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A greedy cabby took a Staten Island family on a circuitous ride to beef up their tab — and then sped off with the mom’s two iPads when she questioned the fare, she told The Post yesterday.
Nasser Amadou picked up Jennifer Joyce-Consolazio, 44, on West 40th Street in Midtown for a trip with five children downtown to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal on March 16.
But he allegedly took a scenic route via the east side and ran the meter up to $22 — about $10 more than her husband’s direct trip in a second cab.
Joyce-Consolazio argued with the driver and told him to wait for her husband.
“He freaked out when he knew that I knew what he was doing,” she said.
“I tried to keep my cool, because the kids were there, but the truth is he scared me. The looks on the girls’ faces — they were terrified.”
Amadou pushed her and grabbed her iPad, which she’d been holding to look at pictures from the party, Joyce-Consolazio said.
He then allegedly grabbed her 8-year-old cousin’s iPad mini from her other hand, threw the tablets in the back of the cab and bolted.
Her husband was able to track the cab via the stolen iPad with an app on his phone to East 56th Street and Second Avenue before Amadou allegedly shut off the iPad.
Joyce-Consolazio filed a report at the Sixth Precinct. Amadou, meanwhile, tried to file his own report with the First Precinct but was rebuffed.
The next day, he was arrested and charged with robbery and criminal possession of stolen property. His hack license was suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
Joyce-Consolazio said she hailed the cab after her stepdaughter’s 11th-birthday party at the Frames Bowling Lounge and knew something was wrong when the cabby headed east and yelled at her when she told him just to go straight downtown.
“As soon as I got in the car, he was trying to rob me,” she said.
He even turned around at one point, adding even more money to the meter, she said.“What this guy did is so unfair and unjust. I got mugged in front of my kids.”