Exclusive | Controversial NYC judge — who flashed his gun in court –

A controversial Brooklyn judge gave a reputed teen gangbanger a huge break on gun and attempted murder charges — and then got in hot water for flashing his own firearm in court, The Post has learned.

Jhdae Beckles, 19, was cut loose after getting busted with a loaded 9 mm handgun last year – only to get picked up again one month later in a gang-related drive-by shooting that left two bystanders wounded, law-enforcement sources said.

But gun-toting Judge Jeffrey Gershuny last month insisted on giving Beckles youthful offender status — which could put him back on the streets in just over a year, despite prosecutors’ objections.

“Sometimes teenagers don’t make good decisions,” Gershuny told Beckles in Brooklyn court on July 15. 

“It’s like touching a hot stove. You know never to touch that hot stove again, but you still have to touch the hot stove once to know that it burns. So that’s where you are at here. You have touched the hot stove,” he continued.

“I strongly believe in the power of compassion, mercy and second chances,” Gershuny said. “And I believe Mr. Beckles is certainly deserving of that.”

He promised to sentence Beckles to 1 1/3 to 4 years to settle both cases instead of the six years the District Attorney’s Office sought — and the max of 25 years he faced if prosecuted as an adult in the attempted murder case.

“What kind of deranged person — let alone a judge — downplays the plight of violent crime in the city to touching a hot stove?” one frustrated law-enforcement source said.

“You touch a hot stove, you don’t do it again,” the source said. “But they’re shooting and people are getting hurt again and again and again.”

Gershuny, who was appointed to the Criminal Court bench by then-Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2019, also raised eyebrows when he flashed his own gun during a hearing in another case earlier this month.

In a move the controversial jurist himself called “unprecedented,” Gershuny, who was packing in the courtroom, pulled out his weapon at an Aug. 5 hearing while grilling an NYPD cop about a felony gun rap against another suspect.

Gershuny maintained he wanted the cop to explain how he knew the suspect had a gun on him.

“I want to conduct a little experiment here,” he said during the unnamed cop’s testimony at the hearing. “We don’t have the weapon in question at the time. I really want to understand your point of view. That is really what is integral to this hearing.”

The judge, saying he had cleared it with security, then pulled out his own licensed gun and a bag similar to the one the suspect was carrying when he was arrested — with prosecutors objecting.

“Your objection is overruled,” Gershuny said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “I want to understand what ‘heavily weighted’ and what the ‘L-shape’ of a gun, what is significant about it being a bag that is this officer, what observations he would make.”

Al Baker, a spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration, said the agency is “reviewing the circumstances reported at the suppression hearing” involving the judge displaying his own gun.

He also defended Gershuny’s discretion in sentencing Beckles.

“The [Unified Court System] does not comment on Judges’ sentencing determinations, which are based on the facts of individual cases and the judge’s discretion under the law, or outcomes of suppression hearings, both of which are matters of public record,” Baker said in a statement.

Beckles, a reputed member of the Folk Nation gang, was charged with possession of a weapon on Sept. 25, 2024, after school security on Jay Street called cops, who allegedly found a loaded gun on him.

Beckles, then 18, made bail in the case and was back on the streets on Nov. 14, when prosecutors said he was in a stolen Hyundai Elantra with a group of pals who opened fire at suspected rival gang members on West 33rd Street and Mermaid Avenue.

Police recovered 27 shell casings at the scene, and Beckles was later charged with attempted murder.

However, he remained free on bail and returned to court last month to face Gershuny on the two serious felony charges, both involving guns.

Beckles’ attorney, Kenneth Montgomery, said during the hearing that he had grown up in a rough Brownsville neighborhood but was given opportunities that sent him to law school instead of prison — and argued his client deserved the same chance.

“The fact that he will have [Youthful Offender status] is a, possibly is an opportunity for him to take advantage of,” Montgomery said. “But it’s still going to be up to him, and he is still being held responsible. He is taking a plea to two very serious cases, and he is going to have to grow up in his early teenage years in prison, with people who understand prison in a much deeper and meaningful way than he does.”

The judge, who noted that he had a hard-knock upbringing as well, cited Beckles’ “strong family” ties and lack of a criminal record before the two busts for his decision.

Gershuny, a Hofstra University Law School grad, was a city attorney and served as chief counsel to the state’s top judge before being appointed to the bench, records show.

Beckles is due to be sentenced in January as a youthful offender.

“This is a judge that clearly did what the law allows him to do, and he’s doing so thoughtfully,” Montgomery told The Post on Sunday. “He understands how society works.”