Fatal fall in Chelsea
A manager at BED, a club on the sixth floor of 530 W. 27th St., was charged with negligent homicide following the death of a guest who fell four stories down an elevator shaft after 4 a.m. Sat., Feb. 3, police said.
The victim, Orlando Valle, of the Bronx, was celebrating his 35th birthday at the club with about 10 friends when he became involved in an argument that erupted among a coat-check attendant, a member of his party and Granville Adams, 43, working as a manager and maitre d’ at the club.
In the tussle that followed, Adams pushed Valle against an elevator door that was not properly on its track. The door swung open when Valle fell against it and he plunged down four stories to the roof of the elevator, which was between the first and second floors, police said.
Valle was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital, where he died a short time later. Adams, of Brooklyn, was identified in the Daily News as an actor who had been in 24 episodes of the HBO series “Oz.” He is the father of a 13-year-old son.
Dressing room theft
A New Jersey woman shopping at a clothing store at 121 Spring St. near Greene St. on Sunday evening Jan. 28 left her bag under her coat in a dressing room when she stepped out to model a garment for her friend and returned a minute later to find the bag gone, police said. The victim, 19, a student at Wagner College on Staten Island, told police she had seen someone go into the dressing room just after she stepped out. The store surveillance camera caught the image of a thin black woman about 5 feet 5 inches tall, wearing a red jacket, with her hair in braids with blonde tips, coming out of the dressing room, police said.
Cabbie robbed
Four men who hailed a cab on Seventh Ave. S. at Leroy St. in the Village at 2:10 a.m. Sun., Jan. 28, turned on the driver, menaced him and stole his cell phone after he refused to take them to Harlem, police said.
Jason Eason, 35; Raul Alas, 22; and Ali West, 29, were arrested a few blocks away by police canvassing the area after the driver reported the incident. They were charged with second-degree robbery. Alas was also charged with criminal possession of a weapon, brass knuckles. Another defendant, Alex Nieves, 28, was arrested later and charged with robbery.
The driver stopped and refused to proceed when the passengers asked to be taken to a Harlem address, police said. The defendants banged on the partition between the back and front seats, got out of the cab, grabbed the driver’s cell phone and fled, police said.
No Diddy picture
A woman patron of Crobar, the club at 530 W. 29th St., told police she took a photo of a celebrated fellow patron, Sean Combs, the hip-hop impresario known as Diddy, during the early hours of Sun., Jan. 28, but one of Combs’s bodyguards snatched the camera out of her hands. She followed the man outside the club, demanded her camera back and he gave it to her after removing the memory card. The man fled before police responded to the complaint.
Soho break-in
A resident of an apartment at 204 Spring St. told police on Jan. 24 that someone had entered her apartment the night before while she was out and made off with about 20 items of jewelry valued at a total of $12,900. There was no sign of forced entry; the victim said all the windows were locked but that she may have left the door unlocked.
Albert Amateau
