MANHATTAN - Cops have arrested a bike riding thief suspected of snatching as many as a dozen iPhones from people walking down the street in Manhattan, DNAinfo New York has learned.
Frank Marra, 39, was busted after his most recent attack in in Chinatown's Bayard St. on July 21, when he spotted a 21-year-old woman on the street listening to her iPhone, cops said.
Police say he pedaled up behind her and snatched the phone and then pedaled away. But two officers working in plainclothes saw the robbery and took off after Marra. They caught up to him near Broadway, where he was handcuffed and arrested.
Marra, a drug abuser with a lengthy robbery history, was carrying a switchblade knife that resembled a small caliber gun when he was caught, sources said. Marra was charged with robbery, possession of stolen property and weapons possession.
His victim wasn't injured.
Sources said he is a suspect in a rash of similar rip-offs throughout Lower Manhattan, but he has yet to be charged with any other offenses, which authorities declined to disclose.
Marra was ordered held on Rikers Island on $7,500 bail, pending his court appearance on Wednesday.
The day after he was collared, two other people were robbed in Lower Manhattan in separate incidents by bike riding thugs.
In one case, a victim had a $2,000 MacBook Pro ripped right off of his man’s lap as he sat outdoors in in front of 12 Vandam St. at the corner of Sixth Avenue in Soho.
Earlier in the day, a woman in the Financial District had her iPhone 4S snatched out of her hands at William and Fulton Streets by a man speeding past on a dark blue bike as she chatted on the smartphone, police said.
