Falls bouncer questioned
Police on Monday were questioning Darryl Littlejohn, 41, a man with a long criminal record working as a bouncer at The Falls, a Soho bar at 218 Lafayette St., in connection with the brutal murder of Imette St. Guillen, 24, the graduate student whose naked body was found Feb. 24 off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn.
Littlejohn was believed to have ushered St. Guillen from the bar at closing time, 4 a.m., and was the last person to see her alive, according to published reports. He told police that he had joked with the suspect and had seen her walk away from the bar. But other witnesses told police they heard shouting and a muffled scream after Littlejohn led St. Guillen out the side door of The Falls.
Littlejohn was picked up for questioning Monday at the home of an aunt with whom he was living in South Jamaica, Queens.
St. Guillen, a graduate student in criminology at John Jay College, had been at Pioneer Bar, 218 Bowery, with a friend on Friday night Feb. 23, but did not leave with her friend at 2:30 a.m. Her whereabouts were traced through cell phone calls to The Falls, located three blocks west of Pioneer, and to South Jamaica near Littlejohn’s home.
Littlejohn’s criminal record includes at least seven arrests, beginning at the age of 17 for robbery. He was last released from prison on parole in 2004, according to law enforcement sources.
Littlejohn’s employment at The Falls may be a violation of his parole conditions, which prohibit him working as a bouncer at a bar, according to police. The Falls is owned by Michael Dorrian, owner of several bars, including Dorrian’s Red Hand, an Upper East Side venue prominent in the news nearly 20 years ago. It was at Dorrian’s Red Hand that “Preppie Murderer” Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin met before he killed her in Central Park after they left the bar.
The building at 218 Lafayette St. in which The Falls is located is one of several commercial properties owned by John Zaccaro, husband of Geraldine Ferrara, the former congressmember and 1984 Democratic candidate for vice president.
Arrest in teen sex
A lawyer accused of paying two teenage sisters for sex and paying their mother to permit it, was arrested on Fri. March 3 in the St. Mark’s Hotel on St. Mark’s Pl. at Third Ave.
The suspect, James Colliton, 42, pleaded not guilty to charges of rape, patronizing a prostitute and bribing a witness, and was being held pending a Wed. March 8 court appearance.
Colliton, who is married with five children and has a home in Poughkeepsie, was charged with having sex with the two sisters, the younger now 14, over a four-year period. He had an E. 56th St. apartment where he had sex with the girls and where the younger one lived with the mother’s permission, according the office of District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. The mother, whom police would not name because it would reveal the identity of her daughters, was also charged with promoting prostitution and endangering the welfare of a child.
Colliton, a former associate of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, was indicted two weeks ago but had fled to Canada where he was arrested and mistakenly released after crossing back into New York State. A desk clerk at the St. Mark’s Hotel called police after recognizing the suspect’s photo in a newspaper.
At a news conference on March 3, Morgenthau said Colliton may have been involved with other underage girls and may have had male accomplices. The suspect’s lawyer, Alan M. Abramson, told reporters that the charges were false and that Colliton “never had sex with anyone underage.”
Phipps Plaza DOA
Police found the body of Thomas Stinson, 53, in the rear of 484 Second Ave. in the Phipps Plaza West complex on Wednesday morning March 1. He is believed to have jumped from a window in his fifth-floor apartment.
Village pot bust
Police arrested Steven Shumy, 30, an off-duty Department of Sanitation employee, at Minetta La. and MacDougal St. at 2:30 a.m. Sat. Feb. 25 and charged him with possession of marijuana and resisting arrest.
Find boy’s body
Police divers recovered the body of Sydney Hatchett, 14, from the East River off South St. on Sunday morning March 5. The boy, who lived with his family in the Rutgers Houses, was walking to school with his 6-year-old sister at 8:30 a.m. Fri. March 3 when he took off his jacket and plunged into the icy water after telling his sister that he would jump, police said.
Subway assault
Police arrested Benjamin Fogler, 40, and charged him with assault and menacing on Friday evening March 3 in connection with the beating of a fellow passenger on a northbound No. 4 train as it pulled into the Union Sq. station. Fogler was arrested after he left the train and a witness told a police officer about the assault. When the officer identified himself as a policeman, Fogler reached into his pocket as if he had a gun, but he was not armed, police said.
Bribery charge
Police from the Sixth Precinct charged Chad Morrow, 25, with bribery on Saturday night March 4 for offering $100 to officers who were writing summonses for two of his friends who were visiting from Pennsylvania for drinking alcohol in public on a Village street. Police did not reveal the names of the two men summonsed for the public drinking misdemeanor.
Albert Amateau
