XPost: alt.politics.immigration, sac.sports, soc.culture.usa   
   XPost: alt.politics.democrats.d   
   From: beansoup@cnn.com   
      
   For someone who claims to hate being stopped by cops, he sure   
   winds up in handcuffs often enough.   
      
   The city’s poster boy against stop-and-frisk has been busted   
   three times for selling thousands of dollars in bogus Broadway,   
   concert and sporting tickets — including just this past Friday.   
      
   Angel Ortiz, 19, first grabbed the spotlight as a high-profile   
   plaintiff in anti-stop-and-frisk litigation in late 2012, giving   
   press interviews and posing for photos outside Manhattan federal   
   court as hearings were held.   
      
   “We were stopped, frisked and arrested for trespassing,” the   
   teen has complained to reporters, alleging he was thrown to the   
   ground and beaten by cops in a racial-profiling bust near his   
   Tremont, Bronx, home seven years ago.   
      
   “I was stopped, frisked, of course, and I was basically stripped   
   of my rights and arrested for no apparent reason, for visiting a   
   friend,” he told 1010 WINS in October 2012.   
      
   Ortiz’s arrest late Friday was for a quite apparent reason — for   
   allegedly selling phony tickets for “Book of Mormon,” “Kinky   
   Boots” and Giants games to rubes he met on Craigslist.   
      
   He was arraigned at Manhattan Criminal Court on Sunday and   
   charged with grand and petit larceny, possession of a forged   
   instrument and fraudulent accosting. He was held in lieu of   
   $10,000 bail.   
      
   Ortiz’s lawyer refused to comment after the hearing.   
      
   Ortiz allegedly hauled in a total of more than $2,000 from six   
   victims on a half-dozen occasions.   
      
   A Long Island surgeon told The Post on Sunday that the alleged   
   fraudster coaxed him into buying two tickets to a concert at   
   Radio City Music Hall in September.   
      
   “It’s scary what a charmer and scammer this guy is,” said Long   
   Island Dr. Harvey Manes, who purchased fake ducats to a Sarah   
   Brightman concert.   
      
   “I could have bought the Brooklyn Bridge from this guy, he was   
   so charming.”   
      
   Manes said he at first turned down the tickets, which each had a   
   face value of $100. But when Ortiz then dropped the price to $25   
   a pop, he scooped them up, only to later learn they were fake.   
      
   Ortiz also was arrested twice last spring on charges of selling   
   bad tickets to Broadway hits — and $500 in bogus ducats for an   
   April 2013 Rihanna concert at Barclays Center, law-enforcement   
   sources said.   
      
   Those arrests come just weeks after Ortiz stood before the   
   cameras and told reporters that he hoped his activism would make   
   kids like him safer — from cops.   
      
   “I’m glad I’m one of the first cases because hopefully, I’m one   
   of the last,” he said.   
      
   By April, he was getting caught allegedly selling $220 worth of   
   fake Rihanna tickets to two Texans on East 19th Street and Park   
   Avenue South, police said.   
      
   “When they get to the theater, and the bar code is scanned, they   
   get screwed,” said one law-enforcement source.   
      
   Cops rank Ortiz as a mediocre trickster — he’d text his alleged   
   victims from his own cellphone and often use his real name, even   
   letting his marks snap pictures of him and his state ID card   
   before walking off with their money, according to officials and   
   victims.   
      
   “He’s a moron,” another law-enforcement source told The Post.   
   “He gave people his real ID number.”   
      
   But to his half-dozen alleged victims, Ortiz was slick enough,   
   meeting them at Starbucks and hotel lobbies and sweet talking   
   them out of hundreds of dollars.   
      
   The alleged marks told The Post that Ortiz would text them   
   politely and helpfully throughout the day, even signing off on   
   one note, “Have a blessed day.”   
      
   He’d show up for the drop-off wearing dress clothes and a tie   
   and hand over hard-paper tickets plus a printed receipt before   
   traipsing away with their loot.   
      
   “We were a bit skeptical, but we asked to see his photo ID,”   
   remembered one Manhattan-based victim who asked her name not be   
   used. “We asked to see the credit card that was used to purchase   
   the tickets, and they all matched up,” she said of answering   
   Ortiz’s ad on Craiglist.   
      
   “Cannot make the show tonight. Looking to sell two tickets to   
   ‘The Book of Mormon,’?” she remembers the ad stating.   
      
   She and her husband met Ortiz at Bryant Park, peeling off $300   
   for a couple “Book of Mormon” tickets that were promptly   
   rejected at the theater.   
      
   “We were shocked,” she remembers.   
      
   She would be just as shocked to discover that her alleged   
   scammer had used his own now-famous name.   
      
   Doing her own sleuthing online, she stumbled upon one of Ortiz’s   
   many press clippings — complete with his photograph.   
      
   “I screamed, ‘Yes! I found him!’” and promptly called the cops.   
      
   “He’s really good at this,” said Jan Corlett, 59, of San   
   Francisco, who paid $640 for bogus “Book of Mormon” tix in   
   September.   
      
      
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