Prisoner Taken to Hospital After Claiming Pregnancy Slips Cuffs, Escapes in Gown: NYPD

A prisoner taken to a hospital after claiming she was pregnant escaped wearing a gown over the weekend, prompting police brass to say the "lapses" that led to her escape, and the escape of others in Manhattan over the last few months, are not unacceptable.  

Tiffany Neumann, 23, slipped out of her handcuffs and fled New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Lower Manhattan around 9:10 p.m. Sunday, the NYPD said.

She had been arrested Saturday on the Upper West Side on charges of petit larceny, theft of service and criminal possession of stolen property.

Police say she gave them a fake name and told them she was pregnant. Officers took her to the hospital, where she was able to get her hands out of the cuffs.

It wasn't clear if Neumann was actually pregnant.

The circumstances regarding the charges against Neumann were unknown. She has six prior arrests, three in New York and three in Los Angeles. She had been supposed to return to LA this week. 

Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said the officer who had Neumann in custody at the time she escaped was suspended.

"I will not tolerate as police commissioner these continued lapses in basic policing," Bratton said. "Once we have a person in our custody, the responsibility is the care and custody of the prisoner. The penalties being imposed if we find an officer derelict in duties are going to be very significant."

NYPD Chief of Department James O'Neill said, "there's no excuse for it." 

"It's embarrassing," O'Neill said. "She's not a mastermind criminal. It's purely due to inattentiveness and carelessness."

Neumann's escape was the latest in a series in Manhattan, which included an attempted murder suspect on the loose for nearly a month before he was located in the same Harlem neighborhood where he had escaped and a barefoot man who eluded police for three days before he was taken back into custody. 

Anyone with information on her whereabouts is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS.

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