Ultimate Repo Man : When New York’s Tough-Guy Sheriff Comes Calling, Scofflaws Ante Up

Driving a coal-black Ford Crown Victoria with a 357-horsepower engine, New York City Sheriff Philip Crimaldi is tooling toward Greenwich Village to collect $7,325.93 from a supermarket manager who’s ignored one too many unpaid summonses.

But, Crimaldi figures, why waste time on the drive over, especially when there are thousands of deadbeats out there?

A career civil servant who epitomizes the term self-starter, Crimaldi can’t resist a chance to show off. Today he has Mike Gilsenan, manager of the sheriff’s tow program, along for the ride. On his lap, Gilsenan holds a Mobile Digital Terminal, the ultimate weapon in the city’s war on scofflaws--those who owe three or more parking tickets.

Crimaldi, wearing jeans, a black muscle shirt and a Windbreaker with 10 gold stars on its collar, looks right, then left as he barks out license plate numbers. In seconds, the digital terminal will tell Gilsenan if any belong to a scofflaw.

As he drives, Crimaldi expounds his street philosophy: “I never bother checking an Aries K, say, because that’s a family car. But give me a Trans Am with one of those little decals . . . “

Gilsenan interrupts. That black Lincoln Continental a few blocks back owes $1,100.

Bingo.

Within minutes, Sheriff Crimaldi will have a $50,000 techno-tow truck on the scene. And the Continental will become another notch in his gun belt.

New York City has never seen a sheriff like Crimaldi. In fact, most New Yorkers never even knew they had a sheriff until just under two years ago, when Crimaldi burst onto the scene.

The sheriff’s job here is appointed, not elected, and the jurisdiction is strictly over civil matters. The sheriff has a mandate to collect money from debtors who owe New York for any variety of fines--parking tickets, building violations, fire and safety problems, sanitation summonses.

New York hands out a lot of fines, and it has a ton of debtors: When Crimaldi took over, the roll of uncollected judgments was up to $4 billion.

That’s a lot of money for a city forever on the brink of a fiscal crisis. Mayor David Dinkins, in one of the most ingenious, underrated moves of his administration, decided that he wanted to collect those unpaid fines. But the mayor, being the most civil of men himself, needed a hard nose.

He found him in Crimaldi, a former city probation official, who serves at the pleasure of Dinkins. In terms of chest-thumping, Crimaldi, 43, could give former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates a run for his money. Though he’s circumspect, he leaves little doubt that he’d like to be New York City police commissioner, but he’s savvy enough to say that Gates is no role model.

From the outset, Crimaldi has made his presence known. Typically, his deputies, armed with .38 revolvers and protected by bulky bulletproof vests, will burst into a store or an office, surround the owner and demand thousands of dollars in unpaid fines--immediately. If the answer is no, the cash register is emptied to pay off the debt or the store is closed on the spot and its assets sold off.

A sheriff’s visit, some storekeepers claim, can feel more like a holdup than a debt collection.

But no one, not even his enemies, can argue with Crimaldi’s success. In 1989, the year before Crimaldi took the $103,000-a-year job, the previous sheriff collected so little that when overhead was figured in, the office actually lost $700,000. In Crimaldi’s first 10 months, he garnered $27.2 million. The target for this year is $64 million.

But the ugliness over his hard-nose tactics has nearly obscured his success. He’s become known as the Ultimate Repo Man, the Road Warrior, the Dirty Harry of Civil Servants. . . .

“Call me anything, but don’t call me a Nazi,” Crimaldi says, grimacing at a New York Post cartoon that depicts his men in jackboots and Gestapo-style caps.

It’s time to see the sheriff in action. Crimaldi pulls up to a Gristede’s, a well-known chain supermarket. But it’s Chief Deputy Linda Reynolds who leads the charge into the store. Crimaldi explains that he’ll wait outside because all the publicity has made him a marked man.

“I walk in, and they (shopkeepers) claim they see 10 men with shotguns,” he says.

Reynolds calmly explains the facts of life to store manager John Silver: He has ignored at least nine warnings--the minimum number required before Crimaldi’s forces strike--and now owes $7,325.93 in fines and interest on unpaid sanitation summonses.

Silver is sweating but calm. He calls Gristede’s headquarters, puts Reynolds on the phone, and an air of unreality takes over. The store’s public-address system bleats out a Muzak version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” while the deli manager tries to prevent photographs from being taken “for security reasons.” Other armed sheriff’s deputies surround the cash registers to make sure no money is taken away. The air has become very still.

Reynolds is polite but persistent. She plays her ultimate card--pay up, or the store will be closed on the spot. The man in headquarters backs down. If Reynolds will send her men Uptown, a check will be cut for the entire amount.

