By Ayala Ben-Yehuda and Dustin Brown
A woman in Maspeth was pulled from her Lexus, thrown into a van, shocked with a stun gun and driven to her sister-in-law's house in Little Neck by a gang of men who tied up and robbed the family there Friday, police said.
The group of at least six Hispanic men stole the woman's 2001 Lexus, then made her direct them to her sister-in-law's house in Little Neck, where they stole jewelry and $4,000 in cash before fleeing, police said.
The woman said the men told her they knew her sister-in-law, but she did not know her assailants.
Three victims were treated at North Shore Hospital with minor injuries in the attack, police said. No arrests had been made as of press time Tuesday.
The 29-year-old woman was parking her car outside her Maspeth home around 10 p.m. Friday night when she was approached by two men, one of whom wore a silver badge around his neck, police said.
The woman, who asked not to be identified, told the TimesLedger Monday that she had locked her doors when two cars, one of them a brown van, immediately pulled up next to her and a man came out of the van toward her.
“I thought it was a robbery, that they were going to steal my car,” the woman said.
But when the man flashed a badge and asked to see her license and registration, she opened her door thinking she was in trouble for parking at a hydrant.
Instead, she was yanked out of the car, had her mouth covered and was thrown into the van where several men beat her and shocked her with a stun gun, she said.
“I scream and scream before they put me in the van, but nobody heard me,” said the woman, a clothing seller who came to the United States from Colombia 14 years ago.
Officer Anthony Lombardi of the 111th Police Precinct said her head was covered with a blanket, and she was beaten and subjected to a stun-gun until she gave her sister-in-law's address.
Just before her abduction, she had been shopping for cabinets with a contractor hired to fix up her father's house on Bell Boulevard in Bayside. After they got into their respective cars, she and the contractor were supposed to meet at her house in Maspeth, but he drove off in another direction.
During the van ride to Little Neck, the woman said the men communicated with other people using radios and speaking only Spanish.
When they arrived at her sister-in-law's house, she said there were already other robbers waiting. The woman and her sister-in-law's family were tied up and blindfolded while the house was robbed, Lombardi said.
“I thought they were going to kill us,” the woman said.
In total, police said six people were restrained, but the sister-in-law's 6-year-old son who was asleep was left alone.
The ordeal ended when the men left and one of the victims untied himself and the others, she said.
The woman said her sister-in-law and sister-in-law's husband both work at North Shore Hospital.
After reporting the incident to police, the woman said she is living in fear.
“Psychologically, we are very affected,” she said. “You think everybody is following you. You think they are going to grab you again.”
The investigation was being handled by the 104th Precinct in Ridgewood, but the precinct commander could not be reached for comment.
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
