Muggers arrested
A Sixth Precinct police officer observed three suspects eyeing a 70-year-old customer at a check-cashing store around 1 p.m. Tues., Dec. 1, and followed two of the three suspects as they trailed the customer to the corner of W. Houston and Mercer Sts., police said. The suspects threw the victim to the pavement and one of them reached into the victim’s pocket and took $300, when the officer jumped in and managed to apprehend one of the attackers. A short time later, the two remaining suspects were arrested four blocks away at Mott and Bleecker Sts. as they were getting into a car, police said. Brendan McShane, 21, of Hartsdale, N.Y., Anthony Carrasquillo, 21, of Yonkers, and Frankie Beqiraj, 19, of the Bronx, were charged with attempted robbery and held in jail pending a March 3 arraignment, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney said.
Laptop lair
Police made a warrant search of a basement apartment at 305 E. 12th St. near Second Ave. on Tues., Dec. 1, and found two Apple laptop computers that had been stolen in a burglary. The tenant, Juliana Berenguer, 24, and a friend, Christian Avila, 30, were charged with criminal possession of stolen property and held pending a March 16 court appearance, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Pigeon-feeding fracas
A man walking his dog and feeding pigeons on a walkway in front of 505 LaGuardia Place shortly after 11 a.m. Sun., Dec. 6, was approached by a man who demanded that he stop feeding the birds. The second man went into the building but returned a short time later with a bat, police said. The dog walker unleashed his animal to defend himself with the chain, but the suspect hit him with the bat and inflicted a cut on the victim’s right shoulder. An Emergency Medical Service team took the victim to St. Vincent’s Hospital for treatment, and police charged Michael Russo, 66, with third-degree assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
Minister rape charge
Jeremy Fulton, 27, the youth minister at Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church, at 3 Henry St. in Chinatown, was indicted on Fri., Dec. 4, for raping and sexually abusing a girl who went to the church with her family between July 2007 and October of this year.
Fulton, a resident of Stanton St., was also associate director of the Mariners’ Educational Center when the offenses began, according to the indictment filed by the Manhattan D.A..
The girl had turned 12 when the defendant first touched her sexually and exposed himself, the charges say. The offenses increased to masturbation and oral sex; they had intercourse when she was still 12, according to the charges. The situation came to light when the girl’s mother learned that another girl who attended the Mariners’ Educational Center complained about Fulton’s behavior toward the two girls.
New York Police Department Child Abuse Squad officers and Baltimore police arrested Fulton outside Baltimore on Nov. 24. He was extradited and pleaded not guilty at his Manhattan State Supreme Court arraignment. Fulton is in jail pending a Dec. 15 court appearance on charges of rape, predatory sexual assault of a child, a course of criminal sexual conduct against a child and endangering the welfare of a child.
D.A. Robert Morgenthau said last week that the case was still under investigation and urged anyone with information to phone his office’s Child Abuse Hotline, 212-335-4308.
‘I’ll gouge your eye out’
A Village resident, 62, told police he was riding his bicycle on the sidewalk in front of 54 W. 10th St. between Fifth and Sixth Aves. around 6:15 p.m. Wed., Dec. 2, when a suspect pushed him off the bike, snarled, “I’m going to gouge your eye out,” and went for his left eye. The suspect, described as a white man, about age 50, 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 160 pounds, fled on foot. A police canvass of the area resulted in no arrest.
Trapped on the tracks
A man, disoriented after taking methadone at a treatment center, was seriously injured on the northbound tracks of the Lexington Ave. line of the Union Square station around 1:15 p.m. Sat., Dec. 5, police said. The victim, described only as a 32-year-old Long Island resident, fell onto the tracks and was pinned between an incoming No. 5 train and the platform’s edge, police said. He was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital with a broken foot and cuts about the head.
Soho eatery bitten
A burglar who made his or her way into a diner at 337 B West Broadway near Grand St. though a back door one day last month at 2 p.m. while there were customers in the place stole a handbag that was hanging on the knob of an office door, police said. The burglar was not identified, but police are looking for a white woman, 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighing about 100 pounds, wearing blue jeans, a blue hooded sweatshirt and a blue Yankees baseball cap, who used the women’s room around 2 p.m. and left before the theft was discovered. A credit card from the stolen bag had unauthorized charges for shoes at Steve Madden and 9 West, police said.
Grand larceny auto
A Brooklyn woman who parked her 1995 Honda sedan in front of 435 W. Broadway at Prince St. at 3 p.m. Sun., Nov. 15, returned an hour later and found it had been stolen.
Trump tool
A construction site manager in the Trump Soho, 246 Spring St., told police that a welding machine valued at $1,500 was stolen from an unlocked gang box at the site sometime between 2:30 p.m. Fri., Nov. 13, and the following afternoon.
Albert Amateau
