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MTA Bus Driver Punches Gas Station Worker Over Lost Lottery Ticket: Police

By Ben Fractenberg | October 2, 2014 5:42pm
 A city bus driver was arrested after punching a Flushing gas station attendant over a missing lottery scratch ticket.
A city bus driver was arrested after punching a Flushing gas station attendant over a missing lottery scratch ticket.
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QUEENS — Hey, you never know...who may punch you.

An off-duty MTA bus driver hit a Flushing gas station manager in the nose Thursday morning after a lottery ticket the driver paid for was lost and he was refused a refund, according to police and a worker at the station.

“The bus driver was screaming at him and cursing at him,” Savas Babuc, 36, who works at the Gulf Station on Horace Harding Expressway near Lawrence Street, said about the altercation. “He grabbed him by his throat and he then he punched him and then he fell down.”

Bus driver Louis Cintron, 44, tried to buy $40 worth of scratch-off tickets from a vending machine inside the station at about 9:50 a.m., Bubuc and a police spokesman said.

He got one $20 ticket and another $10 ticket, but a third $10 ticket ended up falling under the machine without him seeing it, according to the NYPD and station employees.

Cintron, who has been a driver since 1995 and currently drives the Q53 and QM1 routes, demanded another ticket or his money back, but when the store manager opened the machine and determined the ticket was not stuck inside refused Cintron his money back, Bubuc explained.

Neither the manager, who has been work at the station for about eight years, or Cintron realized the ticket was under the machine at the time, Bubuc added.

An argument ensued and as the driver was leaving he told the manager, “Don’t make me smash your head,” according to Bubuc, who witnessed the entire incident.

“You want to smash my head, then smash it then,” the manager replied, Bubuc said.

The driver then allegedly grabbed him and hit him in the nose.

The manager was not seriously injured, according to Bubuc and the NYPD.

After police arrived and reviewed the security footage, according to Bubuc, and the arrested the driver.

One of the officers then found the missing ticket under the machine, the station attendant said.

Cintron was charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment in the second degree, a violation, and given a desk appearance ticket.

He will have to return to Queens Criminal Court in 30 days for an arraignment, a spokeswoman for the Queens District Attorney’s Office said.

The MTA said that Cintron had been removed from service.