Cab heist pattern
The eighth armed robbery of cab drivers by the same gunman over the past two weeks in Chelsea, the Lower East Side and the East Village was on Tues. May 29 at 10:40 p.m. on W. 39th St. and Seventh Ave.
The robber, described as a black man in his 30s, between 6’1” and 6’3” and weighing between 220 and 250 lbs., has been hailing cabs, getting into the front seat beside the driver and pulling a black handgun.
On Fri. May 25 at about 8:20 p.m., he held up a cab driver on Delancey and Ludlow Sts. On Tues. May 22 he held up two drivers, one at 12:25 a.m. and the other about half hour later, both at Fifth Ave. and W. 16th St. He held up a cab on Mon. May 21 at 4:10 p.m. at Elizabeth and E. Houston Sts., and on Sun. May 20 he robbed a driver at Broome and Christie Sts. at 8:10 p.m. On Sat. May 19 he held up a cab at 1:05 a.m. on W. 15th St. and Fifth Ave, and on Thurs. May 17 at 12:19 a.m. he robbed a driver at W. 13th St. and Fifth Ave.
Police have increased patrols and are deploying undercover officers in cabs. The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers has urged drivers to give up their money if they are held up and is offering a $3,500 reward, in conjunction with Guardian Angels and a Queens cab service, for information leading to an arrest.
Designs on bank account
The owner of Kramer Designs, located in the Starrett Lehigh Building, 601 W. 26th St., told police on May 21 that she discovered that someone had routed payments from her bank account between April 2 and April 30 totaling $16,801 without her knowledge or consent.
Bank robbed
A man walked into the Bank of America branch on Sixth Ave. near W. 27th St. at about 10 a.m. Fri. May 25, passed a note demanding money from a teller and fled with an undetermined amount of cash, police said.
Assaults on Ninth Ave.
Police arrested three men for assaulting two men and a woman at the northeast corner of Ninth Ave. and 17th St. during the early hours of Sun. May 20. Charged with assault were Kenneth Huff, 21, and Samuel Huff, 17, and David Vasquez, 19, who was also charged with possession of a weapon, a gravity knife.
In the early hours of Mon. May 28, a group of about six young men assaulted three teenage boys on W. 17th St. near Ninth Ave., leaving one of the victims with stab wounds and a broken nose, police said
Looted bank account
A woman, 71, a resident of 365 W. 25th St. in the Penn South co-op, told police on Mon. May 21 that someone got into her Emigrant Savings Bank checking account without her authorization and stole $1,485.
Card interception
The owner of a Chelsea retail business told police on Tues. May 21 that the company’s Sovereign Bank ATM card was supposed to have been delivered to 130 Seventh Ave. the previous week, but when the card finally came it was discovered that an unknown person had withdrawn $987 dollars without authorization.
Braunstein sentencing
Peter Braunstein, 43, faces a prison term of 25 years to life when he appears in Manhattan Criminal Court for sentencing on June 18 after being found guilty of sexually abusing and imprisoning a woman in her Chelsea apartment for 13 hours on Halloween, 2005.
A jury of seven men and five women on May 23 rejected Braunstein’s defense that he was not responsible for his acts because of a brain condition and found him guilty on kidnapping, sex abuse, robbery and burglary counts. Although charged with gaining entry to the victim’s W. 24th St. apartment by setting off smoke bombs in the hall, he was found not guilty of arson.
Braunstein, a former Women’s Wear Daily writer, was barely acquainted with his victim, 34, a former Women’s Wear colleague. A fugitive for six weeks after the crime, Braunstein was also charged with robbing a man in Cleveland during his flight.
— By Albert Amateau
