The career criminal who posed as a potential BMW buyer led Long Island cops on a wild chase only hours after he beat a man and stuffed him in the trunk of a car in upper Manhattan, authorities said today.

Barion A. Blake, who has done time for at least two prior BMW heists, remains at large after he beat Akeem Ajimotokan.

Ajimotokan, 33, was in critical condition at Harlem Hospital yesterday, a day after he was found unconscious, bound and bleeding from his nearly severed ear in the trunk of his luxury car.

Police Commssioner Ray Kelly said Blake was stopped in Nassau County hours after the assault on Ajimotokan.

"The car was stopped in Nassau County by Nassau County police officers," he said. "Police officers approached the car [and] the individual, we believe to be Blake, was outside the vehicle."

Kelly said the officer "believed they may have been changing plates at the time."

"As he approached, Blake jumps in the car and they take off," he added. "They go westbound on Jericho Turnpike [and] he goes south on the Cross Island Parkway. He’s pursued by the Nassau County police. In the snow, on the roadway, the police car overturns and he escaped."

Ajimotokan's nightmare began when he advertised the fully loaded 2008 BMW M3 on Cars.com for $46,000.

Blake pretended to be a prospective buyer, cops said.

But his latest bid to swipe his favorite ride was foiled Wednesday morning when he crashed the car into a taxi in Inwood, near his Dyckman Houses apartment, and fled, police said.

Cops, responding to what appeared to be a routine crash-and-run, found Ajimotokan in the trunk.

"He's fighting for his life," said his brother, Ahmed Ajimotokan, of Houston, Texas.

Blake has prior arrests in Queens, Nassau County and Bergen County, NJ, on car-theft charges that at least twice involved BMWs.

His penchant for other people's cars got him four years in jail in New Jersey. He has also served time in New York.

Police said he stands 6-foot-8. He sports tattoos with the name "Tasha" on his left hand, a scroll with scripture on his forearm, and Chinese writing on his upper arm.

Ajimotokan, an expert in contracts and procurement, has an MBA and lives in a luxury pad on the Hudson waterfront, where apartments rent for $3,000 a month.

Suspect in Stolen-M3-Owner-In-Trunk Case Dies in Florida Shootout
Via NYTimes: A former convict wanted on charges that he stole a BMW sports car last month and stuffed its critically injured owner in the trunk was killed Friday in a shootout with officers on a fugitive task force in Florida, officials said.

The suspect, Barion A. Blake, 30, had been sought since Jan. 26 in the attack on Akeem Ajimotokan, 33, who had advertised the car, a BMW M3 coupe, for sale online for $46,000. After meeting Mr. Ajimotokan, the police said, Mr. Blake stabbed him repeatedly, nearly sliced off one of his ears, stuffed his bound body into the trunk of the car and drove off. The car was abandoned after an accident in Upper Manhattan.

A yellow-cab driver, whose vehicle was rear-ended by the BMW, said the tall, tattooed driver — who the authorities believe was Mr. Blake — simply walked away. But investigators found a handwritten bill of sale, dated Jan. 25, to Mr. Blake, from Mr. Ajimotokan.

The authorities tracked Mr. Blake to an apartment complex in Jacksonville, Fla., and on Friday afternoon, as they entered through the front door of a second-floor apartment to arrest Mr. Blake, he jumped from a balcony into some bushes and opened fire, law enforcement officials said.

No officers were hit by gunfire, said Penelope J. Knox, a supervisor deputy with the United States Marshals Service in Jacksonville. She said two officers — one from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and one from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office — returned fire, striking the suspect “pretty much everywhere; he was definitely hit in center mass.”

One official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing, said the authorities believed that Mr. Blake had fired 10 shots at officers, though another official said ballistics tests were not complete.

Ms. Knox said marshals had received a tip from the police in New York on Wednesday that Mr. Blake was in the Jacksonville area. “A deputy did background checks and tracked him to the apartment, in the Colonnade apartment complex at 989 Monument Road,” Ms. Knox said. “At noon on Friday officers from four agencies — part of the Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force — moved in to execute an arrest warrant, for attempted murder.”

“At the point in time where they made entry to the front door, the fugitive exited out the balcony, jumping from the second floor into the bushes,” said Ms. Knox. “At that point, after he jumped, he began to flee on foot and began firing at law enforcement officers.”

As for Mr. Ajimotokan, after being found in his BMW two weeks ago, he was taken to Harlem Hospital Center, where he was placed on a ventilator and was in a coma. He was later moved to an undisclosed hospital in New York for privacy.

On Friday, his brother Dr. Ayo Ajim said in an e-mail that Mr. Ajimotokan’s condition was improving.

“Akeem is doing a little better, but still in coma at the hospital,” he wrote. “We continue to hope and pray for him to get better.”

In a telephone interview from his home in Houston, Dr. Ajim said that he had spoken with an assistant district attorney handling the criminal case and had been informed of Mr. Blake’s death — though he was unaware it had occurred in Florida.

“We were told, the last we heard, was that they had cornered him into a building, and they knew he was there from the cellphone,” Dr. Ajim said. “But the building has 600 apartments and they were playing a waiting game.”

He also said the news of Mr. Blake’s death had brought some relief.

But, he said: “It’s just so sad to know that we happen to be dealing with loss of life and a coma over a vehicle. The whole thing is so sad.”

Mr. Ajimotokan, who grew up as the youngest of four boys in a close-knit family in Lagos, Nigeria, attended law school and was employed by the office of procurement at Columbia University. He had placed his car for sale online, attaching a photo and his cellphone number.

