Man caught on video lighting B’klyn apartment door on fire
to the ground as she pushed a shopping cart along Third Ave. between 15th and 16th St. in Gramercy Park. The woman’s head hit a fire hydrant as she fell.
Brimmage walked away, say cops. He is charged with felony assault.
Prosecutors had asked for $100,000 cash bail or $300,000 bond, noting that after other arrests, he skipped out on nine court dates. His lawyer, Henna Khan, countered that Brimmage “doesn’t have a dollar to his name.”
“What is shockingly absent from the bail request is mention of my defendant’s mental health history,” Khan said. The judge set bail at $50,000 cash or $100,000 bond
Brimmage was diagnosed at age 18 with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which was when he started getting in trouble with the law, Khan said. His mother died 10 months ago, the lawyer added.
Brimmage hasn’t been able to get his medication because of the coronavirus crisis, said his social worker, Russell Morse. Brimmage hears voices, experiences illusions, and had walked himself to Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx just hours before the incident to seek psychiatric care, Morse said.
An arsonist was caught on a doorbell cam video setting fires to a Brooklyn apartment door, after he scrawled graffiti on the wall accusing someone inside of being a “child rapist,” authorities said.
Yevgeniy Kotlyarov, 38, used to live in the 24story W. 5th St. building near Neptune Ave. on Coney Island, and had previously argued with the occupants of the seventh-floor apartment he tried to burn, law enforcement sources said.
The sources knew of nothing indicating the “child rapist” accusation had any merit.
The same doorbell camera recorded the suspect on June 11, and again on Monday, popping out of what looks like an open stairwell door and throwing a lit object into the hallway, FDNY officials said. Each time, the object exploded into a burst of flame, charring the door and hallway.
One of the fires resulted in an occupant of the apartment suffering a non-life threatening injury, FDNY officials said. There was no further elaboration on the injury.
Kotlyarov (inset) was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday on arson, burglary, reckless endangerment and criminal trespass charges, and ordered held on $150,000 bail.