NY NY - NYC cops suspect serial killer;bouncer Stephen Sakai

May 25, 2006 -- The burly bouncer who allegedly shot four men, one fatally, outside a Chelsea club is being eyed as a suspect in three other murders - including one of a bouncer who worked at the same nightclub, law-enforcement sources said yesterday.



Stephen Sakai, 30, was even questioned in one of the slayings - the Nov. 16 murder in Brooklyn of Irving Matos, 42, a bouncer who worked at the topless bar Sweet Cherry, the sources said.

Matos, who was found in the basement of 199 31st St. in Sunset Park, was sitting on a couch in front of a television. "He worked as a bouncer. We thought it was related to that," said Irving's brother, Victor Matos, 48. "The person who did this had to have known [Irving]. The door was open when he was killed."


"He worked as a bouncer. We thought it was related to that," said Irving's brother, Victor Matos, 48. "The person who did this had to have known [Irving]. The door was open when he was killed."

Sakai is also being eyed in the Nov. 28 killing of Edwin Mojica, 41, who worked as a bouncer at Opus 22, the club where Tuesday night's rampage took place, the sources said.

Sakai was supposed to meet with his fellow bouncer the night Mojica was killed, the source said.

Mojica was found dead at 16 Manhattan Ave. in Williamsburg.



In both cases, the victims were shot in the back of the head, the source said. Sakai is also being looked at in a third, unspecified murder in Brooklyn, the sources said.


The slaying comes at a sensitive time for bar owners. Scrutiny has intensified since another Manhattan bouncer was arrested for the murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen.
Darryl Littlejohn, an ex-con who was working as a bouncer at The Falls on Feb. 25, the night St. Guillen was killed, has been charged with her rape and murder.
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He's a total 'roony'
Accused serial killer Stephen Sakai made a bizarre spectacle of himself on the stand at his trial yesterday - affecting a farcical Asian accent and claiming to have flown to the Far East on a private jet for martial-arts competitions.
The 32-year-old Sakai, who is not Asian and whose birth name is Sanders, wore a Charlie Chan-like mustache and pronounced his "L's" as "R's" as he testified to deny any role in the three killings he is charged with.
"Rast name, Sakai," he told the court clerk.
The former bouncer at Sunset Park strip bar Sweet Cherry and Chelsea club Opus 22 faces life in prison for allegedly stabbing to death a one-time buddy, Wayne Tyson, and fatally shooting fellow bouncers Irving Matos and Edwin Mojica in 2005.
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Bouncer quickly arraigned on three murder charges
The lawyers in a triple-murder case filed some paperwork, the judge named some dates and then the court officers called the next case: a skinny 17-year-old with a green T-shirt and a petty robbery charge. That was it. In the time it takes to order breakfast, a man was formally arraigned yesterday, accused of being a New York City serial killer.
The accused man, Stephen Sakai, 30, never looked up from his white sneakers, which touched the chains on his ankles, which dangled below the base of his wheelchair, which he had begun using since his arrest. He stayed in it through the short hearing. “He’s ill,” said his lawyer, Edward D. Wilford, who declined to elaborate.
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Self Defense. Bouncer told cops he had to kill
THE BOUNCER charged in a fatal shooting outside a Manhattan nightclub pleaded not guilty yesterday to three more murders, all in Brooklyn.
Alleged serial killer Stephen Sakai, 30, was silent and in a wheelchair at his Brooklyn Supreme Court arraignment. But in statements to police released yesterday he claimed two of the three Brooklyn killings were in self-defense.
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Bouncer's slew of slay clues: DA
Alleged serial-killer bar bouncer Stephen Sakai fancied himself a coldblooded professional killer, but he left obvious clues and witnesses behind as he went on a three-month killing rampage in Brooklyn, prosecutors said yesterday as they opened their triple-murder case.
According to prosecutors, Sakai, 32, walked away from his crime scenes without even a thought.
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