Assault arrest
The owner of a newsstand in the Fulton St. subway station told police that a man punched him in the face, took two dollars from the cash register and fled at 9:30 p.m. Wed. May 31. Police later arrested the suspect, Renaldo Jimenez, 25, at the corner of Broadway and John St.
Car thefts near Houston
A man who parked his 1998 model Mercury Sable on Wooster St at W. Houston St. on Fri. May 26 returned to the curbside spot at 11 p.m. and found it was gone, police said.
The same thing happened to a man who parked his 2005 model Nissan on Mercer St. near W. Houston St. on Thursday night and returned at 3:30 a.m. Fri. May 26.
Bribery arrest
Department of Investigation agents arrested Mao Lin on Mon. June 5 charging him with bribing a Department of Buildings inspector to ignore construction work at his signage business at 2 Spring St. in violation of a previous stop work order.
The buildings department had issued the stop work order in May for work contrary to the plan approved by the department. When a buildings inspector discovered on June 2 that the work had been completed despite the order, Lin offered him an undisclosed amount of money to ignore the violation, according to D.O.I.
The inspector rejected the bribe and reported it, but later that day when a Department of Investigation agent attached to the Buildings Dept. showed up at the location on Spring St. and Bowery, Lin gave him $500 to ignore the matter, according to investigators. Lin, 35, was arrested three days later and charged with third degree bribery, which is punishable on conviction by up to seven years in jail.
Mugged in Soho
Two robbers attacked a man walking on Broadway at Howard St. at about 5 p.m. Thurs. May 25 and made off with his Blackberry, credit cards and $400 in cash, police said. One suspect struck the victim on the arm and pushed him to the ground and the other took his possessions, police said.
Shoplifter flees
A security guard at Century 21 on Cortlandt St. tried to stop a shoplifter from taking three articles of clothing from the store without paying for them at 4:30 p.m. Fri. June 2, but the thief pushed the guard and fled, police said.
Grab bag
A woman walking down Mercer St. between Broome and Grand Sts. at 5:30 a.m. Sun. June 4 was punched by a man who came from behind her, police said. The thief, described only as a black man, grabbed the victim’s bag and fled.
Bad check bust
A teacher of graduate finance and accounting subjects at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies in the Woolworth Building was charged last week with bouncing nine rent checks for his E. 79th St. apartment, according to the office of District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
Jack Bloom, 49, was charged with one count of third degree grand larceny and nine counts of issuing bad checks between May 2005 and May 2006. He is free on his own recognizance and is scheduled for a Sept. 7 court appearance.
His landlord, Murray Kesten, said in a criminal complaint that eight rent checks totaling $21,150 over the past year bounced and a ninth check for $2,350 dated March 2 of this year bounced five times. Kesten said Bloom still owed more than $3,000 rent.
Bloom said he had repaid most of the money to the landlord before he was evicted in May. The New York Post reported he is scheduled to teach a course this summer on the essentials of finance and accounting for graduate students at the professional studies school in the Woolworth Building in Lower Manhattan.
—Albert Amateau
WWW Downtown Express
