A Bronx parolee was high on drugs when he ordered a cab driver to take him to Albany at gunpoint, before stuffing the man in the trunk of the car, prosecutors said Tuesday, following his indictment on a robbery charges
Robert Mizell apparently decided on a moment’s notice to try to rob the cab driver in the bizarre Sept. 19 incident, which began in Bronx around 10:45 a.m. and ended off Neperan Road in Tarrytown. Mizell, who served 8 years in prison for robbery and was released in July, told police that he was feeling aimless and desperate when he told the driver to take him to Albany and give him his iPhone and $125 in cash, according to court papers.
He also said that he was schizophrenic and off his medication. Mizell, 27, was carrying at least $11,000 in cash when he allegedly robbed the driver and kidnapped him, he said.
“You guys caught me with all the evidence, there’s not much for me to say,” Mizell told Tarrytown police after his arrest according to court papers. “I didn’t have a goal. I was just winging it. I was gone.”
If convicted, Mizell will now face up to 25 years in state prison for the incident. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Westchester County Court in White Plains to several felonies, including kidnapping, robbery, criminal possession of a weapon, grand larceny and assault. A lawyer for Mizell could not be immediately reached for comment.
Mizell originally told the driver to take him to Hamilton Heights in Manhattan, he said. But when the driver initially set out toward Westchester, Mizell, who had smoked PCP-laced marijuana before getting into the car, became enraged, pulling a .38-caliber revolver and ordering him to drive toward Albany.
Near Exit 23 on the Saw Mill River Parkway, however, Mizell told the cabdriver to get off the highway. They then stopped at a parking lot, where Mizell ordered the driver into the trunk.
But the driver escaped minutes later, breaking his ankle as he jumped from the moving vehicle car. Mizell was arrested a short time after that not far from the parkway.
Mizell, who was ordered held without bail on Tuesday, refused to tell police where he had gotten the illegal gun, and he seemed resigned to a lengthy jail sentence.
