Hotel Bandit Meets Nude Linebacker

The NYPD is on the lookout for the hotel bandit, a man suspected of [preying on poor, innocent tourists] (if there is such a thing)  in their Manhattan hotels. Back in April, the alleged lowlife followed a nine-year-old Atlanta girl and her parents into an elevator at the downtown Millennium Hilton. He then forced the family into their room at gunpoint ,where he bound them with duct tape before stealing away with [cash, jewelry and electronic equipment](http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_156173154.html).

Then on Thursday night, a man fitting the same description [robbed and assaulted a California woman] in the Roosevelt hotel in midtown. Police believe the suspect waited in the hotel stairwell and then attacked the women from behind as she entered her room, pistol-whipping her in the head and taking her purse. But this time, as the perp was trying to escape down the hall, he ran into another hotel guest—big, bad former Notre Dame linebacker Tom Reynolds, who had emerged from his room [buck naked](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/06/05/2007-06-05_hotel_thug_slips_thru_his_naked_gr) at the sound of screams. The linebacker punched the suspect and knocked him to the ground, but he still managed to escape! “I wish I could have done more,” Reynolds told papers, “but I thought if I chased him, I’d get arrested for indecent exposure.”

[Surveillance footage] of the suspect has been released by police. No, Reynolds isn’t on there.

Photo courtesy of [powerbooktrance on Flickr]