NOTORIOUS: Aurelina Leonor (above) will be paroled after 18 years for the 1993 kidnapping of Harvey Weinstein, who was kept in a hole after being snatched by brothers Fermin and Antonio Rodriguez. (Charles Wenzelberg)
Harvey Weinstein as he is rescued. (NBC-TV)
(Anthony Fioranelli)
The hole where Weinstein was kept. (NY Post: David Rentas)
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In one of the city’s most sensational kidnapping cases, a millionaire businessman known as “the Tuxedo King” lay entombed in a camouflaged crypt alongside the Henry Hudson Parkway on the Upper West Side for 13 agonizing days in 1993.
Now, the girlfriend of one of his kidnappers, who placed many of the 50 ransom calls to the family of victim Harvey Weinstein, is about to get out of prison — after serving the bare minimum of her 18-years-to-life sentence.
“I am shocked,” retired NYPD Deputy Inspector George Duke, then head of the Major Case Squad, said of the upcoming release of Aurelina Leonor after her first parole hearing. Leonor and her cohorts “were lucky,” Duke told The Post. “Harvey was such a tough Marine — or else they all would have been arrested for homicide.”
At the time of the kidnapping, the then-68-year-old Weinstein could be heard pleading, “This is unbearable,” on a tape Leonor made by lowering the microphone into his hole, telling him she was “Jane Fonda from the Black Cat Organization.”
That tape was later played to Weinstein’s anxious family by the kidnappers, who demanded $3 million for his return.
Weinstein, who died in 2007, was abducted at knifepoint on Aug. 4, 1993, by Antonio Rodriguez in Jackson Heights, Queens. Rodriguez’s brother, Fermin, who was Leonor’s boyfriend, had worked for Weinstein at his Lord West Formal Wear factory and hatched the scheme.
The next day, the brothers called the executive offices of Lord West, claiming “the Black Cat Organization” had Weinstein. The male caller, possibly another cohort, William Rivera, demanded the $3 million ransom. The kidnappers promised to release Weinstein three hours after the ransom was delivered.
Twelve days after he was snatched, one of Weinstein’s sons was directed to a series of locations in upper Manhattan before finally being instructed to leave the ransom near Highbridge Park, on 190th Street near Amsterdam Avenue, police said at the time.
As cops watched from a distance, the cash, in two satchels, was picked up by Fermin Rodriguez and lugged into Highbridge Park, where he met his brother.
One of the bags with $1 million was left behind in the park and later recovered by police.
But three hours and 10 minutes after the pickup, cops still weren’t told where to find Weinstein.
They’d been tailing Fermin Rodriguez and — though the FBI was against it — moved in and nabbed him. His brother was arrested at his parents’ home.
With the Rodriguez brothers in custody, cops began the hunt for Weinstein. With information the brothers provided, they finally found him — chained and buried in a 14-foot- deep, 5-foot-wide grave along the parkway.
Fermin Rodriguez was sentenced to 20 years to life. His brother served 15 years and was paroled, turned over to immigration Jan. 20, 2008, and deported
to his native Dominican Republic.
Rivera pleaded guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy, was sentenced to 12½ to 30 years and was paroled on Aug. 10, 2010.
Leonor is now slated to be released from the Bayveiw Correctional Facility in Chelsea, NY, on no later than Aug. 12, parole officials said.