Subway creeps cut through pants
Police arrested a sexual deviant who cut open a sleeping woman’s pants on a subway train in the Financial District and fondled her early on Sat., Sept. 22.
Robert Williams, 25, was sitting next to the woman on a southbound E train as it was entering the World Trade Center stop around 5:45 a.m., when he sliced her pants open with a boxcutter and grabbed her buttocks, the New York Post reported.
Cops at the station soon found the cutter in one of Williams’s pockets, and he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, forcible touching and sexual abuse.
A week earlier, another man tried a similarly sneaky subway move Downtown and also ended up in cuffs. Gary Stokes, 58, used a razor blade to slash open the front pocket of a sleeping man’s sweatpants on a southbound A train as it entered the Chambers Street station early on Sat., Sept. 15, police said.
After making the incision at around 4 a.m., Stokes removed the unwitting victim’s cell phone, his credit card and $25 in cash. But when he turned to jump off the train and flee, he was collared for grand larceny by a cop who had been standing on the platform, catching him in the act.
Seaport robbers
One thug got away after the violent robbery of a 69-year-old man outside the South Street Seaport on Thurs., Sept. 20, but his partner in crime wasn’t as lucky.
Thomas Leslie, 21, was arrested after putting the senior citizen in a headlock as he was leaving the Seaport around 10 p.m., to make it easier for Leslie’s cohort to tear the man’s camera out of his hands, police said. The victim was able to point out the thieving duo to security guards, who quickly apprehended Leslie. In all the commotion, the second perp, identified only as a Bronx man named Nalonfy, got away unscathed.
Nalonfy is black, 18 years old, 6’2’’ and 210 pounds, according to police.
More crime took place outside the Seaport two days later, when a woman browsing the wares of some street vendors had her cell phone snatched by a couple of experienced thieves.
The 27-year-old woman told police she was shopping on the corner of South and Beekman Streets around 1 p.m. on Sat., Sept. 22 when a man casually bumped into her. When she looked up, the woman saw him and another man walking away from her, and then realized that her phone was missing from her purse. By the time she could react, the perps had fled the scene.
Both suspects are described as white Hispanic and approximately 30, 5’8’’ and 150 pounds.
Fem-fury assault leads to busted ear
Just down the street from the South Street Seaport, a man fell victim to a female attacker and her boy toy entourage on Fri., Sept. 14, leaving him with a permanently disfigured ear, police said.
The 24-year-old victim was smoking a cigarette outside the Fish Market restaurant at 111 South St. around 11:30 p.m., when Kristen Ramos, 23, approached him and asked to bum a smoke. When the man denied her request, Ramos began punching him and proceeded to tear out his earring, according to the report.
Jonathan Conaghan and Matthew Burns, both 24, quickly joined Ramos in the beating, punching and kicking the victim while he was down and leaving him with cuts to the back, arms, neck and head. The crime was quickly reported by witnesses, and after arriving on the scene, police had the wounded man trucked away by paramedics and arrested Ramos, Conaghan and Burns for assault.
Grandpa tries stealing a purse
An elderly man thought morning rush hour would be a good time to break into a parked car in Bowling Green on Fri., Sept. 21, but he ended up with a rap sheet and a groin injury.
William Crespo, 73, forcibly entered a woman’s car as it sat parked near the corner of Broad and Beaver Streets around 9:30 a.m. and grabbed her purse from the back seat, police said. But he didn’t get far, as two male bystanders witnessed the crime and stopped Crespo as he attempted to flee the scene. They detained the thief long enough for the car’s owner to return and identify her purse, and also for police to arrive and arrest Crespo for grand larceny.
Adding injury to insult, the police report states that Crespo couldn’t be interviewed following the incident because he was taken to Bellevue Hospital for “genital pain” — perhaps resulting from a parting blow by the woman or one of her two impromptu protectors.
Tourist robbed at gunpoint
A Mexican tourist got a rude welcome to New York when he was robbed at gunpoint by two thugs near his hotel in the Financial District on Fri., Sept. 14.
The victim, a 24-year-old man, left the Eurostar Hotel at 129 Front St. around 11:30 p.m. and was walking past the corner of Front and Wall Streets when he was approached from behind by two menacing figures, according to the police report. When the tourist turned around, one of the shady men pulled out a black handgun and said, “Give me everything.”
Evidently, the language barrier wasn’t an issue, as the hapless victim handed over his wallet before the perps — who were described only as black men — fled on foot.
–By Sam Spokony
