NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A city Correction Department detainee who escaped custody by rappelling down a Manhattan hospital with a rope made of bedsheets was recaptured this week—more than a month after the wild getaway, police said.
Yenchun Chen, 44, was arrested early Tuesday in Queens and charged with escaping custody.
His arrest came more than four weeks after police said Chen—who is 6 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs 250 pounds—climbed out of a fifth-floor window at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Gramercy on the afternoon of Aug. 9.
He used bedsheets and other linens to scale the side of the hospital around 4:30 p.m. and shimmy down to the street, law enforcement sources said.
He then hailed a yellow taxi and fled down Second Avenue to New Jersey, according to cops.
Reports soon emerged of his capture, but they turned out to be false and Chen remained at large until he was picked up in Long Island City on Tuesday by DOC officers and the U.S. Marshals, police said.
Following his rearrest, Chen was again taken to a Manhattan hospital for treatment of a medical condition he had prior to his daring escape, sources told WCBS-TV.
Chen was initially in DOC custody on drug possession charges and had been taken to Mount Sinai after complaining of chest pains.