A heartless ex-convict stole a minivan with a six-month-old boy inside. The devastated mother said she spent the entire nightmare wondering what would have happened if the thief had left the baby “in a ditch.”
“I’m still so scared,” the little boy’s mother, Laquana Ruiz, told The Post on Monday after she was reunited with her son. “What if he had dropped my baby off at a ditch? It would have been harder to find my baby. I didn’t care about my car, but my baby?! That’s what I really wanted.”
Ruiz was picking up a cake topper for her son’s six-month birthday at KN Mi Delicia Bakery and Cafe on Third Avenue in Mott Haven at 11:30 a.m. Sunday when Victor Matos, 53, jumped into her vehicle and sped away.
Matos – who was recently released from parole in connection with another car theft on Long Island – was quickly caught in connection with the crime and the baby was found safe and sound, authorities said.
Ruiz said she left her friend with the toddler in the back seat of the Chrysler minivan – but then her friend also got out to get coffee and bread.
“It seemed to me like he saw me get out of the car and then he saw (my girlfriend) get out of the car,” she said. “I didn’t know – when I ran in, then she ran in and I was already in the (store) – the car was gone. It happened in a split second.”
“He watched the two adults leave,” Ruiz said. “No one could have been more shocked than me. My baby was taken away.”
“It was traumatic,” she added. “It was stupid of me to run away for two seconds. It was horrible.”
Witness Bennie Valinti told WABC he noticed the suspect approaching the minivan.
“A thin guy with a beard and long hair opened the trunk and took some things,” Valinti told the network.
According to Ruiz, police caught the experienced thief an hour and 20 minutes later.
“The guy took my car at 11:26 a.m. and we got him back around 12:46 p.m.,” she said. “They found him walking with my child in the stroller.”
According to a complaint filed in Bronx Criminal Court, Matos sent an NYPD investigator to a location on Casanova Street near Oak Point Avenue, about two miles away in Hunts Point.
“I know where I left the car,” Matos allegedly told the investigator. “I can take you there.”
The complaint states that Matos also admitted to the detective that he got cold feet when he discovered the valuable cargo in the back seat.
“I was driving away and heard a noise,” he admitted, according to court documents. “I got nervous because there was a child in there. I parked the car. I didn’t stop anywhere else. I drove straight there from the bakery.”
Matos was charged with kidnapping, grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen goods, petty theft and endangering the welfare of a child, the indictment states.
He was ordered released on bail in that case because he was also wanted on an arrest warrant for a previous car theft in the Bronx in November, according to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.
In that incident, which occurred 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 when the owner tried to stop him, the indictment says.
According to court documents, Matos also nearly collided with other drivers, including a school bus driver who had to swerve to avoid him.
“I stole the car,” Matos told investigators about the crime, according to the court document. “I hit the cars. I wanted to get arrested because I started using drugs again and need help getting off them. I just got out of my methadone program.”
According to state Department of Corrections records, Matos was released from probation on June 10 after being convicted in Suffolk County of grand theft auto and endangering the welfare of an incompetent or physically disabled person.
According to the files, he spent about two months behind bars in connection with this case – from March to May last year.
He also served a prison sentence for grand theft auto from September 2016 to July 2019. His probation in that case ended in August 2020.
According to records, he was behind bars from June 2012 to September 2015 for a previous conviction of criminal possession of stolen property.
He served a prison sentence for the same charge from January 2007 to December 2009.
In addition, he served time in Nassau County from February 1991 to September 1992 for burglary and attempted burglary.
His probation in this case expired in January 1996.
Now Ruiz is trying to make sure Matos spends even more time in prison.
“I will press charges with all my might,” she told the Post.
At the same time, she praised the New York police for their quick work in arresting the unscrupulous car thief.
“The police did their damn job,” she said. “I told them if I could hug all of you together – they would have found my baby.”
“They did such a great job,” Ruiz added. “When I talk to people, I tell them that the police department, the police officers, did a damn good job. They found my baby the same day. In less than two hours. In some cities, that doesn’t happen.”
