A heartless ex-con swiped a minivan with a 6-month-old boy inside – as the shaken mother said she was left wondering throughout the nightmare what if the thief dropped the baby off “at a ditch?”
“I’m still so startled,” the tot’s mom, Laquana Ruiz, told The Post Monday after she had been reunited with her son. “What if he would’ve dropped my baby off at a ditch? It would’ve been harder to find my baby. I didn’t care for my car, but my baby?! That’s what I really wanted.”
Ruiz was picking up a cake topper for her son’s half-year birthday at KN Mi Delicia bakery and coffee shop on Third Avenue in Mott Haven at 11:30 a.m. Sunday when Victor Matos, 53, hopped in her vehicle and sped off,
Matos – who was recently released from parole in connection to another car theft on Long Island – was quickly nabbed in connection to the crime, and the baby was found safe, authorities said.
Ruiz said that she had left her friend in the Chrysler minivan with the infant in the backseat – but then her pal stepped out as well to grab coffee and bread.
“To me, it seemed like he [saw] me get out of the car and then he watched [my friend] get out of the car,” she said. “I didn’t know — by the time I ran in, then she ran in and I was already in [the store] — the car was gone. It happened in the blink of an eye.
“He was watching to see that both adults left,” Ruiz said. “Nobody could’ve been more upset than me. My baby got taken.
“It was traumatizing,” she added. “It was stupid of me to run out for two seconds. It was horrible.”
Witness Bennie Valinti told WABC he spotted the suspect when he first approached the minivan.
“Skinny guy with a beard, long hair, opened the trunk and took some stuff,” Valinti told the network.
Cops caught up to the seasoned thief an hour and 20 minutes later, according to Ruiz.
“The guy took my car at 11:26 and we got him back at like 12:46 p.m.,” she said. “They found him walking with my kid in his stroller.”
Matos directed an NYPD detective to a spot on Casanova Street near Oak Point Avenue, nearly 2 miles away in Hunts Point, according to a complaint filed in Bronx Criminal Court.
“I know where I left the car,” Matos allegedly told the investigator. “I can take you there.”
Matos also admitted to the detective that he chickened out when he discovered the precious cargo in the back seat, the complaint reveals.
“I was driving away and I heard a sound,” he admitted, according to the court doc. “I got nervous because there was a kid in there. I parked the car. I didn’t stop anywhere else. I went from the bakery straight there.”
Matos was charged with kidnapping, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, petit larceny and endangering the welfare of a child, according to the complaint.
He was ordered held without bail in that case, because he was also wanted on a warrant for a previous Bronx car theft from November, according to the Bronx DA’s office.
In that incident, which happened on St. Ann’s Avenue, also in Mott Haven, he stole another man’s 2002 Jeep Liberty – and even tried to mow down the owner, who attempted to stop him, the complaint states.
Matos also nearly collided with other drivers – including one operating a school bus – who needed to swerve out of his path, according to the court document.
“I stole the car,” Matos told investigators of that crime, the court doc states. “I hit the cars. I wanted to get arrested because I started using drugs again and I need help to get clean. I just came from my methadone program.”
Matos was released from parole on June 10 in connection to a Suffolk County conviction for grand larceny auto and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person, state Corrections records show.
He spent about two months behind bars in connection to that case – from March to May of last year, according to the records.
He also served time for grand larceny auto from September 2016 to July 2019. His parole in that case expired in August of 2020.
A prior conviction for criminal possession of stolen property landed him behind bars from June of 2012 through September of 2015, according to the records.
He also served time on the same charge from January 2007 through December 2009.
Additionally, he was behind bars for burglary and attempted burglary from February 1991 through September 1992, following a Nassau County conviction.
His parole in that case expired in January 1996.
Now, Ruiz is trying to ensure that Matos spends even more time in the slammer.
“I’m going full force [with charges],” she told The Post.
Meanwhile, she commended the NYPD for their quick work in busting the callous carjacker.
“The police precinct did their damn thing,” she said. “I told them, if I could hug all of y’all together —- they found my baby.”
“They did so amazing,” Ruiz added. “When I talk to people I let them know, the police precinct, the cops, they did a hell of a job. They found my baby the same day. In less than two hours. In some towns, it doesn’t happen like that.”
