Reginald "Reggie" Chance being lead in cuffs into Manhattan Central Booking Saturday night.
Photo: Paul Martinka
Reginald Chance, 37, of Brooklyn — who sources say has a rap sheet with 21 prior arrests — is allegedly the violent “motor-psycho” who used his chrome helmet to smash open a window of victim Alexian Lien’s Range Rover on Sept. 29.
Lien, an Internet exec from Lower Manhattan, was then dragged from the SUV and stomped in front of his horrified wife and 2-year-old daughter.
Chance spent Saturday in lineups at the 33rd Precinct in Washington Heights before being charged with first-degree gang assault, assault and criminal mischief.
As many as six bikers preyed on Lien, kicking him in the head even as he tried to crawl to safety, according to prosecutors.
Robert Sims
Meanwhile, a church-going Good Samaritan who intervened in the attack said Sunday that he “felt intense danger” as he protected Lien from the mob of motorcyclists.
Sergio Consuegra said he was on his way to prayer services when he saw Lien’s SUV stop on 178th Street, where a bunch of bikers began pounding on it, with one of them trying to grab Lien’s wife, Rosalyn Ng.
“She was kind of making some sounds,” he told reporters during a press conference with elected officials at the scene of the attack.
“I saw a baby inside; she had the baby in her arms, I guess she was protecting the baby from all the glass that was flying inside and outside.”
Consuegra said bystanders started screaming for the woman and baby to be left alone, and the biker let go, after which Consuegra stepped in between the victim and the bikers.
“There was more coming, and they feel like they wanted to keep hurting the man — and I felt intense danger at that moment, at that time, and I say to myself, ‘Let me not show these people that I’m here to engage in any kind of confrontation but that I’m here to protect the man and the family, so I’m going to keep it cool.’ That’s what I was thinking,” Consuegra said.
He added: “I made a simple step that day, a simple gesture. … I must say today, to send a message to all that whenever they see a family in crisis, no matter the circumstances, when they cry for help, be there for them.”
Chance was the second biker busted in the chilling attack, after Robert Sims, 35, of Brooklyn, who was arraigned Saturday on charges of gang assault and felony assault.
Sims was identified on video and photographs by his distinctive black leather jacket, grey backpack, his helmet, which featured the number, “78,” and his grey and white sneakers — which prosecutors say Sims used to kick the cowering dad’s head and body.
“The defendant is clearly seen stomping on [Lien’s] head,” assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass told Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Diana Boyar, who set a whopping $100,000 cash bail.
Sims —- whose rap sheet includes a 2002 bust for car theft, and gun possession, drug possession and samauri sword possession in 1998, according to sources —- has admitted he’s been caught on camera, the prosecutor said.
His lawyer, Luther Williams, insisted his client is innocent and said the bikers only went after Lien to prevent him from leaving the scene after striking one of the other bikers with his Rover.
Sims is also charged with weapons possession. Prosecutors did not name the weapon, but Williams speculated that officials mean his client’s helmet.
“What weapon? Unless they are suggesting the helmets are weapons,” Williams said.
Meanwhile, a source close to the case told The Post that the off-duty NYPD undercover detective who stood by Lien was attacked — and who only came forward Wednesday — is insisting that the violence broke with blinding speed, and that he believed blowing his cover could endanger his own life.
“It all happened so fast,” said the source, who talked directly to the undercover and spoke to The Post on the condition of anonymity. “It wasn’t apparent what was happening till the very end — then it was a feeding frenzy.”
Added Detectives Endowment Association president Michael Palladino, “Leading a double life is not easy for undercovers.”
Palladino pointed to the case of Detective Gescard Isnora, the undercover cop who blew his own cover and fired the first shot in the 50-bullet fusillade that killed Sean Bell outside a Queens strip club in 2006.
“Detective Isnora was on-duty and got fired for stepping out of his undercover role,” Palladino said. “This undercover was off-duty and has every reason to expect the same if something goes wrong.”
The motorcycle-loving undercover — whose work is being described as dangerous and “deep undercover” — had joined last Sunday’s 300-rider rally, and admits watching and doing nothing as Lien was attacked in front of his wife and 2-year-old daughter near 178th Street.
The undercover has had his badge and gun yanked and remains under departmental investigation after only coming forward as a witness on Wednesday night.
A second cop was along for the ride, multiple sources have said, and is also under departmental investigation after coming forward only days after the incident.
The biker who shot the viral video that first captured the motorcyclists’ gang pursuit, Kevin Bresloff, 37, of Bellport, Long Island, also visited the 33rd Precinct Saturday — as a witness, said his lawyer, Andrew Vecere.
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan, Kevin Fasick, Kenneth Garger, Aaron Feiss and Matt McNulty
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