Hundreds of New Yorkers Chip In : Subway Vigilante Turns Down Offers for Bail

Hundreds of New Yorkers, angered by the arrest of a man accused of shooting four youths who allegedly tried to mug him in a subway car, donated toward a bail fund, but when a man offered today to post the full amount the suspect refused and remained jailed, officials said.

“No thank you. It’s not the way I wish to do it,” Bernhard Goetz said, according to Edward Hershey, a Corrections Department spokesman. Hershey did not identify the man offering to post Goetz’s $50,000 bail.

Goetz indicated that he would raise the money himself somehow, Hershey said.

Meanwhile, backers of the suspect continued to contribute toward his bail.

“This guy rendered a service,” said retired Fire Chief Michael Materia, who said he donated $10 and added that he had once been mugged while in uniform on a subway train. “He is our John Wayne.”

Goetz, 37, was ordered held on $50,000 bail after a prosecutor at his arraignment Thursday said he “intended to kill” each of the youths, and stopped shooting only when he ran out of ammunition. (Story, Page 4)

He remained today at the city jail on Rikers Island, where he was being held on four attempted murder charges in the Dec. 22 shootings.

After the arraignment, two lawyers and five men who said they were friends and associates of the self-employed electronics specialist announced the formation of the Bernhard Goetz Legal Defense Fund.

“We want to get him out as soon as possible, possibly tomorrow,” Dennis Coraslini, co-chairman of the fund committee, said in appealing for money at a news conference outside the court building.

The Guardian Angels patrol group raised $102 from subway passengers for the defense fund Thursday night and said they would picket the jail today.

“The fear in our subways is real and we’re in sympathy with anyone who has been hassled in a train,” Angels leader Curtis Sliwa said.

Goetz shot the youths after they approached him and asked for money, Assistant Dist. Atty. Susan Braver told the court. The shootings sparked controversy over whether they were justified.