Revenge eyed in slaying
Dad of 3 might’ve been targeted over stab by cousin: NYPD
A father of three shot as he sat in his parked car outside a Harlem pizzeria may have been slain as payback for a stabbing involving his cousin, police said.
Victim Omar Espinal, 39, did prison time on a narcotics conviction, and cops initially believed his Jan. 7 slaying was drug related.
But after arresting a 60-yearold ex-con for the slaying weeks later, investigators have now determined that’s not the case, a high-ranking NYPD official said.
The victim’s family agrees. “He basically did a complete 360 after serving those three or four years,” Espinal’s brother’s girlfriend, Melissa Gonzalez, told the Daily News. “He completely changed his life around. He wasn’t involved in anything illegal. He was focused on bettering himself. Before he passed away he wasn’t involved in anything that would put him in harm.”
Espinal had eight arrests on his record, including a federal case in 2013 for possession of cocaine with intent to sell, according to cops. He was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime and was paroled in 2020, records show.
A cousin of Espinal’s was with him when he was killed, and cops are investigating a possible revenge angle, police now say. The cousin has a prior arrest for a nonfatal stabbing, cops said. Police have not released the name of the cousin, and the outcome of his case is unknown.
Cops arrested career criminal Tyrone Holley on Jan. 31 for Espinal’s slaying after tracking his movements the day of the slaying through an extensive video canvas. He is charged with second-degree murder and gun possession.
Gonzalez talked to the victim shortly before the slaying, and all seemed well.
“I was joking around with him about something, and he started laughing,” she said.
“I told him, ‘I cooked. Do you want me to send you food?’ He said, ‘Send it.’ I told him, ‘I’ll take it to you tomorrow.’ In my head I’m not thinking this shooting is going to happen. I had just got off the phone with him, and I got a call an hour later saying we have to rush to the hospital.”
Espinal was sitting in his Honda Civic on W. 135th St. near Broadway outside a pizzeria he frequented when the gunman pulled up in an SUV at about 6 p.m., officials said. The victim was living with his parents nearby.
The shooter circled the block and then double-parked behind Espinal for several minutes before getting out and approaching.
Espinal, blasted in the chest, was rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside, where he died.
Espinal’s family suspects Holley was after the pricey jewelry the victim loved to wear but went away empty-handed after being startled by the victim’s beloved French bulldog Rory, who was with the victim in the Civic.
“My thought process is that the dog jumped, and the shooter got scared,” Gonzalez said. “Omar was left with all his jewelry and everything in the car. They didn’t take anything.”
Espinal’s parents, brother and friend each took one of his dogs to raise after the shooting.
The family is pushing prosecutors to consider first-degree murder charges against Holley, who has served three stints in state prison. He lives in the Bronx, according to cops, and is being held without bail for the Harlem slaying.
Holley was paroled in March 2022 after participating in prison programs that allowed for his sentence to be reduced. Records show he had served 17 years of a 20-to-life sentence for robbery.
Previously, Holley was paroled in 2002 following a drug conviction in 1989. Before that, records show, Holley served almost two years in the mid-’80s for a weapons conviction.
Espinal had three children, an 18-year-old boy and two girls ages 16 and 12.
“They were always close to each other,” the victim’s brother Edward Maria said of Espinal and his kids. “It’s heartbreaking.”
LONDON — As chances rise of a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch in the U.S. presidential election, America’s allies are bracing for a bumpy ride.
Many worry that a second term for Trump would be an earthquake, but tremors already abound — and concerns are rising that the U.S. could grow less dependable regardless of who wins. With a divided electorate and gridlock in Congress, the next American president could easily become consumed by manifold challenges at home — before even beginning to address flashpoints around the world, from Ukraine to the Middle East.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent verdict was blunt: America’s “first priority is itself.”
Several years ago, the Trump administration stress-tested the bonds between the U.S. and its allies, particularly in Europe. Trump derided the leaders of some friendly nations, including Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s Theresa May, while praising such authoritarians as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
He has called China’s Xi Jinping “brilliant” and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán “a great leader.”
In campaign speeches, Trump remains skeptical of such organizations as NATO, often lamenting the billions the U.S. spends on the military alliance whose support has been critical to Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion.
