No cash for pair
Queens hostage situation ends peacefully
Two armed parolees surrendered early Wednesday after busting into a Queens home and holding three terrified women and an infant hostage while demanding money they claim they were owed — from a man who died from cancer last month.
The intruders, identified by police sources as Tex Ortiz and Wilbert Wilson, surrendered about 2 a.m., emerging from the home about two hours after the last of their hostages had been released. One of the hostages was assaulted, but not badly hurt, cops said.
Charges against Ortiz, 35, and Wilson, who turned 51 on Tuesday, were pending, officials said.
Both men have extensive criminal histories and are currently on parole, authorities said. Wilson has done five stints in prison since 1990, all for drug offenses, according to court records.
A police source said the duo were looking for money from a 36-year-old man who lived in the home but died of cancer Oct. 1. That man had an arrest record, police said. It wasn’t immediately clear how Ortiz and Wilson knew him or if they were aware he had died.
One of the hostages, a 33 yearold woman, has the same last name as the cancer victim but it wasn’t immediately clear what was her relationship to him. The other hostages were 62- and 92-year-old women. The younger woman placed the 911 call and is the mother of the infant.
An NYPD Special Ops team surrounded the single-family home at 125th St. near Liberty Ave. in Ozone Park after getting a frantic 911 call from inside the home at 9 p.m. Tuesday.
The mom told cops that she’d been assaulted, NYPD Assistant Chief Ruben Beltran said. She also said the suspects appeared to be high on angel dust.
A family member told The News he got a call about the break-in “and “ran over.” He would not give his name.
“I can’t believe they would do this to a house full of women.
They should burn in hell,” he said. “If I had been home I would have been shot. The cops got [the mother] and the baby out.”
At one point during the tense standoff, one of the intruders wanted police to let him speak to his mother, and asked for a pizza, police sources said.
“A Queens home invasion turned into a hostage situation. @NYPDSpecialops & Hostage Negotiation Unit members worked to de-escalate & safely get the hostages out, & took the armed suspects into custody this morning — all without a single shot being fired,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea said on Twitter Wednesday.
Wilson was last released from prison Nov. 21, 2019, after serving a year for drug possession charges.
Ortiz has been arrested eight times going back to 1997, police sources said. Charges against him included sex abuse, assault, robbery, and weapons possession.
His last arrest was March 1, 2016, when he held up two 19-year-old men on First Ave. near E. 115th St. in East Harlem, sources said.