The fugitive accused of violently robbing a 99-year-old Upper Manhattan landlord – who died of a stroke in the aftermath of the $20,000 heist – has been shipped back to the Big Apple to face charges, law enforcement sources said.
Domingo Vasquez Rodriquez, 39 – who prosecutors described as a former tenant of nonagenarian Jose Antonio Tur – was escorted out of the NYPD’s 34th Precinct Friday morning in handcuffs, according to the sources.
He was initially picked up in Philadelphia on Sept. 29, a week after the terrifying Sept. 22 hold-up at one of the two buildings Tur owned, on West 187th Street near Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights.
The cunning, ski mask-wearing criminal called the elderly building owner around 10 a.m. and claimed he had a package that needed to be delivered to an apartment within the residence, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny previously said.
The caller requested that the senior meet him on the side of the building – a red flag because someone would only know there was a side entrance if he or she was familiar with that building, Kenny said.
When the victim went to open the gate, the intruder grabbed it and pushed his way past, the chief said.
“The 99-year-old starts to fight with the perpetrator,” Kenny said. “During this fight over the door, his hand gets crushed between the door and the metal frame, hurts his hand, and he ends up having to get stitches.”
The suspect then made his way into the basement of the five-floor, 30-unit building, where he allegedly pressed a gun into the victim’s back and demanded access to the office, the police official said.
He then forced his way into the office, where he snatched up at least $20,000 in rent that was stored in a cabinet, he added.
“He is in charge of collecting the rent, and someone knew that he kept the rent in that cabinet,” the chief said. “It was plain obvious that the perpetrator knew his way around that building. He knew that the male had the money.”
The senior was hospitalized for his injuries, and while there, he suffered a stroke that paralyzed his left side, his grandson Jose Miguel Tur, 31, told The Post.
The former ship merchant from Cuba was then moved to the intensive care unit, and ultimately hospice care, where he died Oct. 8, his grandson said.
“From the beginning, it’s like anger and disgust and like how lawless New York has become, and how justice isn’t served, like there’s no consequences on the people who commit these kinds of crimes, and how there’s no respect, right?” the younger Tur said on the day of his grandfather’s death. “There’s no limit as to what you see, especially with this that hit hard at home.”
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