Manhattan Hellhole

By JANICE C. SIMPSON

The pit was dark, almost unbearably claustrophobic. The dirt walls, where captors unknown to him had shackled his arms and legs, were so close together that he found it impossible to stretch out his lanky 6-ft. 2-in. frame. As for food, which they provided irregularly, he quickly realized he should eat the bananas first and save the more durable fruits for later. He never gulped down the water, uncertain when his kidnappers would deliver the next ration.

A far greater challenge was to stay mentally fit. He found comfort in recollections of Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler's classic novel about a prisoner locked in solitary confinement. After a while he began to reconstruct his own life story, then slowly recite, out loud, each heavily detailed chapter. "This is the verbal autobiography of Harvey Weinstein, aged 6," he intoned as he conjured up the memories of his first-grade teacher and long- forgotten classmates. Sometimes, however, the horror of his predicament got the best of him, and he cried out for his captors to kill him and leave his body on the side of a road so that his children could find it and bury him properly. It was as he struggled against just that degree of despair that he heard the voices: "Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein." They were calling his name.

"I'm here!" he shouted hoarsely. His liberators dug through 6 in. of dirt, removed three wooden planks and four cinder blocks, pushed away a heavy metal plate and helped him climb out of his hellhole. He embraced them and then, in a gravelly voice that crackled with gratitude and relief, he asked a cop for a smoke.

So ended a 13-day nightmare for Harvey Weinstein, the trim, elegant and, under normal circumstances, witty 68-year-old chief executive of Lord West ) Formalwear, one of the country's largest tuxedo manufacturers. Charged with his kidnapping were Fermin Rodriguez, 38, a collarmaker at Lord West; his younger brother Antonio, 29; and Fermin's girlfriend Aurelina Leonor, 44. The Rodriguez brothers didn't seem to have a personal grudge against Weinstein; Fermin reportedly told police his boss was a "nice guy." All they wanted was $3 million.

The kidnapping echoed last year's tragic abduction of Exxon executive Sidney Reso, who died after Arthur Seale, a former security officer for the giant oil company, and his wife Irene imprisoned him in a storage locker. While kidnapping is still a relatively rare crime in the U.S., the number of cases investigated by the FBI last year jumped 23%, to 713 cases, 66 of them involving ransoms. The CEOs of big public corporations and entertainment celebrities have become increasingly cautious, installing high-tech security systems and hiring bodyguards. Nowadays, say security experts, the more tempting targets are the wealthy owners of small and medium-size private businesses -- people like Harvey Weinstein.

Weinstein's ordeal began Aug. 4, just seconds after he left the Queens diner where he has breakfast every morning at 7. As Weinstein was getting into his 1988 Saab to drive to his nearby office, a man wielding a knife -- a man he had no opportunity to identify -- forced the door open and pushed him into the passenger's seat. A second man jumped into the back and put a noose around his throat. Blindfolded, Weinstein was driven to a secluded slope underneath the Henry Hudson Parkway, one of the city's main thoroughfares, and forced into the muddy cave 8 ft. underground where he would spend the next 293 hours. A Marine veteran who still plays singles tennis three times a week, Weinstein was not afraid of the physical challenge. "In my heart, I know I could never have survived without the training and combat experience I received in World War II," he said later.

His family and colleagues realized that something was amiss when Weinstein failed to meet his eldest daughter Lori at La Guardia Airport the morning of his kidnapping and then did not show up for an important business meeting a few hours later. The next day, the abductors, dramatically calling themselves the Black Cat Organization, phoned twice to demand a $3 million ransom. Those were the first of what would eventually total more than 50 calls, including one recorded message from Weinstein and a brief call he was allowed to make on ! a cellular phone that his captors lowered down into the pit. Weinstein tried to hint at his location. "This is Harvey . . . I'm in a hole."

The four Weinstein children set up a command post at their father's East Side apartment. Reinforced by members of their close extended family and rotating teams of detectives, they spent hours analyzing the calls. A woman, whom police believe to be Leonor, conducted most of the phone negotiations in a fractured English that sometimes defied interpretation. But her references to "Mr. Harvey," a term used by some of the employees at Lord West, suggested that insiders were involved in the abduction. Police officials, fearing that it might jeopardize Weinstein's safety, held back from questioning workers at the factory, but more than 100 detectives prowled the city in search of the executive, following the cryptic clues he had given them.

Frustrations increased when two rendezvous with the kidnappers fell through. A third attempt ran aground when a squadron of police cars, pursuing suspects in a totally unrelated crime, streaked through a site at the precise moment that the Weinsteins had been directed to leave the ransom there. The anxious family was worried that the kidnappers -- who never showed -- had suspected a trap and might retaliate against their victim. Finally, last Monday morning, came the go-ahead for the money drop. As instructed, Weinstein's eldest son Mark dragged two satchels filled with bills in small denominations to the entrance of a park in upper Manhattan, where he handed them to Fermin. But the kidnapper didn't keep his end of the bargain to release Weinstein within three hours. Fearing that the abductors might flee the country and abandon their victim to die, police moved in.

In the warm light of freedom, Harvey Weinstein made a victory lap around the city, strolling on Park Avenue with his children and stopping by police headquarters, where he honored his liberators, and the Lord West factory, where he was mobbed by most of his 400 employees. Only once was the celebration clouded: when he learned that a man on his payroll was involved. "The most devastating thing in retrospect," Weinstein confessed, "was when one of the officers told me that it was one of my own people."

According to his wife Josephina, Fermin began to change a year ago, beating her in front of their two children and cavorting with other women. Co-workers noticed changes too: Rodriguez had recently begun to brag about returning to the Dominican Republic, where, he said, he planned to build "a big place with an inside pool." Still many found it hard to believe that he would ever have resorted to kidnapping. "He didn't look like the type," says Frank Ramos, a buttonhole-maker at the factory. "And he don't have the brains." Luckily for Harvey Weinstein, Ramos was at least half right.