Authorities busted a fugitive thief accused of robbing a 99-year-old Manhattan landlord who had a stroke and died within the aftermath of the $20,000 heist, legislation enforcement sources mentioned Tuesday.
The 39-year-old suspect – who investigators imagine robbed longtime Washington Heights constructing proprietor Jose Antonio Tur of hire funds on Sept. 22 – was taken into custody in Philadelphia per week in a while Sept. 29, based on the sources.
However he was nonetheless awaiting extradition to the Huge Apple on Tuesday.
It was not instantly recognized why the alleged robber – whose identify was not launched – was in Philadelphia.
The crafty, ski mask-wearing prison referred to as the aged constructing proprietor round 10 a.m. and claimed he had a bundle that wanted to be delivered to an residence throughout the residence on West 187th Avenue close to Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny beforehand mentioned.
The caller requested that the senior meet him on the facet of the constructing – a crimson flag as a result of somebody would solely know there was a facet entrance if she or he was accustomed to that constructing, Kenny mentioned.
When the sufferer went to open the gate, the intruder grabbed it and pushed his well past, the chief mentioned.
“The 99-year-old begins to struggle with the perpetrator,” Kenny mentioned. “Throughout this struggle over the door, his hand will get crushed between the door and the metallic body, hurts his hand, and he finally ends up having to get stitches.”
The suspect then made his method into the basement of the five-floor, 30-unit constructing, the place he allegedly pressed a gun into the sufferer’s again and demanded entry to the workplace, the police official mentioned.
He then compelled his method into the workplace, the place he snatched up not less than $20,000 in hire that was saved in a cupboard, he added.
The cash additionally included funds from the tenants of two buildings throughout the road, which the senior additionally owned, Kenny mentioned.
“He’s in control of gathering the hire, and somebody knew that he stored the hire in that cupboard,” the chief mentioned. “It was plain apparent that the perpetrator knew his method round that constructing. He knew that the male had the cash.”
The nonagenarian – who fled Cuba many years in the past underneath Fidel Castro’s communist regime – was taken to New York-Presbyterian/Columbia College Irving Medical Heart with two damaged fingers and a reduce on his hand, police mentioned.
Tur then suffered a stroke “that precipitated him to be paralyzed on the left facet and restricted his capacity to swallow and eat additionally,” his grandson Jose Miguel Tur, 31, informed The Submit by telephone final week.
He was then moved to the intensive care unit, and finally hospice care, the place he died Wednesday, his grandson mentioned.
“From the start, it’s like anger and disgust and like how lawless New York has turn out to be, and the way justice isn’t served, like there’s no penalties on the individuals who commit these sorts of crimes, and the way there’s no respect, proper?” Jose Tur mentioned. “There’s no restrict as to what you see, particularly with this that hit arduous at dwelling.”
“The entire bail reform legal guidelines, clearly, the coverage isn’t working,” he fumed.
The elder Tur, a former ship service provider from Cuba, labored as a porter for eight years earlier than shopping for the Washington Heights constructing in 1979, his grandson mentioned.
The senior had been the goal of a earlier assault at one other constructing he owns throughout the road shortly after bail reforms went into impact in 2020.
Throughout that assault, a perp with a “lengthy rap sheet” had tried to burglarize the constructing, the youthful man recalled.
“[My grandfather] wished to see a change,” he mentioned. “He was very saddened at the truth that, you realize, when he purchased these buildings, the town was in shambles. Then it obtained a lot, a lot better later, after which he simply noticed one other decline.”
“So [he] was like, think about, ‘Oh, my God, I’m on the finish of my highway, and it’s type of like the way it was once I first obtained right here, which isn’t good,’” Miguel Tur added.
