Maniac Who Attacked and Robbed Midtown Halal Food Cart Vendor Arrested, Jailed on Rikers Island
CNS –
A Mets hat-wearing madman, 45-year-old Jeffrey Vargas of the Bronx, who is believed to have savagely attacked and robbed a halal food cart vendor at in Hell’s Kitchen on Jan. 7, has been detained.
Polic charged 45-year-old Jeffrey Vargas, of the Bronx was detained as the culprit in the brutal incident occurred immediately outside the Food Emporium supermarket store, on Eighth Ave. and 49th St.
The incident occurred at around 10:35 p.m. when Vargas, clad in an off-color Mets logo baseball cap, a blue and white Tommy Hilfiger jacket and torn pants is alleged to have launched an unprovoked assault against the 36-year-old man worker then manning bright reddish-orange food cart.
According to investigators, Vargas first ripped out a piece of plexiglass off the cart and beat the worker’s face with it, shocking him enough that he able to remove $3,500 cash from the halal-food slinger’s pocket.
Quickly recovering, the hawker rushed Vargas into the A/C/E subway station at 50th Street and 8th Avenue.
Notorious for the prevalence of drug addicts that loiter on the stairs, tonight the platform would prove even more perilous, as the vendor caught up with Vargas and took a picture of him with his phone—moments before the thief again attacked the vendor, this time with a rod-like metal implement that would be clearly visible when NYPD posted the suspect’s picture the following day.
When the story, and the photo, hit the news Wednesday—both the New York Post and Daily News picked up—the culprit was on the lam and the random ferocity of the crime was shocking.
While some internet observers assumed the perp was a “migrant,” other streetwise crime watchers opined that this very unlikely, as neither the suspect’s appearance—a middle-aged light-skinned Hispanic in recognizably New York-style garb—nor his modus operandi suggested this.
Rather, he was most likely one of Gotham’s home-grown malefactors that are a regular sight in midtown, especially the infamous 8th Avenue “Strip of Despair,” extending from the high 20s, just south of Penn Station to at least 50th St.
With the victim, who suffered numerous broken teeth, still in Bellvue Hospita, the Daily News visited the scene, where a co-worker was filling in for his injured colleague. Unsurprisingly, the assailant wasn’t a stranger to the cart man, Hasan Lhenedeou. “This guy is trouble,” he said. “I hope they get him so he doesn’t come back.”
Meanwhile, the tabloid and television attention of the halal food cart attack had its effect, and though details haven’t been made public, NYPD detective Christopher Kissane apprehended Jeffrey Vargas somewhere inside the bounds of the Midtown North Precinct around 12 p.m. on Thursday Jan. 9.
The six-story Morris Heights apartment building at 1851 Phelan Place was Vargas’s Bronx address.
The charges against Vargas were increased to first and second degree robbery, both felonies, during his arraignment on Friday, Jan. 10. He was initially charged with second degree assault and robbery.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office had originally asked for $75,000 cash and $150,000 bond, but the judge reduced their requests to $40,000 cash and $90,000.
As of this writing, Vargas remains a prisoner at Rikers Island’s Eric M. Taylor Center; he was originally scheduled to return to Manhattan Criminal Court on January 14.