Joevani Vale: NYC serial attacker who killed lottery winner, 83, after assaulting 2 women was previously charged with forcible touching
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: Cops have identified the man who fatally stabbed an elderly man and attacked two women in a horrific crime spree in Brooklyn. Joevani Vale, 26, has been accused of stabbing to death Ramon Cintron, 83, who had just hit the lottery. Cintron's body was discovered in the elevator on the 19th floor at 185 Nevins Street, police have confirmed. The assault was caught on surveillance video, where Vale can be seen kicking the man before brutally slashing him.
The series of events is said to have begun after Vale randomly punched a woman at Pacific Street and Third Avenue, sources revealed. Authorities believe the attacker slashed a woman in the thigh a block later, at 134 Nevins Street. The woman, 31, was rushed to Methodist Hospital for treatment after police responded to a 911 call. Hours later, Cintron's body was discovered and he was pronounced dead at the scene. He reportedly had slash wounds to the neck and right arm. All of the attacks took place in less than one hour on Saturday, April 8.
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“We were supposed to go visit [Cintron] on Friday, and he wasn’t feeling good, and he had to go into the hospital,” the victim's nephew, Angel Cintron, told New York Post. She said her uncle had a pacemaker, stating, "He came out Saturday morning, and the first thing he did was go over and play his numbers at that corner deli. He always went to the corner to play the numbers. His whole life he did that.”
'He was so kind to everyone'
According to two neighbors, Cintron scored in a game of chance before he was murdered but it is unclear how much money he won. Angel said cops told the family her uncle's wallet was missing, and it “makes perfect sense” now. “[A robbery is] the only reason somebody would hurt him. He was so kind to everyone,” Angel said of Cintron.
Cintron’s niece, Elisa, said he was lovingly nicknamed 'Flaco,' Spanish for 'Skinny'. “He was very independent and genuinely a nice, happy, friendly person,” she said. “He worked at the same pharmacy until it went out of business. He worked into his 70s.”
She said that Cintron's brother, who is her father, “isn’t doing too well." “He has a very tough job of telling everyone in the family what happened,” Elisa said. “He is taking it very hard. I’ve never seen him like this. No one would ever think that this is how Flaco would leave.”
Neighbors loved Cintron too. “I love that old man like my grandfather,” Victor Santiago, the manager of Papa Firo Grocery in Boerum Hill, said. He comes every day at 5 [p.m.] and hangs out and plays the Lotto and the scratch-off. He does favors for everyone. He’s like a grandfather to the neighborhood."
Who is Joevani Vale?
Joevani Vale had at least three previous arrests, including for allegedly slashing a 36-year-old man in front of 502 President St. in Carroll Gardens. For this, he was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, menacing, and assault. He was also charged with forcible touching in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood in 2016. He was accused of public lewdness in the borough’s 84th Precinct, which includes Boerum Hill, in 2015.
Vale was identified as Cintron's attacker from surveillance footage. Vale and Cintron were neighbors and reportedly lived in the same building in the Wyckoff Gardens public housing complex.
A neighbor spotted Cintron lying inside the elevator after Vale had fled and dialed 911. "Flaco, everybody loved him,” the neighbor said. “He had a lot of heart."
“He goes over to that grocery store, Papa Firo, every day and plays the number, and yesterday he was going to collect on a winner,” the neighbor said. “And he followed him. Of Vale, the neighbor said, "I stay away from him."