A car bandit faces charges after he stole a handicapped Long Island grandmother’s Chevy, then called her to apologize – and offered to sell the vehicle back to her, cops said yesterday.
A male cop posing as the elderly widow over the phone agreed to meet Imran Naqui, 33, and exchange the car for $400 in cash, police said.
Cops showed up at the rendezvous spot at the Rockville Centre railroad station Sunday, arrested Naqui and recovered Grace Burtis’ purse, keys, cellphone and credit cards, Nassau police said.
“It’s great. I got everything back except one of my book-on-tape cassettes,” the feisty 76-year-old grandmother of five said yesterday outside her Baldwin home.
On Saturday at 8 p.m. she drove a handicapped friend back to the woman’s Queens home, leaving her keys and purse in the 1994 Cavalier briefly as she helped with packages and portable oxygen. The car was gone when she came back.
The next morning the phone rang at 7:30 a.m. and Burtis, tired from being up late talking to police, heard a man’s voice saying “Grace?”
“I’m so sorry,” the caller said. “I want to apologize. I was running from the cops and I stole your car.”
Naqui, who told the granny he was an accountant, asked if she wanted her car back, and when she said she did, he demanded $3,000, Burtis said. “I can’t afford that. I live on Social Security,” she said.
He dropped the price to $1,000 and asked, “What time would it be convenient to bring the car back?” she said.
“Any time. I’ll be home all day. I have no car,” she replied.
Burtis called cops and Nassau Police Officer Thomas Fabian showed up and listened to her talk to the caller – who used her own cellphone to call her, police said.
The next time Naqui called, Fabian pretended to be the elderly woman – and negotiated the price down to $400. “This guy never knew he was talking to a cop,” Burtis said.
She said she heard from police that Naqui “was on drugs and he tried to rob a bank on Friday.”
Before he was arrested, Naqui had racked up $700 in charges on her credit card at a department store, she said.
Naqui was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. He was arraigned yesterday at Nassau County First District Court in Hempstead where a judge ordered him held in lieu of $75,000 bond or $35,000 bail.