Burglar buddies
Police arrested two men on Mon., Jan. 12, in connection with the burglary of eight local businesses, including popular bars in Soho, the East Village and Tribeca, mostly in June and July.
The suspects, Kirk Ruffler, 27, and Danny Tarangelgo, 49, gained entrance to some of the premises by wearing hardhats and posing as workers, and then smashing safes and looting the contents, according to police.
Among the places broken into were Bounce, 103 Second Ave., and Standings, 43 E. Seventh St., in June, and Café Amore, 147 Chambers St., in July, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Song 7.2, at 117 Second Ave., was another target of the suspects, who are also being charged with stealing $48,000 from the safe at Buy Rite Pharmacy, 215 Grand St., and $1,000 from the safe at Onieal’s, 174 Grand St. at Centre Market Place, in December. Police are also investigating the suspects’ connection to burglaries last summer at Delicatessen, 54 Prince St., and Jacques, 20 Prince St.
The suspects are being held in lieu of $100,000 bail each.
Major ATM withdrawals
Seventh Precinct police are looking for two men in a white van who stole three automated-teller machines — and their cash contents — from a cluster of three Lower East Side locations between Dec. 26 and Jan. 7.
The suspects drove their van onto the sidewalks, knocked the ATM’s off their base anchors, picked the machines up and drove off with them, according to police. They took a machine from locations in front of 107 Clinton St. at 5:18 a.m. Dec. 26, another from in front of 103 Clinton St. at 5:25 a.m. Jan. 6 and another from in front of 109 Ludlow St., all near Delancey St., police said.
‘Not me — he did it’
Two half-brothers from Brooklyn pleaded not guilty on Jan. 16 to two in a series of Greenwich Village and East Village armed street robberies for which they were arrested on Dec. 16.
Anthony Lindsay, 30, and his half-brother Adam Temple, 21, are being held in lieu of $500,000 bail. The two had signed confessions on Dec. 16 to two of the robberies, one of a woman who sustained a broken jaw but Maced her assailants on Dec. 4 on W. 11th St. between Waverly Place and W. Fourth St., and the other during a burglary shortly before they were arrested on W. 12th St. near Eighth Ave.
But during their Jan. 16 arraignment for first- and second-degree robbery and weapons possession, they blamed each other for initiating the gunpoint robberies.
Police are still investigating the suspects’ connection with a robbery of a woman on E. Third St.; another of a man and a woman on Nov. 15 at the corner of Waverly Place and Bank St., and yet another of a man on Nov. 18 at Seventh Ave. South at W. 11th St.
Other incidents were on Nov. 20 when a man and a woman were robbed at gunpoint; two days later a robbery at W. 14th St. at Eighth Ave, and another on Dec. 1 at W. Fourth St. and Eighth Ave.
Tricky deeds
An 82-year-old New Jersey resident was arrested last week for filing false deeds in Manhattan in 2008 in a fraudulent attempt to transfer four Chinatown properties to himself, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
In was the second time since 2007 that the defendant, Yip Shuen Ng, has been charged with trying to steal Chinatown properties with false deeds.
The latest indictment on Jan. 15 charged that on four occasions last year, Ng forged deeds with the City Register purportedly conveying 61 Mott St., 91 Bowery, 34 Mott St. and 26 Mulberry St. to himself. The bogus deeds bore the signatures of Ng and the supposed owners; but Ng did not own any of the residential and commercial properties nor was he authorized to act for the real owners, the indictment says. Ng was charged with four counts of possession of a forged instrument and four counts of offering a forged instrument for filing — felonies punishable by up to seven years in prison.
In 2007, Ng, had been arrested and pleaded guilty to filing forged deeds with the City Register relating to three Chinatown properties, 14 Bowery, 93 Bowery and 26 Mulberry St. — the latter being one of the same properties involved in the new charges, the district attorney said. Ng was conditionally discharged and ordered to restore the properties to their rightful owners.
Cleaver menace
Wen Pan, 27, was arrested in his East Broadway apartment near Allen St. at 11:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 15, for kicking down the door to the bedroom, into which his girlfriend had fled in terror, and menacing her with a cleaver. Police said an accomplice who entered the apartment with the suspect punched and kicked the victim, 25, and fled before the suspect went after the victim. “I’m going to kill you,” Pan reportedly shouted. “Next time I knock, you better open the door quicker.” Pan was charged with attempted first-degree assault, menacing and weapon possession.
Mission impossible
A resident of Bleecker St. near MacDougal St. called police shortly before 3:40 a.m. Tues., Jan. 13, after hearing the sound of breaking glass. Police arrived and arrested Hakim Goding, 34, emerging from a nearby building at 195 Bleecker St., wearing black gloves and carrying utility knives, pliers and about $500 in cash. He was charged with burglary and possession of burglar’s tools.
Albert Amateau
