Metro

Possible suspect in ice-pick robberies in custody: cops

Cops may have just nailed the “ice-pick mugger.”

A hulking ex-con was picked up by police in Bergen County, NJ, over the weekend — and sources said he’s suspected of being the ice-pick-wielding predator who has terrorized women in Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan and Co-Op City in The Bronx.

A spokeswoman for the Bergen County Sheriff’s Department said John Anthony Martinez, 39, was jailed Sunday as a “fugitive from justice.” He was caught by cops in Cliffside Park, NJ, Saturday night after a tipster contacted the New York State Division of Parole, one source said.

Martinez, who is 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds, had been sent to prison for 10 years for robbery in 1991 and only released from a halfway house on conditional parole in September, his New York State jail records show.

Martinez was picked up for a parole violation, authorities said.

A law-enforcement source said the NYPD is now seeking to bring Martinez back from Bergen County to New York for lineups as a “person of interest” in the ice-pick case. He is awaiting a hearing, possibly as early as today.

Last month, a ruthless mugger with an ice pick began preying on women as they went into their apartment buildings, robbing them of their jewelry, cash and valuables.

The frightening crime wave began Nov. 10.

In his first known attack, the thug robbed a woman of money and her cell phone just after midnight on Alcott Place in Co-Op City.

Four days later, he struck twice in broad daylight within five minutes – taking jewelry and shopping bags from a 45-year-old woman on Benchley Place, and cash from a 50-year-old woman on Elgar Place in the huge complex.

Then the creep rolled into Manhattan.

On Nov. 22, the mugger attacked a 63-year-old woman as she walked into her Cooper Road apartment in Stuy-Town. He made off with $700 in cash.

Then Thursday, the thug targeted a 40-year-old woman and a 32-year-old woman – both of whom were with their kids at the time, cops said.

In one of those instances, the perp threatened to stab one of the kids if his mom didn’t cough up more dough, sources said.

The creep took both women’s wedding rings.

There have been no injuries in any of the muggings.