EXCLUSIVE: Man busted for stealing MTA bus from Staten Island Ferry terminal — again
“I want to be a bus driver,” Nickolas Ellias told police when he first drove a bus back to his home in 2014.
A 22-year-old man arrested two years ago for swiping a city bus was busted on Staten Island Friday for stealing another one, officials said.
Nickolas Ellias is accused of taking off in an empty city bus parked at the Staten Island Ferry terminal shortly after midnight, officials said.
Ellias took the bus on a nearly four-mile joyride, abandoning it at the corner of Port Richmond Ave. and Ann St. in Port Richmond, officials said.
The bus was reported missing about 2:20 a.m., police sources said.
Staten Island man takes MTA bus for joyride
Cops caught up with Ellias near his home on Broad St. in Stapleton about 3:15 a.m. and took him into custody.
Ellias seems to be following in the footsteps of city folk hero Darius McCollum, who has been getting in legal trouble for commandeering buses city buses subway trains since he was 15. McCollum is currently the subject of a documentary called “Off The Rails.”
Ellias seen driving the MTA bus he stole.
Ellias first swiped a bus, from the same ferry terminal ramp, in June 2014 and drove it 1.6 miles to his home.
“I want to be a bus driver,” Ellias told police in 2014, according to a law enforcement source. “I was going to return the bus when I was done.”
Ellias pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in the 2014 case and is on probation until 2018, officials said.
His arraignment on new grand larceny and criminal mischief charges was pending Friday.