The mother of the 20-year-old suspect in the savage, fatal mugging of an East Village grandfather is claiming her son must have been dosed on the potent ecstasy drug Molly by pals, after a brief court appearance where baby-faced, teary-eyed Jamie Pugh was ordered held without bail.
“People are going to believe what they see on TV,” his mom, Charlotte Pugh-Douglas, griped after insisting her son must have been high on Molly during the deadly beating. “My son is not like that.”
But Pugh’s own defense lawyer, Frank Rothman, said the distraught mom did not have firsthand knowledge of her son’s sobriety, or lack thereof, during the brutal attack. “She’s speaking as a panicked mother who’s saying that if this [charge] is in fact true, then someone must have drugged him, because that’s not who her son is,” Rothman said.
Meanwhile more than a dozen family members of victim Wen Hui Ruan, 68, turned out to Manhattan Criminal Court to watch as Pugh was charged with intentional murder, felony assault and attempted robbery.
Pugh got teary eyed when Judge Bruna DiBiase ordered him held without bail and a prosecutor said he would likely spend the rest of his life behind bars.
But despite the water works, Pugh had been all bravado during the mugging, telling his frail victim, “Give me everything you got,” prosecutor Shawn McMahon told the judge.
“This is my block,” Pugh allegedly snarled as he threw the old man into a wall, then punched and kicked him in the head as he lay cowering on the ground.
Ruan, an immigrant from Toishan, in southern China. was attacked on Sixth Street near Avenue D at 8:45 Friday. He was a block from his home after dropping off two granddaughters he’d just taken to a nearby playground.
The prosecutor called the attack, “one of the most horrific acts I’ve ever seen,” and said there is “significant evidence,” against Pugh, including video surveillance showing him wearing a “unique” shirt.
“It makes me a little sick to see him,” the victim’s daughter, Michelle Ruan, said after court.
“We would especially like to thank the citizens who called in phone tips. We hope this case will move quickly through the court system and the guilty are punished to the [fullest] extent of the law,” Michelle added.