He said at a rally Saturday that, as president, he’d warned NATO allies he would encourage Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to countries that didn’t pay their way in the alliance.
Trump also wrote on his social media network that in future the U.S. should end all foreign aid donations and replace them with loans.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that Trump risked endangering U.S. troops and their allies.
“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” he said in a statement Sunday.
Biden has made support for Ukraine a key priority and moral imperative. But Biden’s assertion after his election in 2020 that “America is back” on the global stage has not been entirely borne out. Congressional Republicans have stalled more military aid for Ukraine, while America’s influence has been unable to contain conflict in the Middle East.
Thomas Gift, director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, said that whoever wins the race, the direction of travel will be the same — toward a multipolar planet in which the United States is no longer “the indisputable world superpower.”
Most allied leaders refrain from commenting directly on the U.S. election, sticking to the line that it’s for Americans to pick their leader.
They are conscious that they will have to work with the eventual winner, whoever it is — and behind the scenes, governments will be doing the “backroom work” of quietly establishing links with the contenders’ political teams, said Richard Dalton, a former senior British diplomat.
But many of America’s European NATO allies are worried that with or without Trump, the U.S. is becoming less reliable. Some have started to talk openly about the need for members to ramp up military spending and to plan for an alliance without the United States.
A frail 91-year-old cancer patient paid the price for standing up to a mugger on the Upper East Side: six broken ribs, a spinal hematoma and a bruised ego.
Hyman Silverglad still managed to walk away — or in his case, crawl away — with his wallet, leaving him some satisfaction that his attacker fled empty-handed.
“I’m a street person who grew up on the streets of New York City,” Silverglad said days after the 10:30 a.m. Feb. 1 attack on E. 86th St. near First Ave. “So I don’t like people stealing from me. I started to hit his hand to stop him from trying to wiggle my wallet out.”
As the mugger struggled to get the old man’s money, Silverglad started shouting, “Police, police.” Frustrated, the brute grabbed Silverglad and flung him to the sidewalk before running off.
Silverglad won that round, but his ordeal was far from over. The victim, now suffering cracked ribs, still had to make it back to his nearby apartment.
“I’m bedridden, unable to walk,” he said. “I have to use a wheelchair or balance myself by holding on to another human, which is usually my health aide who works for me three days a week.”
But on the day of the attack his home health aide was off.
“I looked into the refrigerator and saw we are running out of food,” he said. “I decided, unfortunately, to try to buy some food.”
He managed on his own to buy two bags of produce, including grapes, from his local street vendor.
The attack took place just yards from his home, but Silverglad couldn’t get back on his feet.
With no phone — he left it inside when he went out to go grocery shopping — Silverglad began to crawl back to his apartment building.
“I decided to walk on my knees across the crosswalk and people saw me but nobody helped me,” Silverglad said.
Silverglad dragged himself to the entrance of his apartment building.
“It just so happens that there were three women, angels without wings,” Silverglad said. “One of them lived in the building and the other two were friends of hers. They held me by my hands and shoulder and got me to my apartment. They even got my keys out of my pocket to open the door because I could not even do that.”
Once inside, where he lives alone, Silverglad called his son James, who came from Astoria, Queens, to take him to the hospital.
Silverglad is battling Stage 4 prostate cancer. He recounted the mugging from his hospital room at Mount Sinai Morningside, where he was able to get out of bed and sit in a chair for the first time since the attack.
There have been no arrests. The NYPD released a photo of the suspect and is asking the public’s help identifying him and tracking him down.
Silverglad, a retired lawyer, still hasn’t soured on the rights of the accused.
“I still do believe in giving the accused their constitutional rights,” said Silverglad, whose client list has included a transgender divorcee and a band of gypsies from the East Village. “But sociologically speaking, I believe that this community called New York City is turning into a jungle. It’s the sociology of life in New York City. It has gone down, immeasurably.”
Before moving to the Upper East Side, Silverglad lived in the East Village.
“I liked the East Village much better, probably much safer, and much more enjoyable, he said. “I like to see women with orange hair, green hair, purple hair.”
Even though he still considers himself a tough guy from Coney Island, Silverglad said he thinks he should have handled it differently.
“I should have given him the wallet,” Silverglad said. “Now I am having to experience this pain.”
Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.