A high-profile designer has been arrested for planting false bombs in illuminated ‘I Heart NY’ shopping bags across the city and is being held for a month-long mental evaluation, authorities said Sunday.
Takeshi Miyakawa, 50, of Brooklyn, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and placing a fake bomb and hazardous material when cops caught him installing one of the devices to a lamppost near McCarren Park in Williamsburg early Saturday, cops said.
Just a day earlier, police received a 911 call about a suspicious package attached to a tree on Bedford Avenue, which Miyakawa allegedly also did.
Upon arriving, cops found a plastic shopping bag and the area was evacuated for two hours while an NYPD bomb squad investigated.
They later determined the device was harmless.
Police said they saw Miyakawa around 2 a.m. Saturday on top of an aluminum ladder attempting to hang a plastic bag.
Cops discovered the bag contained the same wires and contraption as the other bags found and also discovered four other contraptions in a gray van parked nearby.
Miyakawa was installing the plastic totes throughout various parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan as an artistic statement meant to coincide with NY Design Week, which he will no longer be able to participate in, sources said.
Miyakawa was arraigned Sunday in front of Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Martin Murphy.
Judge Murphy did not impose bail but ordered Miyakawa held for a month to undergo a mental evaluation, according to court records.
Miyakawa’s lawyer, Deborah Blum, said that she is planning on filing for emergency relief seeking his release.
Miyakawa works for the prominent West Village architect Rafael Vinoly. He was born in Japan and has no prior arrests, cops said.
A source said that Miyakawa was ‘extremely cooperative’ with the cops who arrested him and had “absolutely no malicious intent.”