Brooklyn landlord charged only with gun possession in slay of tenant who survived being shot year earlier (EXCLUSIVE)

A Brooklyn man has been arrested, but not charged with a homicide, in the shooting death of a tenant who broke into his apartment a year after being shot by another gunman in the same building, police said Monday.

Lashawn Craig, 45, was charged only with gun possession Sunday, two days after Timothy Jones, 64, was shot at the Bedford-Stuyvesant multifamily home owned by Craig, police said.

Craig, an MTA train operator and 16-year Army veteran with no criminal history, was coming home from work chatting with a neighbor outside the house he shares with the victim on Pulaski St. near Malcolm X. Blvd. when he heard Jones yelling to him from inside at about 9:35 p.m. Friday, prosecutors say.

Jones was hollering, “Where’s my photos?” prosecutors said, without offering further explanation.

Craig’s Legal Aid attorney Adrian Lesher told Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Devin Robinson Monday that the slain tenant “is somebody who has a long history of threatening my client’s family.”

After hearing Jones yelling, Craig went inside, got his handgun and returned outside, where he resumed talking to the neighbor before he heard an alarm go off in his apartment, prosecutors said.

Craig went back inside and found Jones, wearing a mask and gloves, intruding in his apartment. Craig told Jones to get out, saw Jones reaching into his pockets and shot him, prosecutors say. Jones died at Kings County Hospital.

Craig called 911, reported the shooting and secured the gun. His lawyer says he acted in self-defense.

“This is sort of the textbook example of the defense of home people talk about when they talk about the underpinnings of the Second Amendment,” Lesher told the judge. “The district attorney appears to concede to the justified nature of the alleged actions, because they don’t charge my client with any act of assault or homicide.”

Lesher said in court that Jones and his adult son both have extensive criminal records and “proudly held themselves forward as Bloods.” Cops say Jones had a rap sheet going back to 1987, including arrests for robbery, grand larceny and domestic violence.

“There have been prior threats of gun violence by Timothy Jones against my client and other members of my client’s family,” Lesher said in court.

Investigators found Craig’s .40-caliber pistol in the apartment and, near where Jones hit the ground, a Taser, prosecutors say.

Craig was set free on supervised release without bail after his arraignment Monday. “It’s not over yet,” he told reporters as he left court, adding that he would be working with his lawyer “so I can get a full release.”

He won’t be immediately operating subway trains again, though.

“The employee is being withheld from service pending a review of all the facts,” MTA spokesman Michael Cortez told the Daily News.

Family friend Jackie Marshall, 38, defended Craig.

“To me Mr. Craig is a good man,” she said. “I don’t know what was going on with him and his tenant, but he is a good guy … I spoke to family and they told me what happened. It’s a very sad situation.”

Jones on June 16, 2022, was critically wounded in his apartment running from accused gunman Jose Romero, prosecutors say. Romero allegedly opened fire, striking Jones in the back and killing 19-year-old Briana Zaret, according to cops.

Zaret, who lived with her mother in Forest Hills, Queens, was visiting Jones when she was killed, cops said. Cops found her phone charging inside Jones’ apartment after the shooting.

Zaret’s father believes his 2017 divorce set back his teenaged daughter’s development and led to her hanging with the wrong crowd.

“[It was] right at the wrong age of Briana,” Keith Zaret said Sunday. “[She was] strong, magnetic, great attitude. Her attitude was disrupted.”

The grieving father believes the divorce, coupled with discipline problems at home, led to the teen losing her way.

“Something came and T-boned her,” Zaret said of the change in his daughter’s behavior before her death. “She didn’t just drift. But I always warned her that they don’t care about you. She just didn’t want to hear it. And then she drifted so far that maybe I tried too hard.”

Had his “crafty” and “smart” daughter not fallen off the right track, Zaret believes she would have pursued a career in art.

“I think about her every single day,” Zaret said. “I wish she was here. I miss her so much.”

More than a year after his daughter’s death, Zaret still doesn’t have answers as to why Romero allegedly shot her.

“The DA tells me he just went berserk,” Zaret said.

Romero was arrested shortly after the 2022 shooting and remains locked up without bail on Rikers Island as he awaits trial on murder and attempted-murder charges. Romero dropped a messenger bag with a gun inside when he fled from the scene, police sources said in 2022.

Neighbors told the Daily News in 2022 Jones lived alone, worked in construction, was a father of two grown children and occasionally had women visit him at his apartment.

A friend of Jones expressed shock at his slaying.

“I was like, ‘Oh my God. It is him,'” said the friend, who identified herself only as Miss G, 64. “I’m sad to see anyone die like that. It’s very sad.”

She said she hadn’t seen him in recent years but that she used to run into him at parties.