After a roughly 8-hour standoff, an alleged conman and attempted sky-scraper jumper was yanked away from his post at the ledge of a shattered, 31st-story window.
Ian Mitchell was finally subdued after an NYPD Emergency Service Unit officer rappelled the outside of the 72-story CitySpire building and climbed into the suicidal man’s condominium.
Dramatic video shows the stealthy officer climbing a rope down from the apartment above Mitchell’s 31st-floor home.
Another ESU cop held the rope steady as the descending officer scaled the building and lept through the already-broken window, where Mitchell was seen dangling over the ledge throughout the day.
A team of hostage negotiators and officers from the NYPD and FBI were stationed in the hallway just outside Mitchell’s front door and had been talking with him in the hours before the NYPD’s breakthrough.
Mitchell was ushered out of the building covered in a white sheet. He was put in an ambulance and taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.
Police sources said Mitchell threatened to jump from the skyscraper around 8:40 a.m. as the FBI attempted to serve an arrest warrant for a “white-collar crime,” but did not elaborate further.
Mitchell had allegedly once posed as the scion of a wealthy Jamaican family in order to trick investors into forking over hundreds of thousands of dollars for his own personal gain, authorities told The Post in 2019.
He passed himself off as investment banker “Ian Matalon,” a relative of the wealthy Jamaican businessman Joseph Matalon, and duped at least three victims into investing in a fake hedge fund, cops alleged.
The crook allegedly stole half the life savings of an Air Force veteran and more than $158,000 from a businessman.
The Manhattan DA’s Office was looking into the status of the investment scam cases Wednesday afternoon.
