Father of NYC menace ‘Ice Pick Nick’ grateful son is behind bars: ‘Saving his life’
The father of the East Village madman known as “Ice Pick Nick” is grateful his son is behind bars — for his own safety and that of his neighbors, he told The Post.
“Being locked up is just saving his life,” Nicholas Babilonia Sr., 66, said days after The Post reported on his son’s decades-long reign of terror in the community and his recent, long-awaited arrest.
“Maybe just leave him there till he fixes himself up.”
Nicholas Babilonia Jr., 45, was finally sent to Rikers last week for allegedly threatening a person on Avenue C on May 10 with a gun and swinging at them with a metal pipe, according to court records.
The incident followed a series of attacks on residents in his childhood community, including an alleged stabbing attempt on a sexagenarian dog walker with an ice pick, according to neighbors.
On at least two other occasions, Babilonia Jr. allegedly assaulted East Village locals, only to be taken by police to Bellevue to be stabilized — and released within days, according to the victims.
Last June, Babilonia Jr. was arrested for chasing his sister with a pipe on Avenue C after she tried to give him food, but dodged time in the clink because Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office hit him with misdemeanor menacing charges, which aren’t eligible for bail, according to police sources and DA spokesman Doug Cohen.
“We try to help, I give him money,” his father said. “If I try to help him, he attacks.”
Babilonia Sr. said he tried to raise his son well, including taking him to church “where the good things are.”
But his son struggled in school, eventually dropping out, and then ran away after his parents divorced.
“I did what I could as a dad,” he added. “I can’t do anything anymore.”
The elder Babilonia, who lives in the East Village, tore into the city and state for failing to keep his son and others safe by placing the violent vagrant in a long-term psychiatric program or behind bars — instead allowing him to menace the neighborhood and fuel the lawlessness plaguing the city.
“The system has collapsed,” said Babilonia Sr., echoing a Post editorial highlighting how the revolving doors of the mental health and criminal justice systems are putting New Yorkers’ lives at risk.
The frustrated father added that people like his son, who has been arrested 37 times, including for menacing, robbery and drug possession, will continue to terrorize the Big Apple “unless the government does something about the homeless and mentally ill people.”
“We have a problem taking care of our society,” he said.
Babilonia Jr. is among several repeat offenders with histories of mental illness who randomly attacked people on the city’s streets in recent weeks.
On Friday, Shaquan Cummings, 30, whose rap sheet includes over 20 arrests for assault, criminal mischief and fare evasion, allegedly slashed an 11-year-old girl in Harlem without warning.
The next day, Cyril Destin, 62, allegedly stabbed a tourist near Times Square in another senseless attack. Last December, Destin had been dragged by authorities to Bellevue after tossing a chair through a shelter window.
Carolyn Gorman, a policy analyst specializing in mental illness at the Manhattan Institute, blamed cases like Babilonia’s on mental health policy that works against in-patient treatment for psychiatric issues due to high costs, but also a reluctance toward involuntary treatment even for those in desperate need of help.
“You hear the same thing over and over from parents: They cannot get their adult children with serious mental illness help,” she said, adding that the Adams administration has made efforts to expand the city’s ability to involuntarily commit severely ill individuals.
In November, Mayor Adams touted an average of 137 mentally ill New Yorkers were being removed from the streets weekly, many of them through involuntary hospitalization measures.
The Adams administration also has thrown its support behind state legislation introduced last year by Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Queens), which would allow health professionals to extend the hospital stays for mentally ill individuals who have been involuntarily committed.
