A Cambria Heights man was arrested on Feb. 2 for allegedly stealing a car in Long Island City that had an elderly blind man with dementia in the back seat.
Dominic Kanin, 30, of 226th Street, was picked up by members of the NYPS warrant squad and brought to the 108th Precinct in Long Island City, where he was booked for carjacking a 2016 Subaru that was parked with its engine idling near the intersection of 44th Drive and 23rd Street, just before 7:15 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7, according to the NYPD. While the 34-year-old driver, Michael Tupas, ran into a nearby Target store at 25-01 Jackson Ave., he left his 72-year-old father, Reynaldo Tupas, in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle, police said.
Kanin was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court Feb. 2 on a complaint charging him with grand larceny in the fourth degree, unlawful imprisonment in the second degree and unauthorized use of a vehicle in the third degree.
According to the criminal complaint, the senior told a detective from the 108th Precinct that he heard someone enter the driver’s seat of his son’s Subaru and felt the vehicle drive off.
Kanin is accused of driving the stolen car west on 44th Drive before turning left onto 21st Street, he headed out of Hunters Point on Borden Avenue and then turned onto Review Avenue and drove east through Blissville all the way around Calvary Cemetery towards the Kosciuszko Bridge before heading north on Laurel Hill Boulevard, according to the NYPD.
Kanin later ditched the stolen car with the senior still inside in the vicinity of 53rd Avenue and 44th Street in Maspeth near the exit ramp from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to the eastbound Long Island Expressway, according to the criminal complaint. Police from the 108th Precinct recovered the stolen vehicle, and Reynaldo Tupas was found unharmed after he was taken nearly three miles away from the Court Square section of Long Island City.
A detective from the precinct reviewed surveillance video footage from 3 Court Square which shows a man in a dark jacket exiting the Court Square 7 train station and pulling on the handles of parked vehicles until he found the Subaru belonging to Michael Tupas and driving away. She obtained still photos from the surveillance footage and showed them to the defendant, Dominic Kanin, who stated, “That’s me.”
Kanin, who has no prior criminal history, pleaded not guilty before Queens Criminal Court Judge Srividya Pappachan who ordered supervised release because the charges are not bail eligible. She granted an order of protection for both Michael and Reynaldo Tupas and ordered Kanin to return to court on March 30.
