New York Post, Sunday, November 15, 2020nypost.comcity in crisis
By Joe MArinoPolice on Saturday arrested a
violent ex-con and charged him
with slugging actor Rick Mo-
ranis last month on the Upper
West Side, The Post has learned.
A Transit Bureau sergeant
spotted Marquis Ventura, 35, at
96th Street and Broadway and
made the arrest. Investigators
transported the West Village
man to Central Booking on Sat-
urday night.
Images of Ventura’s masked
face had been widely publicized
in the month since the unpro-
voked, caught-on-video attack
steps from the actor’s Central
Park West apartment.
“Thanks to an eagle-eyed ser-
geant from @NYPDTransit, thissuspect has been apprehended
and charged,” the NYPD said in
a tweet.
“Huh?” an unblinking Ventura
responded to a reporter’s ques-
tion, as detectives led him in
handcuffs from the 20th Pre-
cinct station house on the Up-
per West Side at 8:30 p.m.
Ventura has a history of more
than a dozen arrests, including
five for felonies, sources said.
His most recent arrest — for
allegedly pummeling a strap-
hanger in the West Fourth
Street subway station — came
just two weeks after the attack
on Moranis.
As with Moranis, that victim,
a 61-year-old man, was knocked
to the ground.
When the victim’s pal tried tointervene, Ventura
chomped down on the
pal’s hand and then
fled the station after a
woman thwacked him
on the head with an
umbrella, police allege.
The “Ghostbusters”
star, 67, had been walk-
ing on Central Park
West near West 70th
street on his way to his
nearby apartment
when a stranger sud-
denly slugged him,
knocking him to the
ground. Moranis suf-
fered pain in his head,
back and right hip as a
result of the attack.
The disturbing, un-
provoked attack was
filmed by sidewalk surveillance
cameras, and more images of
the masked suspect were cap-
tured from additional cameras.
The Moranis attack is now the
third open stranger-assault case
against Ventura.
He remains charged in TheBronx with misdemeanor assault
for allegedly punching a young
woman named Ashley Davis in
the face on a No. 5 train April 13,
according to law-enforcement
sources and public court records.
Additional reporting by Alex
Taylor and Laura ItalianoEx-con charged with
assaulting Moranis
suspect:
Police (far right)
on Saturday es-
cort Marquis
Ventura (in mug
shot, near right).
Ventura, who has
a history of vio-
lence against
strangers, alleg-
edly attacked (be-
low right)
“Ghostbusters”
star Rick Moranis
(left) last month.Dan HerrickBy Alex TAylorNearly six months before
he allegedly knocked Rick
Moranis to the ground near
the actor’s Upper West Side
apartment, Marquis Ventura
was charged with an even
more violent unprovoked
attack on a Bronx subway.
“I could see he was crazy,”
the victim in that attack,
mother and restaurant man-
ager Ashley Davis told The
Post on Saturday.
“I was telling the police:
‘This guy’s not right. This
guy’s got a mental illness.’ ”
Davis, 34, was on a down-
town 5 train with her hus-
band, Glenn Smith, 34, when
Ventura, who’d been walk-
ing between train cars,
jumped them, she alleges.
“This dude just randomly
started beating the crap out
of me and my husband,” she
said. “He pulled a knife on
my husband. He punched
my face. I thought he broke
my eye socket and jaw.
“This guy was just kicking
and hitting him,” she said.
“It was crazy. It happened
so fast. This guy was just in-
tent on assaulting us.”
She added, “I thought my
husband was dying. His
shoulder was so badly dislo-
cated it was down to his
belly,” she said.
Ventura is claiming that
they attacked him, because
her husband had picked up
Ventura’s knife after he
dropped it, Davis said.
Prosecutors have offered
to drop charges on both
sides, but, “I was like, ‘No
way,’ ” she said. “I want
them to throw the book at
this guy.”
Davis has needed psychi-
atric care since the attack,
and can no longer bring her-
self to set foot in a subway.
“I feel very, very bad for
him,” she said of Moranis,
adding that she’s a big fan of
“Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.”
“Neither of us should have
to go through what we did.”
Additional reporting by Joe
Marino and Laura Italiano
Earlier
vic: I
saw he
is crazy