A businessman left his company-owned Range Rover in the hands of a Lower East Side garage attendant — who “borrowed” it for an eight-hour joyride through Queens, police sources said on Friday.
Alexis Nataf, 36, who owns luxury-flooring firm Exquisite Surfaces, went to pick up the expensive ride at iPark at Allen and Grand streets on June 21 — but it was gone, sources said.
When he asked where it was, a worker said a colleague took it for a spin — to his home in Queens, so he could clean his apartment, according to Nataf and police sources.
“I thought they were joking . . . but he stole my car for over eight hours!” Nataf told neighborhood blog Bowery Boogie.
The garage worker, Aneury Collado Garcia, 23, brought the SUV back by 1 p.m. — so Nataf didn’t press charges, he said. His rage hit full throttle when he confronted Garcia’s boss, who claimed the worker had done nothing wrong.
“The next day, I went to the garage to speak to the manager,” Nataf fumed. “He took the side of the employee and said that he thought I had given their employee permission to take my car.
“I told the thief that I never wanted to see him at the garage.”
But Nataf spotted Garcia — who had not been fired — working at the garage the next week. Outraged, he reported the crime to cops, who arrested Garcia on June 26, police sources said. He was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
One customer at the garage, which charges $300 to 350 a month and $20 a day, said he never had any trouble with the workers.
“The guys seem nice. I don’t even tip and they’re good to me . . . I guess there is no telling what people are going to do,” said Andrew, 31, a clothing-shop manager.
A spokesman for iPark said the worker had an arrangement with Nataf in which he would take the car out to get washed and waxed. Garcia did not drive the car to his home, the spokesman claimed.
Garcia could not be reached for comment at home or work.