The native of Grenada, who has lived and worked in New York City since moving to the US in 1996, said he felt he had to put up a fight, shooting down a proposed plea deal and taking the stand in his own defense.
'I had to get my story out there,' he said. 'I had to make them know, 'Listen, I work two jobs. I wasn't looking for no trouble with anybody. This guy came in and attacked me from out of nowhere.'
Enoe said he wasn't angry over the two-year nightmare, which ended when a jury acquitted him of manslaughter after less than 30 minutes of deliberations last week in Brito's July 2023 death.
But the former shelf stocker said he was fed up with New York's failing criminal justice system.
10 Portrait of Scotty Enoe in his lawyer's office.
Stephen Yang
'People that work in these retail places to make a living, to pay the bills, they get harassed by these kind of people every night,' he said.
'You're not even safe on the train anymore. Just getting on the train to come to work, it's like a problem.'
Over the years, Enoe said he would even go out of his way to avoid confrontations with aggressive vagrants — taking drastic measures like hiding out in a store refrigerator.
'Sometimes when they come in I had to go inside the cooler and just stay there until they leave, because some of them, if you just watch them too hard, they start getting aggressive,' he said.
10 Mugshot of Charles Brito.
But Enoe couldn't turn away when Brito, 50, came into the Midtown pharmacy on July 6, 2023, attacked him and threatened two female co-workers, prompting him to 'jab' the homeless man several times with a knife before the crook walked out of the store.
Enoe said he had no idea Brito was mortally wounded until the cops showed up — with the officers grilling the worker, who had visible bruises all over his face.
'It was not a good conversation,' he recalled. 'He didn't even, you know, ask me nothing. He just started saying stuff to me. Things like, 'Oh, you stabbed someone, you stabbed somebody over CVS goods, f—ing smart,' and all these things. He didn't even ask me what happened.'
10 Enoe said serial shoplifter Charles Brito never should have been allowed out on the streets.
Helayne Seidman
Then came the real blow, when Bragg's office charged him with murder in the case. The charge was only reduced later after a grand jury indicted Enoe for manslaughter — which still carried the possibility of up to 25 years in prison.
'I was saying, like, 'I can't believe that just happened,'' Enoe remembered, adding CVS fired him a few days after his arrest.
Released on $100,000 bail thanks to his other employer, beverage distributor Big Geyser, Enoe still had to wear a monitoring ankle bracelet, an additional humiliation, he said, after being charged for defending himself.
10 Scotty Enoe, CVS security guard, in court.
Steven Hirsch
'I couldn't go to church, but I still tried to go to church,' he said. 'I talked to the sheriff, to give me a little extra time to go to church.'
He said prosecutors offered him a plea deal that carried a five-year prison sentence, but Enoe said he and his lawyer, Frank Rothman, shot down the ludicrous offer on the spot.
'Frank, he was like, 'What do you want to do?' I tell him, 'We want to go to trial. We're fighting it all the way,'' Enoe recalled.
And Enoe insisted on taking the stand to tell jurors his story.
10 Scotty Enoe and his lawyer, Frank Rothman, in a law office.
Stephen Yang
'I wasn't even worried about taking the stand. I knew I wasn't gonna let her wipe the floor with me,' he said, referring to the assistant district attorney on the case.
The Manhattan Supreme Court jury also heard from former co-workers, who described how the serial shoplifter threatened 'I can kill y'all' and slammed Enoe against the doors of coolers he'd filled with drinks before the bloody melee.
Jurors ultimately only found Enoe guilty of a lesser weapons count for possession of brass knuckles, but he is not expected to face any jail time on that conviction.
10 Enoe said prosecutors offered him a plea deal that carried a five-year prison sentence.
Steven Hirsch
Enoe noted his ordeal left a bitter taste in his mouth, although he wouldn't say if he planned on taking any legal action over the miscarriage of justice.
'I don't feel anger towards nobody,' he said Monday. 'I just feel relief, happy to go back to work, happy to get back to my life. I feel happy, not angry.'
Bragg's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
10 Released on $100,000 bail thanks to his other employer, Enoe still had to wear a monitoring ankle bracelet.
Stephen Yang
The Manhattan DA's conviction rate has plunged every year since he took office in 2021, with just 35% of felony cases — 6,871 out of 19,602 crimes — ending in convictions last year, state data shows.
And those numbers were way down from 2019, the last year before New York's woke discovery reform laws took effect, when 64% of felonies resulted in convictions.
But some of Bragg's prosecution choices have sparked outrage, including his initial decision to charge Harlem bodega worker Jose Alba with murder for fatally stabbing an ex-con who attacked him inside his store.
10 Enoe noted his ordeal left a bitter taste in his mouth, although he wouldn't say if he planned on taking any legal action over the miscarriage of justice.
Steven Hirsch
The DA eventually dropped the case against Alba following widespread outrage.
Last year, straphanger Daniel Penny was also ultimately acquitted at trial in the chokehold death of homeless man Jordan Neely aboard a Manhattan F train on May 1, 2023.
Enoe noted the similarities between his case and Penny's, who he said was 'standing up for the people.'
'It's kind of similar in a way, because this guy, he was on the train, harassing people who are trying to just get to work and make a living.'