Christina Dasrath, a former East Village bank teller, leaving federal court, at 500 Pearl St., on Fri., Jan. 9, after pleading guilty to helping rob her own bank. She was released but given a date by which she has to surrender herself to the federal Bureau of Prisons.
Teller gets 1½ years Christina Dasrath, 20, who pleaded guilty in September to helping a former rookie police officer rob a bank in the East Village twice in 2007, was sentenced in federal court on Jan. 9 to a year and a half in prison.
Dasrath, a teller at the Sovereign Bank branch on Avenue A at W. Fourth St., helped Christian Torres rob the bank of a total of $118,000 in June and November 2007 and shared in the proceeds, according to her plea.
Torres, who pleaded guilty to robbing a bank in Muhlenberg, Pa., in April 2008, is awaiting trial in the East Village bank robberies. Dasrath and Torres met while both were students at John Jay College.
Rob suspect is bagged
Police arrested a man on Sat., Jan. 10, and charged him with the attempted robbery of a woman in front of her third-floor apartment on Ludlow St. at 3:30 a.m. on Wed., Dec. 20. Joseph Garcia, 34, a resident of East Harlem, was charged with following the victim into her building, up the stairs to her apartment and grabbing her handbag. A struggle ensued and both the suspect and the woman fell to the floor, but her screams brought other tenants to the scene, and the suspect fled without the bag.
Deputy Inspector Frank Dwyer, Seventh Precinct commanding officer, said on Monday that, contrary to talk in the neighborhood, there was no evidence to indicate that the Dec. 20 Ludlow St. incident was related to the Nov. 20 sexual assault on a 68-year-old Asian woman on Norfolk St. between Stanton and Houston Sts.
Burglar gets canned
A woman who lives on Elizabeth St. near Grand St. found a man in her bedroom during the early hours of Fri., Jan. 9. He said he was the building super but fled when she began calling 911. Police found Stephen Phinaze, 51, in the neighborhood with a screwdriver in his pocket and charged him with breaking into the apartment and possession of burglar’s tools.
After booking the suspect, police also charged him with breaking into a Malaysian restaurant at 11 Allen St. near Canal St. on June 15 and making off with $200 in cash. The suspect had left a can of soda from which he had been drinking in the restaurant, and his DNA matched the sample in the saliva on the can, according to a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney.
Pipe perp jumps bail
Qi-Zhong Lin, 43, the suspect arrested on Jan. 4 for beating a victim with a steel pipe at Forsyth and Division Sts., was freed on $500 bail pending a Jan. 9 court appearance on a second-degree burglary charge, but he failed to appear. The bail was forfeited and a warrant for the arrest of the suspect, a Sunset Park, Brooklyn, resident, was issued on Jan. 10, according to a Manhattan district attorney spokesperson. (The Villager ran a photo last week of a bloodied Lin being arrested after his victim had grabbed the pipe from Lin and returned the beating.)
Gunpoint cell snatch
A Tribeca resident was talking on his cell phone on Thompson St. near Spring St. around 7:25 p.m. Tues., Dec. 30, when a man grabbed him from behind and another man put a handgun to his temple, police said. The robbers forced the victim, 41, to lie on the pavement, took his cell phone and $900 from his right front pocket and fled on foot toward Houston St., police said. Both suspects were described as white men with Spanish accents about 6 feet tall and weighing 175 pounds, and one was wearing a gray jacket and a navy-blue ski cap.
Punchy DVD pirate
Hassa Ibrahim, 28, arrested on the northwest corner of Greene and Canal Sts., around 12:30 p.m. Mon., Dec. 29, for selling counterfeit DVD’s and wallets, punched one of the arresting officers in the face and fled, police said. When the police caught him, he flailed his arms and refused to be handcuffed, police said. He was charged with assaulting a police officer, and his merchandise case had 477 counterfeit DVD’s, police said.
Camera missing
An employee of Outpost Digital, 435 Hudson St. at Morton St., told police on Jan. 6 that a special camera had been stolen from a cabinet sometime between 5 p.m. Dec. 5, when it was last used, and 6 p.m. Dec. 18, when it was needed again. The employee said that only a few people had access to the cabinet, but he did not explain the delay in reporting.
Watch those bags!
A woman who put her bag on the corner of the bar at Anchor Bar, 310 Spring St. at Renwick St., during the early hours of Fri., Jan. 2, discovered it was gone when she was ready to leave at 3:30 a.m.
A man who stopped off at Vosges Chocolate, 132 Spring St. between Greene and Wooster Sts., around 4:30 p.m. Sun., Jan. 4, fell asleep at his table and woke to find the backpack that he had placed at his feet was gone.
A woman patron of Le Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker St., told police that her wallet and cell phone were stolen between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. Fri., Jan. 9, while she was on the dance floor. Another woman at Le Poisson Rouge checked her belongings right after the first theft was reported, and discovered that her wallet with an iPod and personal property had been taken from her bag, which she had placed on her table.
A visitor from Paris was at Le Royale, at 27 Seventh Ave. between 12th and 13th Sts., after midnight on Thurs., Jan. 8, and discovered her handbag missing from her chair. The club notified her the next day that the bag was found, but she discovered that 150 euros and her Crédit Lyonnais credit card were gone.
Drunk-driving accidents
Police arrested Emanuel Cornelio after he got into an auto accident at the northeast corner of West and Little W. 12th Sts. around 4 a.m. Sat., Jan. 10. Cornelio was charged with driving while intoxicated after he registered .09 on an alcohol breath test at the Manhattan South testing center on Pitt St. The legal threshold is .08.
Police arrested Jamal Forbes, 27, at the scene of an auto accident at the northwest corner of Charles and Greenwich Sts. at 11:35 p.m. Fri., Jan. 9. He was charged with driving while intoxicated and resisting the arresting officer.
Albert Amateau
