RANSOM DUH-MAND
Officer scales building to nab susp,other busted on street as Finest save victim held for $700
2 charged in bizarre $700 ransom plot after B’klyn wreck
A Brooklyn fender-bender turned into a train wreck for two bumbling crooks who tried to convert the minor ding into $700, cops said Tuesday.
The bizarre case stretched across three boroughs — with the Brooklyn abduction of an innocent deliveryman, demands for a ransom from a Queens lot and a city cop scaling an Upper West Side fire escape à la Spider-Man.
The three-hour episode finally ended with both suspects in custody and the hostage rescued intact.
“One of the strangest cases I’ve ever been a part of in my 18½ years with the New York City Police Department,” said Capt. Timothy Malin, commanding officer at the 20th Precinct. “This is an actual abduction at gunpoint. There’s an element of extortion to it. It spanned the city…And it ended with a police chase that went right up the side of the building.”
Officer Mark McCaffrey did the superhero work in scrambling up eight stories to arrest suspect Francisco Jimenez after cops laid a trap for the would-be kidnapper and his pal Rondell Halley. Jimenez, 24, proved no match for the young, athletic cop once he tried to flee via the fire escape on W. 72nd St.
“The adrenaline was pumping,” McCaffrey said afterward. “I focused on the perpetrator…I noticed he was running out of gas, getting tired, as he approached the eighth floor. So there was no fight toward the end. It was smooth.”
Halley, 33, nearly ran down several pedestrians when his car jumped the curb before his arrest by cops staking out the $700 payoff from the deliveryman’s boss. A loaded .25 caliber handgun, along with a small amount of heroin and cocaine, was later recovered from the car belonging to the suspects, said Malin.
“I don’t know,” said the bearded Halley when asked what happened in the time between the accident and the arrest. “I don’t know.”
Jimenez, in a sleeveless white T-shirt, marched mutely past the media before he and Halley were loaded into a waiting police SUV. Both were awaiting arraignment.
The first falling domino in the quirky case came when the 32-year-old deliveryman, with a load of diapers and baby food, accidentally backed into another vehicle while trying to park on Gates Ave. in Bushwick at about noon.
The driver quickly offered an apology to Halley, who claimed the damaged vehicle belonged to him — although cops later found the car was registered to neither suspect, according to Malin.
“We don’t know…if it was an elaborate scam” using somebody else’s vehicle, the captain said.
Either way, the two suspects demanded a cash payoff from the driver, who insisted on calling his boss. When the boss suggested contacting his insurance company, one of the two accident “victims” pulled a gun on the driver and delivered a message of menace.
“If you want your van back, if you want your driver back, you’re going to have to pay us,” he warned the boss.
The suspects, after taking the driver hostage, drove to a Queens lot where they dumped the delivery van and called the boss back to request $700 cash as ransom, cops said. The boss agreed to get the money and meet them at 3 p.m. at W. 73rd St. and Broadway in Manhattan, then dialed the NYPD and laid out the whole story.
The two defendants climbed into a white BMW sedan and headed to the Manhattan meet with their prisoner in tow, unaware the cops awaited their arrival.
Police tagged along with the boss as he withdrew the $700 from a Chase bank branch, and accompanied him to watch the exchange of cash. McCaffrey and Sgt. Sean Pallone moved in on the suspects once the money changed hands and the hostage was released.
As the cops appeared, Jimenez bolted on foot down W. 73rd St. and into an alley adjoining a school. He scurried through a pair of open gates and headed up the fire escape.
Unfortunately for him, McCaffrey was in pursuit and tiptop condition.
“You don’t have too much time to think,” said McCaffrey. “It’s just kind of act, and react.”
Halley jumped behind the wheel of the luxury car, threw the BMW in reverse and gunned the engine, narrowly missing the police and several people in a crowded crosswalk.
The car then climbed the curb onto the sidewalk — narrowly missing several more people — before coming to a stop. Halley jumped from the vehicle and was quickly apprehended in the middle of the street.
No one was injured, including the boss and his kidnapped employee, cops said.
Both suspects were charged with kidnapping and drug and weapons possession. Halley was also charged with reckless endangerment.