Terry Pierson was sitting in his Sunset Park home watching TV and drinking scotch on Wednesday night when he noticed an "odd lump" beneath his loom. "So I grabbed my flashlight and moved the sheet and there's this face looking back at me," recalled the 62-year-old, who weaves in his spare time.
The lump was Jhonny Soto, a 19-year-old who managed to escape federal custody on Wednesday afternoon, sending NYPD officers, FBI agents, and neighbors on an hours-long manhunt through the backyards of Sunset Park's 26th Street, near Third Avenue.
Soto was on his way to Metropolitan Detention Center for a weapons charge when he somehow broke free from the moving vehicle at about 4 p.m., according to law enforcement sources.
He initially fled to the balcony of another home, but was chased off by local resident Stefanie Tatsis, who told reporters that she grabbed a meat cleaver and began swinging.
As cops and FBI agents spent the afternoon scouring the neighborhood, Soto was apparently hiding just a few feet away from Pierson.
"He's been sitting beyond my living room chair where I've been sitting for the last three hours under a dust covered sheet for a piece of furniture," Pierson, who works as a bookkeeper, said in a videotaped interview on Wednesday.
Police searching for Soto on Wednesday
Four sets of cops with police dogs visited the home during that time, Pierson added, but never managed to locate the suspect. After the Sunset Park resident caught him hiding near the loom, the 19-year-old fled to the front door, straight into the arms of police, Pierson said.
"I went running out the back door to the three policeman in my back yard hollering. I just said, "He's in there, he's in there!'"
Pierson believes Soto broke his screen door and snuck in through the back of the house. "I've been here for fifteen years and nothing like this has ever happened," he added.
Pierson's screendoor, where he said Soto broke in on Wednesday
Soto was arrested by Nassau County Police in Corona, Queens on Monday. According to the complaint, he was approached by police in connection with a stolen vehicle, then fled, tossing aside a small bag in which cops found a semiautomatic pistol with the serial number removed.
"I know they were police and I knew I had a gun on me so I ran because I was scared," he told police, according to the complaint.
Gothamist's inquiries to his attorney were not returned.
