Wendy’s Suspect Had Been Freed on $3,500 Bail

A man arrested in the execution slayings of five people at a Wendy’s was a fugitive who had been freed on $3,500 bail after a string of armed robberies at fast-food restaurants, authorities said Saturday.

Prosecutors had requested a bail of $100,000 for John “Benji” Taylor, but the judge released him last summer “on a ridiculously low bail,” said Sherry Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Queens district attorney.

The 36-year-old suspect and an alleged accomplice were to be arraigned Saturday for killing five Wendy’s employees and wounding two others. Their heads wrapped in plastic, they were bound, gagged and shot execution-style.

It was the most gruesome crime on a trail that authorities say stretches back to the summer of 1996, when Taylor was assistant manager of a McDonald’s near the Empire State Building. He was found guilty of trying to break into the restaurant’s safe and was sentenced to five years’ probation.

Then, in the course of a week last June, he was linked to robberies or attempted robberies at four fast-food businesses in Queens.

A source close to law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Taylor admitted his guilt in robberies on June 19 and June 23, and prosecutors were negotiating a 12-year sentence last August.

Taylor failed to appear in court on Oct. 22 and again on Nov. 5. Authorities issued a warrant for him and he had been a fugitive since.

A spokesman for New York Gov. George Pataki said Pataki has proposed legislation that would give prosecutors the right to appeal low bail for a suspect such as Taylor. The bill passed the Senate earlier this week and is up for a vote in the Assembly.