Sleeping booty
A cab driver is the prime suspect in the theft of a phone and engagement ring from a 13th Street woman who fell asleep in the back of her homeward-bound taxi.
The woman told cops that she got into the yellow limo in Gaphattan on Dec. 5 at 3 am only to fall asleep before reaching the promised land. When she arrived at her destination, between Sixth and Seventh avenues, the cabbie woke her up, accepted the fare, and disappeared.
But hours later, the woman realized that her phone and $4,000 engagement ring were missing.
And then it got interesting: Sometime later, the cab driver called the woman and said he wanted to return the items — including the phone, which had already been used to make calls to Pakistan.
Problem is, the cabbie didn’t show up at the meeting place on the Lower East Side.
Scrooged!
Pickpockets and other Grinches were seriously at work during the last full week before Christmas. Here’s a roundup:
• A bump-and-robber grabbed the wallet out of a Minnesota woman’s purse on Flatbush Avenue on Dec. 18, getting $160 and various cards. The victim told cops that she was at the corner of St. Marks Avenue at 2:15 pm when she felt a bump. She later noticed that the wallet was gone.
• A patient at New York Methodist Hospital had her bag stolen out of her doctor’s office inside the institution’s Seventh Avenue annex on Dec. 13. The victim said she lost various cards, a glucose monitor and some cologne in the 3:30 pm swipe. It’s at least the sixth such theft this year at the medical center.
• A silver-loving cad stole a flatware-filled box from a Sixth Street apartment sometime this month. The resident said she last used the $12,000 silver service at Thanksgiving. But when she went to retrieve the box on Dec. 13, she noticed it was gone from the apartment, which is near Prospect Park West. She told cops that it might have been the house-sitters.
• A club-goer had her bag stolen in the wee hours at the Ultra Violet lounge on Third Avenue on Dec. 11. The partier told cops that she lost her Blackberry and various cards from the lounge at Seventh Street, but the good news is that her cards are maxed out, so the thief could not use them.
Burg town
At least two homes were burglarized:
• A thief grabbed a diamond bracelet and a laptop from a Fourth Avenue apartment late on Dec. 13. The tenant said she was only out of the unit, which is at Carroll Street, from 11 pm until midnight.
• A laptop and $3 were swiped from a Third Street apartment overnight on Dec. 16. The resident, a 70-year-old man, told cops that he was not home from 8:30 am until 7 am the next day, when he noticed that a thief had entered by pushing up a window of the unit between Fourth and Fifth avenues.
Wheel trouble
A thief swiped the most-desired set of wheels — a 1996 Honda Civic — off Seventh Street on Dec. 19.
The owner told cops that she had parked between Sixth and Seventh avenues at around 4:20 pm, but when she returned 45 minutes later, the old car — a thief’s prize — was gone.
— Gersh Kuntzman
