Brutal rape murder
Police investigating the brutal rape and murder of Imette St. Guillen, 24, a John Jay College graduate student whose naked and bound body was found on Sat. Feb. 24 off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, were focusing this week on Pioneer Bar, 218 Bowery, where she was last seen alive by friends during the early hours of Saturday.
St. Guillen, a magna cum laude graduate of George Washington University and a graduate student in criminology at John Jay, had decided not to leave Pioneer Bar, between Spring and Prince Sts., with friends at about 2:30 a.m. because she wanted to stay until closing time, police said. She spoke by cell phone to a friend about a half-hour later, according to daily newspaper reports.
Her naked body, with hands, feet and head, including her mouth and nose, bound by packing tape, was found wrapped in a quilt near Fountain and Clearview Aves. off the Belt Parkway in the Spring Creek wetland after a phone call to police shortly after 8:30 a.m. Saturday.
The medical examiner’s office said St. Guillen died of asphyxiation and strangulation and may have been gang-raped or sexually assaulted with an instrument.
A resident of Massachusetts, she attended Boston Latin, an elite public high school, where she tutored other students. St. Guillen came to New York in 2004 for graduate studies at John Jay and lived on West End Ave. on the Upper West Side. John Jay professors described her as a top student.
Rape guilty plea
A defendant charged with the June 8, 2005, rape of an 88-year-old woman in her Pike St. apartment pleaded guilty to first-degree rape on Thurs. Feb. 23. Reggie Owen, 27, was arrested last November after DNA found at the scene matched his profile in a police database recorded when he was convicted of two violent attempted burglaries in the late 1990s in Brooklyn. He spent three years in prison for the attempted burglaries.
Owen pleaded guilty to pushing his way into the apartment of the victim, an Asian immigrant, raping her and stealing $200 before fleeing. He is to appear before State Supreme Court Justice Micki A. Scherer on March 22 for sentencing.
Rape of girl, 13
A 13-year-old girl told police in the Fifth Precinct that an unidentified man attacked and raped her in the stairwell of her building shortly before 4 p.m. on Tues. Feb. 21. The suspect was described as a black man about 6 feet tall, wearing a black do-rag on his head and a gray waist-length jacket. Police would not say where in the precinct the attack occurred.
Flasher pleads
Dan Hoyt, 43, a resident of E. 10th St. and owner of Quintessence, a raw-food restaurant at 263 E. 10th St., pleaded guilty in Criminal Court on Mon. Feb. 27 to public lewdness for exposing his genitals to a woman passenger on an R train near Prince St. last August. He was sentenced to two years probation and has agreed to seek psychological treatment.
Hoyt was arrested after the woman took a picture of him on the train with her cell phone camera and posted the image on the Internet. He had been charged in 1994 with public lewdness but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct.
Firefighters fight
Two off-duty firefighters were charged with assault in two separate bar fights in the Gansevoort Market district during the early hours of Sat. Feb. 25, police said.
William Porteus, 27, a firefighter with one year in the department, was arrested with three friends after a 3:20 a.m. fight with a stranger at AER Lounge, 409 E. 13th St. The victim was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital where he received stitches for a cut over his eye.
Ten minutes later, police broke up a fight at Pastis, 9 Ninth Ave. at W. 12th St., and arrested Thomas Capelli, 27, a firefighter with three years in the department and charged him with hitting a Long Island man in the mouth with a glass after an argument.
East Village MARCH
Police from the Ninth Precinct and inspectors from several city agencies conducted a MARCH (multi-agency response to club hazards) effort in the East Village and inspected about 10 bars and lounges on Friday night Feb. 24, according to Deputy Inspector Dennis De Quatro, Ninth Precinct commanding officer.
Among the 65 violations issued were Mama’s Bar, 38 Avenue B, for overcrowding with about 120 patrons in a premises authorized for 15; No. 1 Chinese, 58 Avenue B, for operating on the basement level without a permit; Second on Second, 22 Second Ave., for have about 100 patrons in a premises authorized for 74; and The Cock, 29 Second Ave., for having about 200 patrons in a premises authorized for 120.
The bar managers were issued violations and required to reduce the number of patrons to legal limits. No. 1 Chinese was also ordered to vacate the basement level, De Quatro said.
Fuels fire
On Feb. 20, a fuel truck was making a delivery on E. 21st St. near Broadway in Gramercy Park. Several gallons leaked from the truck onto the street and into a street grate and onto electric wires. The wires shorted, and flames belched out of the ground and as the cables kept shorting and the sound of explosions filled the air. Twenty-first St. was closed to traffic between Broadway and Park Ave. S. for several hours as the fuel burned off and the fire and explosions subsided. No injuries were reported but there was damage to the street, the metal grate and the underground cables.
Albert Amateau
