{"id":345239,"date":"2026-09-12T22:00:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345239\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T22:00:53","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T22:00:53","slug":"illegal-brooklyn-hoodwill-street-vendor-profiled-by-nyt-is-actually-a-sex-offender","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/345239\/","title":{"rendered":"Illegal Brooklyn ‘Hoodwill’ street vendor profiled by NYT is actually a sex offender"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 35-year-old man glowingly profiled in a New York Times piece last month for being part of a longtime illegal street market that hawks donated goods in Downtown Brooklyn<\/a> is a registered high-risk sex offender with a long rap sheet, The Post has learned.<\/p>\n

Tyshawn Kennedy is part of a rogue vending operation \u2014 nicknamed \u201cHoodwill\u201d \u2014 that has been openly siphoning business from thrift-chain Goodwill\u2019s shop at the corner of Bond and Schermerhorn streets for more than a decade, according to neighborhood leaders and other eyewitnesses.<\/p>\n

Good Samaritans arriving to drop off bags of clothing, shoes and other items are routinely duped curbside by Kennedy and other crew members into thinking they\u2019re affiliated with Goodwill.<\/a><\/p>\n

Tyshawn Kennedy, who was glowingly profiled in a New York Times piece last month for being part of a longtime illegal street market that hawks donated goods dirt cheap in Downtown Brooklyn, is a registered high-risk sex offender with a long rap sheet. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n

The Hoodwill hawkers usually sell the donated goods out of the bags they\u2019re brought in along the public sidewalk \u2014 and then litter the bustling walkway almost daily with remaining bags of unsold goods.<\/p>\n

The Times piece<\/a>, published Aug. 4, all but glorified Kennedy and his cohorts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It focused on obstacles making it difficult to get street vendor licenses in NYC and quoted shoppers who prefer Hoodwill over Goodwill because its sellers offer cheaper prices \u2013 and are \u201cworking-class guys trying to make it.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the article failed to mention that Kennedy in 2015 was sentenced to two years in prison and forced to register as\u00a0a \u201cLevel 3\u201d sex offender in New York after being convicted of second-degree attempted rape of a minor.<\/p>\n

The \u201cHoodwill\u201d street market on Schermerhorn Street near Bond Street in Downtown Brooklyn. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n

The April 2014 incident involved \u201csexual contact\u201d between Kennedy, then 23, and a 14-year-old girl, records show.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Times report also failed to note Kennedy was arrested in 2021 by cops in Bayonne, NJ, for shoplifting \u2013 and allegedly kicked a police officer before getting pepper sprayed.\u00a0He was slapped with assualt and other charges, The Jersey Journal reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, The Times merely mentioned Kennedy spent some time in and out of jail since he was 18 without being specific and sympathetically quoted him claiming his criminal history makes it difficult to find work.<\/p>\n

Kelly Carroll, executive director of the nearby Atlantic Avenue Business Improvement District,\u00a0ripped The Times for \u201ctrying to frame\u201d the story as an \u201cequity issue\u201d while ignoring Kennedy is \u201csomeone with a violent criminal history towards women.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said other street sellers are stealing donated goods meant for a nearby Salvation Army four blocks away on Atlantic Avenue and \u2013 like the Hoodwill operation \u2013 regularly litter the neighborhood with unsold goods.<\/p>\n

Kennedy told The Post on Thursday he\u2019s \u201cnot hiding\u201d from his criminal past.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tyshawn Kennedy is pictured in a mugshot from the sex offender registry. criminaljustice.ny.gov<\/p>\n

He also claimed he and his cohorts \u201cclean up\u201d after themselves and are doing the neighborhood a public service because Goodwill \u201covercharges\u201d consumers for used merchandise, claiming shoes he sells for three bucks that go for \u201c$10 to $20\u201d at Goodwill.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s wrong with me asking someone for a donation?\u201d he said. \u201cI am out here like everyone else trying to make a hustle for myself. I am staying out of trouble. I did my time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours after The Post visited the Goodwill site and began inquiring to local leaders about Kennedy\u2019s criminal past, The Times updated its online story on Thursday night with an \u201ceditor\u2019s note.\u201d <\/p>\n

It said \u201csenior editors learned details\u201d of the ex-con\u2019s criminal history after the article published, conducted a review and \u201cconcluded that the article fell short of our standards and should not have been published as it was written.\u201d<\/p>\n

A woman planning to drop off two bags of donated goods on Thursday to Goodwill Industries in Downtown Brooklyn instead gives them to Tyshawn Kennedy, assuming he is affiliated with the thrift-store chain. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cThe writer had informed an editor before publication that Mr. Kennedy\u2019s history included an attempted rape conviction and that he remains on the New York State sex offender registry,\u201d the note also conceded. \u201cThat information should have been included in the article. More broadly, senior editors should have been made aware of those details before publication and discussed other ways to write about Hoodwill and the issues around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

During his interview with The Post, Kennedy briefly stopped to ask a woman who arrived with two huge bags of books and other goods, \u201cAre you donating today?\u201d<\/p>\n

Minutes later, the same woman told the reporter she thought she was donating to Goodwill.<\/p>\n

Jordan Barowitz, a neighborhood resident and longtime public affairs strategist who worked for the Bloomberg administration, said he\u2019s not shocked by Kennedy\u2019s rap sheet and conceded he, too, was once duped into giving donated goods to other Hoodwill hawkers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local NYPD cops writing a ticket for an illegal bike on Thursday outside the open-air \u201cHoodwill\u201d street market. J.C. Rice for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not surprising that someone who intimidates people making charitable donations to Goodwill into giving him their stuff, extracts what is valuable and then leaves what remains on the street, has a criminal history,\u201d said Barowitz of Kennedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Staffers at Goodwill Industries\u2019 Bond Street site declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Regina Myer, president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, <\/a>said the illegal vending outside Goodwill has turned the \u201ccorner into a dumping ground,\u201d forcing the private and publicly funded development corporation to \u201cseverely deplete\u201d resources by hauling roughly 15 to 25 extra large trash bags of unsold items several times a week from the site.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democratic Councilman Lincoln Restler, who represents the neighborhood, also said Hoodwill is out of hand.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s repeatedly pushed the Sanitation Department and NYPD to ramp up enforcement \u2014 only to see the unlicensed street sellers return anyway and \u201caggressively intercept\u201d more donations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMy No. 1 complaint is that these guys leave an enormous mess every day,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 35-year-old man glowingly profiled in a New York Times piece last month for being part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[36182,98,100,99,6788,14507,57,9,24,63,103,3018,12705,15766,58,10026],"class_list":["post-345239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-atlantic-avenue","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-donations","tag-downtown","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-rape","tag-salvation-army","tag-sexual-misconduct","tag-us-news","tag-vendors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}