Slashed ex-wife in face
A Manhattan man stands accused of trying to brutally murder his ex-wife in the hallway of her Alphabet City apartment building while their children watched in terror, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced July 31.
John Woody, 40, has been indicted for first- and second-degree attempted murder, along with 18 other felony charges — including first- and second-degree assault, endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated criminal contempt — and 17 misdemeanor charges stemming from other alleged domestic violence incidents against the woman.
Around 6:20 p.m. on July 8, Woody allegedly stalked his ex-wife, who was with their three children, illegally followed them into her apartment building at 170 Avenue D (at E. 12th St.), and then waited in the hallway outside her apartment with a sharp object to use as a weapon, according to court documents. When the woman and children exited the elevator and walked out into the hallway, Woody allegedly slashed her face, back and neck repeatedly as the children stood nearby, the D.A. said.
The victim was hospitalized for her injuries and had to receive numerous stitches. Police arrested Woody the day after the attack.
Early on July 9, hours after the alleged attempted murder and just before his arrest, Woody reportedly also sent a threatening text message to his ex-wife’s mother, and left a threatening voicemail on his ex-wife’s phone.
He was also charged in connection with multiple alleged domestic violence incidents in the days before the July 8 incident, including burning his ex-wife with a hot iron, hitting her with a belt and making multiple other phone calls and sending text messages to harass and threaten her, all in violation of a prior restraining order, the D.A. said.
Woody is scheduled to appear in court again Oct. 16.
Flagged for roughness
Retired N.F.L. offense tackle Luke Petitgout, a former first-round draft pick for the New York Giants, turned himself into police on Tues., Aug. 6, after allegedly beating his wife while they were in the Meatpacking District early on Aug. 2.
Petitgout, 37, has been charged with assault after his wife, Jennifer, 36, told police that the 6-foot-6-inch-tall, 310-pound ex-Giant pushed her out of his car — which was parked near the corner of Little W. 12th St. and Ninth Ave. — around 5:30 a.m. on Fri., Aug. 2, following a verbal argument, leaving her with cuts and bruises to her body, arms and hands. According to the police report, Petitgout’s wife also claimed that, after she had fallen to the ground, he picked up her purse and threw it at her, hitting her in the head.
Police said Petitgout’s wife took a cab to the Sixth Police Precinct, on W. 10th St., about an hour after the incident took place, where she filed a report, after which she was taken to the hospital for treatment of minor injuries. Luke Petitgout was with his lawyer when he came to the Sixth Precinct around 9 a.m. on Aug. 6 to turn himself in, police said.
Luke Petitgout, who lives in Woodcliff, N.J., played for the Giants from 1999 to 2006, before finishing his football career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and retiring in 2007.
A police officer removed the prop bomb, which was concealed in boxes.
Bedford bomb scare
A playwright caused a stir last week by accidentally leaving a fake bomb — used as prop in his play about suicide bombers — in the trash outside his West Village apartment on Wed., July 31, while he was moving out.
Ethan Fishbane, 23, who wasn’t arrested, reportedly told police he “didn’t think twice” about tossing the prop — which simulated a bomb, using a workout belt, a calculator, two blocks of clay and some wiring — outside his pad at 14 Bedford St., leading to a swarm of New York Police Department Bomb Squad and Emergency Service Unit officers converging on the location along with other local officers in what was quickly determined to be a false alarm.
But a Sixth Precinct source, who was one of the first officers to respond to the bogus bomb scare, told this newspaper that the threat seemed very real — partly because he and many other officers believed that the “bomb” was intended to harm U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who lives on Bedford St.
“We all thought it was meant for her, maybe as some kind of politically based attack,” the source said.
Maybe that’s part of the reason why Fishbane’s prop bomb — clearly a very cheap fake, when given a close look — garnered such an immediate and immense police response. Fishbane told the Post he couldn’t fault the N.Y.P.D. for treating the situation so seriously, saying he felt the response was “wholly appropriate.”
Ice-cold robber
An employee for the Haagen-Dazs shop at 55 E. Eighth St., near Mercer St., told police that a man — later identified as Gerald Kimbrough, 45 — walked in around 6:30 p.m. on July 29 and quietly demanded all the money in the register, through a written note he passed across the counter. Kimbrough, who held his hand near his waistband throughout, told the employee he had a gun and would shoot if he didn’t get the green, according to police.
The ice-cream crook quickly stepped behind the counter, grabbed all $200 from inside the till and fled on foot, said the employee, who called police immediately afterward. Within minutes, the Sixth Precinct began a canvass of the area, and caught Kimbrough on a nearby street around 7:30 p.m., police said. He was charged with robbery.
Rude awakening
A senior citizen woke up from an afternoon nap in his ground-floor West Village apartment on Thurs., Aug. 1, to find an unknown man attempting to break in, police said.
The 72-year-old, who lives at 227 Waverly Place, told police he was startled awake around 4:30 p.m. by noise in his living room. When he went to check it out, the resident said, he spotted a stranger — whom he could only describe as a bald black man — trying to enter the apartment through a window.
Apparently, the would-be burglar was just as surprised by the septuagenarian resident’s sudden appearance, and jumped back out of the window, fleeing in such a hurry that he left one of his sneakers behind, police said.
Sam Spokony
