Police Blotter

Volume One, Issue 26, March 16 - 22, 2007

Police Blotter

Strip club trial

Two men charged with extorting several hundred thousand dollars from VIP Club, the adult entertainment venue at 20 W. 20th St., during the period from the mid-1990s until 2002, went on trial in Federal Court in Manhattan on Tues. March 13.

Salvatore Scala, 64, who served time after conviction in an unrelated case, is charged with initiating the extortion, and an associate, Thomas Sassano, 61, is charged with taking part in the scheme that netted so much money from VIP owners that the strip club couldn’t pay its taxes in 2002.

Cameras make case

Video cameras in the lobbies of Elliott-Chelsea Houses buildings were instrumental in the arrest of a man charged with a Sept. 26 robbery in which the victim was shot in the leg in Chelsea Park near P.S. 33, according to police at the 10th Precinct.

Darryl Gillyard was arrested in Charlottesville, Va., March 8 and extradited to New York on first degree robbery, assault and weapon possession charges. Det. Vincent Guastamacchia, investigating the case, said that surveillance cameras in the lobbies of the buildings recorded the images of Gillyard and a woman accomplice several times as they went in and out during a course of events that led up to the shooting, and afterwards when they ducked back into a building in the complex.

Gillyard’s accomplice, Kenyatta Calier, was arrested on the evening of Sept. 26, a few hours after the shooting, and the gun was found in her apartment. Gillyard, however, had gone and was traced to Virginia at the end of February.

The victim had gone to the lobby of 415 W. 25th St. to buy drugs from Gillyard and Calier, police said. After the sale, the two suspects followed the victim to Chelsea Park, but Calier went to her apartment at 427 W. 26th St. to pick up a gun. She then went back to the park and met Gillyard, who confronted the victim and an associate who were sitting on the steps of P.S. 33. When the victim refused to give up about $500 that he was carrying, Gillyard fired and fled with Calier to 427 W. 26th St., police said.

All the comings and goings of the victim and the defendants were recorded on the videos, Guastamacchia said.

Deputy Inspector Stephen Hughes, 10th Precinct commander, said that crime in the Elliot-Chelsea and Robert Fulton Houses had declined 28 percent in 2006 from the previous year. Hughes attributed the decline to the cameras installed in 2006.

A shot in Stereo

A patron of Stereo, the club at 512 W. 29th St., told police that he heard a shot while he was about 10 feet inside the club on Monday morning March 12 and felt blood running down his right calf. He left the club and caught a cab on 10th Ave. at 30th St. to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was treated and released.

At about 2:30 a.m. Tues, March 13, police arrested two men in front of Stereo for punching a 19-year-old man and telling him they would shoot him with a gun one of them said he had in his pocket. Khatarom Williams, 23 and Darrell Gibbs, 21, were charged with assault.

Cry for help

A police officer heard a woman’s strangled cry for help at about 2:30 a.m. Tues. March 13 on W. 20th St. at Seventh Ave. and arrested Olaf Tinoco-Ekdahl, 29, and charged him with assault for choking the woman.

Assault on 10th Ave.

Police arrested Ronald Large, 30, on the west side of 10th Ave. between 27th and 28th St. at about 5:30 a.m. Sun. March 11 and charged him with assault for punching a woman several times in the face.

Bag gone

A woman patron of East of Eighth, a bar at 245 W. 23rd St., had her bag stolen shortly before midnight Mon. March 12, police said. The victim, 45, lost her wallet with $200, an iPod, a cell phone, her passport and credit cards, but she had cancelled the cards before any unauthorized charges were made.

Leave the keys

A woman motorist pulled into a parking lot at 252 W. 25th St. on Saturday evening when a man she took to be an attendant said, “Leave the keys. It’s a 24-hour lot and you can come back tomorrow at the same time,” police said. She left the keys, returned Sunday evening, and the car was gone. So was the man she thought was the attendant.