Reynolds smiles. “This is good. We try not to close the store.”

Closing a supermarket is among the least of the sheriff’s incredible powers, bestowed during World War II, as Crimaldi explains. Decades later, that power remains, granted by the state Constitution--which to this day considers the city sheriff “the chief law enforcement officer of the state.” (While the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is currently under fire for an alleged pattern of using excessive force, its overall jurisdiction is more limited than in New York.)

“The sheriff can, without notifying the mayor, ask the commander of the National Guard to go anywhere he feels appropriate with a full complement of troops. The sheriff can, if he deems a public emergency, direct the Police Department to do anything that need be done. The sheriff can walk into a topless bar, and if a woman exposes more than one-quarter of an inch of her aureole, she can be arrested,” Crimaldi says with a disarming smile.

“But the reality is that I can’t call out the National Guard and I can’t override the police commissioner.” He thinks for a second. “I probably could arrest someone whose aureole was exposed and not be dismissed.”

One can imagine how this type of braggadocio, combined with dozens of complaints from constituents who have had their cars towed, could make city lawmakers uncomfortable.

Crimaldi’s sworn enemy is Noach Dear, a councilman from Brooklyn. “People call continuously to complain about him,” Dear says. “Here is someone who takes his power to his head and thinks he can do anything he wants.”

Crimaldi’s tough-guy tactics make Dear wince: “Why don’t we take any thief off the street and give him a gun and say, ‘Hey, instead of working for yourself, work for the city of New York’ ?”

Indeed, a recent hearing on the sheriff’s tactics called by Dear brought forth a mixed bag of complainants. Koudellou Savvas, a Queens garage owner, asserted that six sheriff’s deputies beat him when he questioned their right to tow a car being serviced at his garage. And Linda Swift, a city marshal--the marshals are not part of Crimaldi’s agency--alleged that she had been roughed up after a heated verbal exchange over who had first dibs on a car to be towed. She has filed suit for $5 million.

To Crimaldi, their complaints are not credible. He has his version, and they have theirs.

“You gotta have intestinal fortitude (for this job),” he says. “I do things a lot of people would not have the guts to do. Most agency heads seek the status quo. The secret of success in government is to do nothing.”

As for his tactics, Crimaldi points to the 16 deputies who have wound up in hospitals in the last two years. He claims his men--there are 120 deputies in his department--have been shot at four times by snipers. In one case, he says, a deputy had a gun put to his head. The assailant pulled the trigger, but the gun misfired.

“I have deputies who have been spit at right in their faces and have said to the spitters, ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,’ ” he says.

At East 54th Street and Fifth Avenue, the executive recruiting offices of the Gap, there is very little chance anyone will spit in anyone else’s face. After finishing up at Gristede’s, Crimaldi has headed over to the jeans manufacturer, which has been opening stores helter-skelter and has garnered a slew of fire violations and sanitation summonses. Three store managers have ignored fines and interest totaling $15,991.27, according to the sheriff.

Again, Crimaldi sends Chief Deputy Reynolds upstairs while he stays on the street to supervise a massive towing operation. (It’s only 11:30 a.m., and Crimaldi announces that his men have plucked the cars of 189 scofflaws. By day’s end, that number will jump to between 400 and 500.)

Meanwhile, eight floors above Crimaldi, Reynolds and fellow Deputy Brian Boyar--dressed in ugly rayon Windbreakers and festooned with belts chockablock with .38 revolvers, handcuffs and radios--are face to face with executives in mini-skirts.

Just the sight of the deputies causes office manager Lynn Brady to ask if they can go someplace where she can smoke.

For the second time today, Reynolds is on the phone with the Voice From Headquarters. She runs through the program: She wants the $15,991.27 now; yes, there have been at least nine prior warnings; no, she cannot wait for a letter from the company’s lawyers.

Finally, Reynolds puts down the phone. Brady, on her second cigarette, nervously asks what happens next.

“She was totally uncooperative,” Reynolds says of the Voice. “We’re going to close the stores and sell the assets to pay off the judgments.”

“Wait a minute. I can’t have that,” Brady says. “They usually only cut checks twice a week, but maybe they’ll make an exception.”

It’s clear that Brady has gotten the message. Reynolds relaxes. It’s going to work out after all. After a few more minutes, she agrees to give Brady until the following day so a check can be sent overnight from California.

“Somebody’s going to get in trouble over this,” Brady says by way of goodby.

Downstairs, Crimaldi is smiling. The tow trucks have picked the block clean.

But that’s not all: He proudly displays a check. It’s from Gristede’s, which the deputies visited only two hours ago. And it is for $7,325.93--the entire amount due.