Sex-assault attempt
Police are looking for a suspect wanted for an attempted sexual assault on a 12-year-old girl in a stairwell of her Hester St. home around 6 p.m. Mon., Jan. 24. The victim was walking to her apartment when she heard someone banging on the building’s outside door. She admitted the suspect, described as a white male, between ages 25 and 30, about 5 feet 9 inches tall and 175 pounds, wearing a blue jacket, brown trousers and gray hat, who followed her to the third-floor stairwell where he attempted to sexually molest her, police said. The girl fled and was unhurt, police said.
A bit possessive
A man who made what was believed to be an admiring “Damn” to a woman walking past him on W. 14th St. at Sixth Ave. at 9:37 p.m. Sat., Jan. 22, infuriated her companion, who pulled a 12-inch knife and slashed the victim on the left forearm, police said. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. The suspect, Craig Hutter, 37, was charged with felony assault.
Joint was his downfall
A man smoking marijuana on the southwest corner of MacDougal and W. Fourth Sts. around 11:30 p.m. Thurs., Jan. 27, swallowed the joint when a police officer approached him. Police found the suspect had a Clonazepam pill — a potent tranquilizer and secondary epilepsy treatment — in his pocket, as well as a fake Pennsylvania driver’s license. The suspect, Stephen McCarron, 19, was charged with possession of a forged instrument.
Stick to decaf
Police arrested Palash D’Cruze, 37, around 1:45 a.m. Sun., Jan. 23, inside Caffe Reggio, 119 MacDougal St., and charged him with criminal mischief after he picked up a chair and smashed the establishment’s front plate-glass window.
Fake credit cards
Police arrested Marvins Pierre-Louis, 20, around 5 p.m. Tues., Jan. 25, after he tried to buy an iPad with a phony credit card. The suspect was found to be in possession of a total of four phony credit cards, police said.
Car hits senior
A northbound taxi made a right turn from Pike St. onto East Broadway at 9:39 a.m. Fri., Jan. 28, and struck a woman, 84, as she was crossing from the southeast corner to the north side of East Broadway. The victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital in critical condition. Police said both the victim and the cab driver had a green light at the time of the accident and there was no criminality suspected.
Eldridge St. murder trial
The trial of Ricardo Martinez, 25, for the murder of Vincent Cruz on June 24, 2008, on Eldridge St. near Rivington St. began Mon., Jan. 31. The victim, age 17, was shot in the head a block from 40 Rivington St., where he lived. The shooting was over an argument about stolen property, according to court papers.
Fatal on L line
Brendan Mahoney, 24, of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, was killed around 5:30 a.m. Sun., Jan. 30, when an L train crushed him after he went onto the tracks to retrieve something — keys, according to one report — that he had dropped from the Halsey St. platform in Brooklyn. Mahoney, a writer and reviewer for Tiny Mix Tapes, a music Web site, had been spending the hours prior to his death at Mars Bar, at First St. at Second Ave., and left after 2 a.m., according to friends. He was formerly an administrative assistant with the Reynolds Program in Social Entrepreneurship at New York University.
Schools-protest arrests
Police arrested 24 demonstrators who blocked Chambers St. in front of Department of Education headquarters in the Tweed Courthouse at 4:30 p.m. Mon., Jan. 31, during a protest against the planned closing of 25 failing schools.
City Councilmembers Charles Barron and Jumaane Williams, both of Brooklyn, were among those arrested and taken to the Seventh Precinct, where they were issued summonses and released. The arrests came after an earlier rally at Tweed by hundreds of students from the schools targeted for closing. Demonstrators carried signs saying, “Fix schools, don’t close them.”
Student loses bag
A student at Metropolitan College, at 431 Canal St. at Varick St., told police that she left her bag at her desk around 4 p.m. Mon., Jan. 24, when she went to the bathroom and returned a few minutes later to discover the bag was gone, along with her Ecuadorian ID, 80 euros and $80 in U.S. currency.
Albert Amateau
