An ex-con who took part in the robbery and murder of a Columbia University professor more than 40 years ago demanded that the school paper retract an article about the case — and then threatened to kill the staffers, authorities said on Wednesday.
Daniel Mingues, 60, slipped into the Columbia Spectator on July 1 and told workers to take the article off the website.
“I killed someone before, I can do it again,” said Mingues, who hoped the paper would cut him a break since he took classes at the school last year and earned a computer software verification certificate.
In September 1972, Mingues and brothers David and Steven Robinson robbed Columbia law professor Wolfgang Friedmann as he walked down Amsterdam Avenue after class back in September 1972.
Friedmann, a Jewish refugee who escaped Nazi Germany during the war, put up a fight as the teens wrested his wallet and watch before Steven plunged a knife into his chest.
Mingues, who served five years after pleading guilty to robbery, claims the whole thing is a big misunderstanding.
“I told [a newspaper staffer] I was there about an article involving my past,” Mingues told The Post from his Morningside Heights apartment Wednesday.
Mingues said that he was let into the building by a student and began searching for the newspaper’s office.
“I didn’t say nothing [threatening],” he said, describing the encounter.
“I told him, ‘I killed someone and the article was posted online and I wanted it taken down.’”
But when the uneasy students tried to get Mingues to leave, that’s when he supposedly made the veiled threat, according to cops.
“I’m trying to change my life around,” he continued. “I did my time for that.”
After getting out, he served at least two more bids in state prison; one for possession of stolen property and another for manslaughter for shooting a man to death in Oct. 1984.
“I have a kid now,” he said. “I made a promise to my family. I have been home 15 years now. I’m not going back.”
Police said they were looking to speak with Mingues about the incident.
Additional reporting by Ross Toback.