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Bizarre Case of the Staten Island Pricker
By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 7, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Jun 7, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Only in Staten Island, people: A 25-year-old man was arraigned on, as the Advance puts it, "charges he satisfied a bizarre fetish by forking over large sums of money for the dubious privilege of poking teen girls in the buttocks." Prosecutors say that Frank J. Ranieri, a one-time NYPD recruit, allegedly paid thousands of dollars to prick the butts of teen girls with pens or pins. And he would pleasure himself during the act.
Ranieri approached one girl in 2003, and she recruited two other girls. The cops found out when a friend of one of the girls, who were all under 15 when the pricking-for-pay (up to $500 a pop), told the police. A police source told the News, "He said he liked to see the pins go through muscle and flesh. A sexual deviant. He didn't see much wrong with it."
Ranieri's lawyer claims that his client is being extorted by the teens and says it isn't even a sexual case. But prosecutors, who say that Ranieri posed as a cop to get two of the victims to agree, think that Ranieri has a very "sick fetish." One taped conservation allegedly had Ranieri saying "he wanted to use a pen to 'penetrate six inches through her skin, fatty tissues, muscle and bone.'" Ew. On previous occasions, he asked would-be pin/pen cushions if they were allergic to ink and offered to get one girl a newspaper route with the Advance. Ranieri was released on $500,000 bail. He's charged with assault as a sexually motivated crime.
Flash to the past: In 1990, police arrested "Dartman," a guy who used a blowgun to aim darts at the backsides of women. And the Bic Pen mascot was not named in the crimes.
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The Police
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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