Bodega clerk Jose Alba among Bragg ‘victims’ at House Judiciary hearing

WASHINGTON — New York City bodega clerk Jose Alba will be among the witnesses who testify next week about District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s performance at a special House Judiciary Committee “field hearing” near the DA’s Lower Manhattan office.

Alba, then 61, was charged by Bragg’s office with second-degree murder last year after he fatally stabbed ex-con Austin Simon, 35, who attacked Alba while he worked inside a Harlem shop.

Bragg ultimately dropped the case against Alba amid public outcry, determining that surveillance footage showed he acted in self-defense — but not before Alba was locked up on Rikers Island for several days.

Alba moved back to the Dominican Republic after being traumatized by the experience, sources told The Post. He reportedly is planning to sue Bragg for wrongfully prosecuting him.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) announced two other witnesses for the April 17 hearing: Madeline Brame, chairwoman of the Victims Rights Reform Council and mother of a homicide victim, and Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY.

The committee indicated that additional witnesses may join the unusual hearing, which targets Bragg’s approach to crime after the DA indicted former President Donald Trump on charges linked to 2016 hush-money payments. Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges.

Before bringing charges against Trump, Bragg, an elected Democrat, downgraded the severity of charges against many offenders — and Republicans announced Monday they would spotlight Bragg’s “victims” with the field hearing on his home turf.

In the first 11 months of his DA tenure, Bragg downgraded 52% of felony cases to misdemeanors. When felony charges were brought, his office won a conviction just 51% of the time.

Bragg charged Trump, the 76-year-old frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, with allegedly falsifying business records by not accurately describing payments on internal company documents.

The charges usually would be misdemeanors with two-year statutes of limitation, but Bragg elevated the counts to felonies by alleging the infractions occurred to conceal other crimes — apparently federal campaign finance violations, though Bragg has been coy about what exactly the underlying crime was.

Federal candidates are allowed to spend unlimited amounts on their own campaigns, but then-Trump fixer Michael Cohen, who was reimbursed by Trump, would have exceeded the contribution limit if he used his own money to pay $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels and $150,000 to Playboy playmate Karen McDougal, whose story was purchased by the National Enquirer in a “catch and kill” deal.

The Justice Department chose not to prosecute Trump on the federal campaign finance charge in part because of its failure in 2012 to convict former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC), who used more than $1 million of donor money to hide his affair and love child with aide Rielle Hunter.

Bragg has refused to comply with document requests from three House committees relating to what they call a “politically motivated” Trump case and on Tuesday his office filed a lawsuit seeking to block a Judiciary Committee subpoena of former DA employee Mark Pomerantz, who quit in protest last year over Bragg’s decision not to prosecute Trump in a different financial matter.