Fake City Marshal Harassed Debt-Laden Cabbies, Authorities Say

NEW YORK — A Staten Island man posed as a New York City marshal to intimidate debt-laden taxi drivers into giving up their medallions, city officials alleged Tuesday.

Over at least three years in four boroughs, Anthony Medina served cabbies with bogus documents, took away their cars and once broke into a taxi to remove its medallion and other equipment, city officials said.

The city Sheriff's Department arrested Medina outside his Staten Island home Tuesday on four charges of impersonating a marshal, officials said. The arrest stemmed from an investigation the city started last month following The New York Times's exposé on predatory lending practices in the taxi industry.

"This arrest provides some long-awaited justice for medallion owners who were made victim of predatory practices for far too long," Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Taxi lenders hired Medina to take medallions — the permits that allow their owners to operate yellow cabs — from people who skipped payments, the Times reported. The paper's exposé included anecdotes about Medina suggesting he was a cop, leaving notes and even threatening one driver with a gun.

The sheriff's investigation confirmed that Medina served documents claiming he was a city marshal even though he was not one, de Blasio's office said. Marshals also don't have the authority to seize medallions unless they are worth less than $25,000, according to officials; they often sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Sheriff's Department learned about three incidents in which Medina allegedly harassed cabbies while impersonating a marshal, officials say.

Last May, officials alleged, he took a medallion, meter and rate card from a taxi he broke into in Queens and left a fake notice of seizure. The medallion's owner repaid his debt and Medina intimidated him again when he returned the permit, telling the owner to not to alert the Taxi and Limousine Commission that he had taken the medallion, officials said.

Months earlier, in November 2017, Medina along with another person drove up to a cabbie in the West Village, shouted at him to hand over his keys, gave the driver a fake notice of seizure and took off with his taxi, city officials allged.

Medina intimidated another medallion owner into handing over his cab at his home in July 2016, giving him a false notice of seizure, officials said. The man gave up his keys but noticed that someone had already broken into the car, according to city officials.

Medina's arrest grew out of the Sheriff's Department's interviews with medallion owners and their lawyers and information from drivers and owners gathered at TLC outreach events, the mayor's office said.

"This individual’s actions as alleged are nothing short of brutal," Acting TLC Commissioner Bill Heinzen said in a statement. "The City will not tolerate these kinds of illegal and callous actions against medallion owners."

Medina told the Times that he called himself the "vehicle apprehension unit" to protect himself from being targeted by borrowers. He reportedly denied threatening anyone with a gun, but said he asked for cash from drivers out of concern that they could not write good checks.

"You’re taking words from people that are deadbeats and delinquent people. Of course, they don’t want to see me," Medina told the Times. "I’m not the bad guy. I’m just the messenger from the bank."