A serial thief took advantage of New York’s lax bail laws in a robbery spree

A serial thief was free to terrorize Big Apple businesses more than a dozen times because of the state’s lax bail laws — until he was finally caught by his blatant disregard for the law, The Post has learned.

Orest Kovalshyn, 37, had a series of arrests for commercial burglary in Queens and Brooklyn dating back to 2022, but they were repeatedly cut short because state criminal justice reforms prevented judges from setting bail.

Even when Brooklyn prosecutors won a conviction last year that sent Kovalshyn to prison for between one and three years, he was back on the streets in less than a year — and was arrested and released again.

But his latest arrest, just months after leaving prison, finally doomed him, when Kovalshyn walked out of court multiple times, got pinched for two more Queens robberies and violated his parole.

The 2019 criminal justice reforms prohibit Empire State judges from setting bail in most criminal cases, especially nonviolent robbery and robbery crimes.

One frustrated law enforcement source said Kovalchin should have been locked up months ago.

“He was too busy breaking into stores at night to get up in the morning to go to court,” the source told The Washington Post. “Same old story. They don’t hold criminals accountable and innocent citizens are the victims.”

Kovalshyn already had a string of burglaries under his belt when the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office charged him in eight different neighborhood burglaries between November 2022 and January 2023. That was enough to send him upstate to Cape Vincent Correctional Facility in July 2024 with a sentence of up to three years.

State correction records show he was back on the streets by the end of November.

In early June, Brooklyn prosecutors charged Kovalshyn with three more burglary cases dating back to August 2023, while the Queens District Attorney’s Office added two more cases linked to robberies on December 16, 2022 and September 8, 2023 — all incidents that predated his tenure in state prison.

But despite this, the serial thief remained at large and stopped showing up for court hearings.

That prompted the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to issue a parole violation against him on June 27, a department representative said.

Then came another set of new charges — Kovalshyn’s latest crime spree came when he stole $200 each from Xugar Salon on August 28 and Fei Yan Nail Spa on September 9 in Queens.

He was arrested Sept. 30 and was finally held without bail for failing to show up for court and violating his state parole over his head, records show.

“Currently, his recent arrests are under investigation by this department and a new parole violation report will be prepared once the parole officer’s investigation is completed,” a state Department of Corrections spokesperson said in an email.