Volume 22, Number 35 | The Newspaper of Lower Manhattan | January 8 – 14, 2010
Police Blotter
Candidate assaulted
Yetta Kurland, the attorney who ran unsuccessfully for the City Council seat of Speaker Christine Quinn in November, was the victim of an apparently random assault by a young man during the early hours of New Year’s Day.
Her assailant, one of a group of several youths, punched her in the back of the head several times as she was standing on the south side of 14th St. between Seventh and Eighth Aves. The 3:50 a.m. assault was painful but the injuries were not serious and Kurland refused medical attention.
“I was waiting with a friend for someone to come out of a building when we saw about six guys coming up the street,” she told Downtown Express. “One of them ran up and pummeled me in the head. He seemed hopped up — strung out — and it looked like he didn’t even see me. It seemed like he would have attacked anyone who was standing in that spot at the time,” Kurland said.
The suspect, who was no older than 20 and might have been younger, could have been swinging wildly as he was walking up the street, she added.
“It made me ask myself what we are doing about youth violence and what we are doing to get drugs off the street to make sure that young people can celebrate New Year’s or any other occasion peacefully and responsibly,” she added.
Kurland said she and her friend followed the suspect and his group to the subway station at Seventh Ave. and 14th St., where she told them she was calling police. One member of the group of white Hispanic youths tried to persuade her not to call police, but a transit worker dialed 911 and the group dispersed.
Drops the bag
A man who walked into the TD Bank branch at 155 Canal St. near Bowery at 1:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 2, told a teller that he had a gun. The teller gave him an unspecified sum of cash in a bag with a dye pack, police said. The suspect dropped the bag as he was fleeing when the dye pack exploded, but police who were giving chase soon arrested Claudio Mojica, 39, and charged him with robbery. However, an unidentified man picked up the bag with the red-ink-stained money and made off with it, according to daily newspaper reports.
Elizabeth Irwin burglary
Burglars entered Elizabeth Irwin High School, 40 Charlton St., around 12:50 a.m. Mon., Jan 4, and made off with 20 laptop computers from offices on four floors of the building, police said. There were no signs of forced entry to the building but the office doors were forced open. A witness told police that he had spoken to a stranger in the building at 12:55 a.m. who identified himself as “Giuseppe” and said he was a night watchman at the school-expansion construction site at 42 Charlton St. But the contractor told police they did not employ anyone named “Giuseppe,” described as a white man, 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a strong build and short curly brown hair.
Arrested for burglary
Police arrested Joseph George, 25, at 5:43 a.m. Jan. 1 inside American Apparel, 140 West Broadway, and charged him with burglary for smashing a store window and entering through it. A First Precinct police officer saw the entry and made the arrest.
Robbed on subway
A woman riding on a C train at 4 a.m. Tues., Dec. 29, became the victim of a robber who knocked her to the floor and grabbed her bag as the doors opened at the Chambers St. station and fled, police said. The victim was dazed and reported the robbery at the Fulton St. subway station. One of her credit cards had an unauthorized charge of $4 and change that day for a cab ride.
Attempted Tribeca
burglary
An employee of Tribeca Grill, 375 Greenwich St., who opened the place at 9 a.m. Sat., Jan. 2, told police that a drawer in an office cabinet had been damaged but nothing was discovered missing. A video surveillance tape, however, recorded an intruder in the place at that hour.
Stolen jewels
A 90-year-old resident of 455 North End Ave. in Battery Park City told police she was packing for a trip to California on Jan. 4 when she discovered that two gold bracelets, a three-tier gold necklace and a mother-of-pearl medallion, with a total value of $7,000, were missing from a bedroom cabinet drawer. The victim told police she last saw the items in the drawer on Nov. 4, but many people had access to her apartment.
Ex-Net hits tree
Jayson Williams, the former New Jersey Nets basketball star who was hospitalized last April after he became violent and trashed a Battery Park City hotel room, hit a tree around 3:50 a.m. Tues., Jan. 5, while driving a black Mercedes-Benz S.U.V. near the exit of the F.D.R. Drive at E. 18th St. and Avenue C, police said. Williams, who was also involved in the 2002 shooting death in New Jersey of his limousine driver, refused to take an alcohol breathalyzer test after the Jan. 5 accident but has been charged with driving while intoxicated. He was taken to Bellevue Medical Center with a slight neck fracture, but was not paralyzed.
In the Battery Park City incident last April, empty pill bottles and a suicide note were found in the Embassy Suites room where police had to subdue Williams with a Taser. Williams was raised on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Lawyer’s cash stolen
A lawyer who shares space at 277 Broadway with several other attorneys told police at 5:50 p.m. Mon., Jan. 4, that an envelope with $2,300 in cash was gone from a drawer in his desk. He had seen the envelope last at 5 p.m. Dec. 24, police said.
Bicycle phone snatcher
A man riding a bicycle snatched a cell phone from a woman who was talking on it on the northwest corner of Sixth Ave. and Canal St. at 11:30 a.m. Wed., Dec. 31, police said. The victim, 21, who lives nearby, said the phone has a Japanese service provider and there were no unauthorized calls on the phone. The thief was described only as a black male.
Time please
A Staten Island man told police he was at State and Whitehall Sts. on Thurs., Dec. 31, when a stranger stopped him at 9:15 a.m. and asked the time. When the victim pulled out his cell phone to check the time, the stranger grabbed it and fled. The victim, 23, said he chased the thief for a block but lost him at State and Pearl Sts.
Not helpful
A Bronx woman was helping a tipsy friend getting out of a cab at the northeast corner of Fulton and Water Sts. at 3 a.m. Fri., Jan. 1, when a stranger came by, asked, “Do you need help,” and proceeded to help himself to the friend’s bag in the back seat of the cab, police said. The stolen bag had a cell phone, bank card and a New York State Learner Permit.
Cold-day theft
The owner of Patina, a boutique at 451 Broome St., told police that she was alone in the shop at 3 p.m. Thurs., Dec. 17, and did not get a good look at the thief who took a sable fur jacket valued at $5,000 from a hanger and fled.
The wrong customer
A Bronx woman, 25, who forgot her wallet at the cash register at Bath & Body Works, 89 South St., around 12:40 p.m. Mon., Jan. 4, returned a short time later only to have the cashier tell her that he found it and gave it to a woman in the queue who said it was hers. The wallet had $200 in cash, credit cards and a MetroCard with $20 on it.
Lifted at club
A New Brunswick, N.J., man told police he was at Greenhouse Cafe, 150 Varick St., during the early hours of Thurs., Jan. 5, when he discovered at 3 a.m., as he was about to pay the tab, that his wallet had been lifted from his trousers back pocket. He lost $150 in cash and credit cards, and his train ticket back home to New Brunswick. An unauthorized charge was made on one of his credit cards that day to a taxicab, police said.
— Albert Amateau
