Ruben Ubiles, 35, suspected of setting fire to more than a dozen mezuzahs during a two-day hate crime spree, told a NY Daily News reporter he has no alibi “because he can’t remember a thing.”
“I’m nothing but a lost boy in a man’s body,” a tearful Ruben Ubiles told the Daily News in an interview conducted inside Rikers Island. “I don’t hate nobody, I don’t even remember. . . . It don’t make no sense.”
According to police, Ubiles can be seen on security camera recordings inside two buildings in Williamsburg where 11 mezuzahs were torched last Monday, and another on Tuesday.
“I don’t remember burning nothing. It doesn’t make sense. Why would I do that?” Ubiles repeated.
Ubiles, the father of two, said his lack of memory could be explained by his lavish use over the previous weekend of methadone, cocaine, marijuana and pills, and—my personal favorite—lots and lots of alcohol.
“I was clean since February, and then three weeks ago I went back to getting high,” he said. “I’ve been in jail since I was 16. I’m tired of this cycle, it’s killing me.”
Ubiles was arrested Wednesday morning, when police found him hiding under a bed in his girlfriend’s apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant. He was taken to a hospital because he was too high on drugs to answer questions.
Police told the News that the suspect’s rap sheet has 52 previous arrests, including drug and assault charges.
