CVS credit-card crook An employee at the CVS store on Bleecker St. reportedly stole a customer’s credit card in May, and spent the past month using it illegally before being arrested on June 22, police said.
Christopher Thornhill, who works behind the register at the 158 Bleecker St. location, was apprehended while he was on his shift around 9 a.m. that day, after his boss called police to turn him in. Thornhill allegedly swiped the card from an unwitting customer, who reported it stolen on May 20, and Thornhill used it to purchase more than $4,000 worth of CVS gift cards for himself.
The store manager told police he watched security video footage in which Thornhill could be seen using the stolen card multiple times. When officers arrested Thornhill at store on June 22, they recovered the stolen card. Thornhill was charged with identity theft, grand larceny and possession of stolen property.
Wash. Sq. wallet snatchers Around 4 p.m., a witness told an officer patrolling Washington Square Park that he had just seen a man — later identified as Nicola Milosevic, 29 — snatch a mother’s wallet out of a pocket in the side of her baby stroller. After the witness quickly identified Milosevic, the officer stopped him as he was walking the park alongside a woman, Magdalena Bitiucka, 23, who said she was Milosevic’s girlfriend.
After searching both suspects, the officer found the stolen wallet inside Bitiucka’s purse. Milosevic also had a warrant out for his arrest, after being convicted of a theft in Queens and failing to show up at court for his sentencing.
The couple were both charged with grand larceny.
Random cell-phone smack A woman, 22, told police she was walking down the stairs inside the West Fourth St. subway station around 8 p.m. on June 20 when a man — later identified as Stefan Stephenson, 20 — smacked her in the face with his cell phone, and then started running away.
As she was following him up back up the stairs and out onto the street, the victim spotted a police officer and told him what happened, and the officer arrested Stephenson near the corner of West Fourth St. and Sixth Ave. Stephenson was charged with assault.
Dinner and a drubbing A dispute inside a swanky Spanish restaurant turned ugly on the night of June 22, leaving one man fearing for his safety and another in handcuffs.
The victim, 46, along with a witness, told police that he was dining at Tertulia, at 359 Sixth Ave., around 10:30 p.m. when he happened to exchange words with Thomas Heard, 31. Heard then allegedly punched the man in the back of the neck, and threatened to stab him and hit him with a chair, before storming out of the restaurant.
Shortly after the victim and witness called the police, Heard was spotted and apprehended by officers during a canvass of the area. He was charged with assault and menacing.
An ‘L’ of a dumb fight
On June 22, a brawl onboard a Brooklyn-bound L train landed two men behind bars, after they apparently failed to realize that a uniformed police officer was sitting at the other end of the subway car.
The officer said that around 4:30 a.m. he was waiting for the train to leave the station at W. 14th St. and Eighth Ave., when he saw an argument between David Mouzon, 19, and Jeffery Ortiz-Zapato, 20, escalate to blows. The officer broke up the fight, but not before the two men had given each other some cuts and bruises to the face, though neither required medical attention, according to police. Both men were charged with assault.
Sam Spokony
Speeding cyclist slams woman
BY JEFFERSON SIEGEL | Around 7:30 p.m. Thurs., June 20, a large group of cyclists was speeding down Broadway when one struck a female pedestrian at the corner of Eighth St. Firefighters responded and treated the woman, bandaging a large, bloody cut on her forehead. A police car soon arrived, and the cyclists, all young men in their mid to late teens, tried to ride off. Two pedestrians began chasing them, and the police car cut off the cyclists a block south.
Officers talked with three of the cyclists for several minutes. The injured pedestrian was led into a waiting ambulance. Meanwhile, the three cyclists engaged in raucous laughter for several minutes, joking as if nothing serious had happened. The cyclist in the collision told an officer his bike lacked brakes.
After the ambulance left, the police let the cyclists go with the stern warning, “Slow down.”