Mr. Blake, whose uncle is Deputy Chief Michael Blake, of the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism division, had a history of arrests for stealing BMWs. He bounced from incarceration to incarceration, going directly from New Jersey to New York state correctional facilities five times from 2001 to 2010, for various crimes, including assaulting a police officer, officials said. Mr. Blake was released in April in New Jersey, after finishing his sentence for stealing a car in Bergen County.

The apartment complex where Mr. Blake was killed is about 10 miles east of Jacksonville’s city center. Friday evening, red-and-white police tape was strung around the area. Several bullet holes pocked a cement wall, and evidence markers indicated at least 27 shell casings.

A crazed knifeman who allegedly murdered four people and stabbed four others in New York has been dramatically arrested at Times Square.

Maksim Gelman was held by an army of police who swarmed the subway station at the tourist landmark as he tried to leave after stabbing his final victim.

The shaven-headed 23-year-old said nothing and stared impassively into the distance as he was led away by a dozen armed police holding his bloodstained hands in handcuffs behind his back.

The arrest marked the end of a 28-hour rampage in which Gelman is said to have knifed three people to death, fatally run another over in a stolen car and stabbed at least four others.

The full gruesome details emerged for the first time as tributes began to pour in for the innocent victims of what was one of the most brutal and astonishing campaigns of violence to hit New York in living memory.

Gelman’s rampage is said to have begun at 5am on Friday morning when he knifed to death his step father Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, at the home they shared in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn.

The ambulette driver is said to have refused to lend Gelman his Lexus, sending him into a wild rage.
It is thought that his mother Svetlana was in the house at the time and dialled 911 when she saw the bloody struggle with a kitchen knife.

Gelman is said to have made off in the Lexus and run down school safety Agent Adamantia Nikalaydakis, 41, at Avenue S and Ocean Avenue, leaving her for dead. She was taken to hospital where her condition is stable.

At 4.30pm that day he fatally stabbed ex-girlfriend, Yelena Bulchenko, 20, and her mother, Anna, 56, at their home a few blocks away.

According to the New York Daily News he plunged the knife into Miss Bulchenko more than a dozen times inside her apartment then followed her outside when she tried to escape, stabbing her many times more.

Gelman is said to have claimed his next victim as he ran off - he stopped passing driver Art DiCrescento, 60, and stabbed him as he stole his Pontiac Bonneville car, leaving him in a critical condition.

A witness said Mr DiCrescento calmly walked up a whole block before screaming: 'I'm bleeding to death! Somebody help me!'

Moments later Gelman mowed down 60-year-old pedestrian Steve Tannenbaum at the junction of Avenue R and Ocean Ave in Brooklyn.

He was taken to Kings County Hospital but died from his injuries.

By 9pm he had ditched the Pontiac and made off on foot which caused the police manhunt to expand to the whole of New York City.

It was not until 1am the next day that Gelman struck next.

Then he had hailed a taxi in Bedford Stuyvesant in Brooklyn and put a machete to the throat of driver Fitz Fullerton, 55.

The car swerved on the road and crashed and Gelman got out and ran off, leaving Mr Fullerton with cuts to his neck.

Hours later he carjacked Shelden Pottinger, 25, who had parked his Nissan Maxima outside a church on on Eastern Parkway near Rockaway Ave.

Gelman stabbed Mr Pottinger then sped off with him half-hanging out the window before forcing him out.

His injuries are not life-threatening.

‘He was waiting for his wife to leave . . . The guy came by and tried to steal his car,’ a witness told the Daily News.

‘He was kicking him, literally kicking him to get him out of the car...He was stabbing at him with a long knife.’

The rampage came to an end at 9am on Saturday morning when Gelman slashed a 40-year-old man on the subway at the 96th St. and Broadway station on the Upper West Side.

According to the New York Post Gelman had banged on the subway train driver’s door, yelling: ‘My girlfriend ruined my life’.

When the driver refused to let him he attacked a random passenger on the No.2 line train.

Police believe he got off the train at Times Square station then crossed over to an uptown No.3 train where he was grabbed by an army of armed officers.

Pictures showed the victim being wheeled away on a stretcher wearing an oxygen mask with his head covered in blood.

He was taken to Bellevue Hospital in a critical condition.

A bloodied knife was recovered by forensic officers from the scene and taken away for further examination.

Subway passenger Hyun Jo, 35, told the Post: ‘I saw a stream of people coming from the front of the train. They looked upset. They had white faces.

‘The conductor announced they ‘found the guy who killed four people yesterday.’ I saw the blood in the other car when they let us off. It was crazy.’

Gelman’s arrest brought to an end a frantic manhunt in which he played a game of cat and mouse with police who rushed to at least one sighting of him only to find he had already fled the scene.

The community of Sheepshead Bay was put on lockdown and residents were told to stay inside whilst SWAT teams roamed the streets looking for the suspect.

Those who knew Gelman said they were stunned he had ‘flipped’ but that he had a reputation for low-level crime and was a ‘street punk’.

Mother-of-two Stella Bend, 38, who lives two doors down from Gelman’s house, said: 'Gelman flipped out when his step father wouldn't let him have the car. It was four in the morning, who goes out at that time of the day?

'That's what sparked this whole thing off. There must have been something more too it, I can't believe that was just it.

'From what I've heard Maksim had been getting into lots of trouble and had been doing drugs and drinking. I don't think he had a job.

'His mother had been worried about him for ages, but not because he might do something like this.

'The stepfather was a lovely guy and she is a lovely lady. She used to sit out on her balcony reading in the summer, taking it easy. I just can't believe this has happened.'

Neighbour Jeremy, 29, a scrap metal dealer, added: 'To think that somebody would just throw his life away and that of his family, it's just insane.'