`I Am A Marine. I Can Survive' -- Kidnapped Executive's Story Of Enduring 13 Days In Hole

NEW YORK - They were standing at the entrance to the hole now. The heavy metal cover marked NYC Electrical had been drawn back.

Harvey Weinstein, blindfolded, had been a prisoner for 45 minutes. During the ride over to the upper West Side from Queens, the kidnappers had disguised him in a cheap flowered shirt and an ill-fitting pair of pants. The new clothes were put over his old ones. His wrists and ankles were bound in crude metal shackles.

"You have been kidnapped," said one of his abductors, speaking in broken English. "We represent a huge international organization."

That was it. Weinstein nodded.

"We demand $5 million for your safe return," the kidnapper said. "Otherwise, we kill you."

It was his turn to speak, and Weinstein did not miss a beat.

"You might as well kill me right now," the prisoner said. "I can't raise that kind of money."

"Yes you can," the kidnapper snapped.

"You must have the wrong Harvey Weinstein," the clothing executive said, thinking the kidnappers had confused him with the Hollywood movie mogul of the same name. "I'm not that wealthy."

"We have the right Harvey Weinstein," the kidnapper said.

They lowered him into the wet cavern, which was dug years ago by electrical workers using an excavation machine. Weinstein was still standing when the blindfold was lifted off his head. When Weinstein looked up, he was momentarily blinded by camera flashes. The blindfold was returned. He was placed in a sitting position. He listened then as the cover was drawn and weighted with stone. Finally, he heard the entrance being covered by leaves and branches.

It was in that first moment that Weinstein connected with a distant memory, long buried in a full lifetime of fatherhood and business success. As an 18-year-old Marine corporal fighting in the Pacific theater, Weinstein had seen some fierce fighting. Sitting in the armored cave of an amphibious tank, he had survived shell, fire and smoke. Now secreted in a cave on the upper West Side, former Marine Cpl. Weinstein, age 68, was back at war.

"I survived this kind of thing once," Weinstein would later tell detectives. "I knew I could survive it again. I closed my eyes and I was back there. That's what got me through this. I kept thinking back, `I am a Marine. I can survive this.' "

What follows here is the old warrior's own story, told in his own words. It is retold in detail, as Weinstein related it to members of the New York City Police Department's Major Case Squad. The narrative is from a 12-hour police interview with him.

One day Weinstein may tell the story again. But he will never tell it as well as he did the first time upon his release from what he called "The Hole."

`Get into the car, quietly'

The abduction team must have been hiding outside the Mark Twain Diner. They grabbed him from behind as he approached his car. One of the men held a knife to his throat. It was 7:45 a.m. on Aug. 4.

"Get into the car, quietly," one of the abductors said. Weinstein was pushed to the passenger door, placed in the back seat and blindfolded.

"There must be some mistake," Weinstein said.

"Quiet," he was told.

And with that, the car roared off. Weinstein disappeared from the surface of the planet for 13 days.

The first 24 hours in the hole were the easiest. There was enough light filtering down through the air holes to know where day ended and dawn began. The blanket they put Weinstein on was already wet when they put him down. Weinstein tried to put it over his head to dry it. He never heard cars or people. He did hear trains in the distance and the occasional helicopter overhead.

"They're searching for me," Weinstein thought.

The kidnappers returned once a day with fruit and water. They came at different times. It was always the same guy, not a voice he recognized as belonging to anyone in the abduction team. The water, offered in a 12-ounce plastic bottle, was dropped on a line down a chute. The fruit consisted of bananas and plums.

"I was planning from the start to survive this," Weinstein explained. "I rationed the food and the water. I didn't want to eat too much because I knew I was going to be sitting in my own defecation."

Weinstein kept his food on a 5-inch shelf above his head. He was desperate for a cigarette. On five occasions, he figured, they let him drag on a lit one. He also asked for a drink - Absolut vodka is his favorite - but never got one.

"I was powerless. So, I began to plot what I would say if they ever asked me to make a tape. What clues could I give you guys. I spent most of my time plotting. . . . I thought the thing out. Don't panic and you live."

`You can't see me from topside'

On the second day, Weinstein got his right hand free of his shackle. He never freed his leg irons. Weinstein said he tried to exercise but was unable to stand up. He did isometrics pressing against the walls of his cave.

The kidnappers lowered a micro-recorder to him and ordered him to make a statement. It was the chance Weinstein had been waiting for.

After complaining about a lack of vodka and cigarettes, he talked of making a deal. Then he explained, cryptically, "You can't see me from topside." This was to be Weinstein's only recorded message. At the end of the tape, you hear him say, smartly, "OK, take it up." Amazingly, the cleverly disguised nautical clue and "take it up" line got through. Later, detectives listening to the tape would guess that Weinstein was being held below ground, near water.

He sat plotting his next move. He lost track of the days. He never got warm. He realized, too, that short of rescue, there was no way out.

"I could hear all the stuff being lifted and pulled back," Weinstein explained. "I knew there was some kind of weights being moved. I knew that it was impossible to even think about climbing out. So it wasn't escape I kept considering. It was survival."

`I'm not a wealthy man'

He tried to remember some battles he had seen. He remembered the faces and names of fallen comrades. He remembered, too, a specific moment when a shell had exploded near him. He brought a war to life again in surviving his ordeal.

They talked about price a couple of times. Weinstein told his captors they would have to reduce their demand. After about the first week in the hole, they handed Weinstein a piece of paper and pencil. He was asked to write a message. Weinstein wrote that it would be OK to pay the ransom. He directed his family to a bank where only one week before Weinstein had secured a $3 million line of credit for his business.

Still nothing. Another set of days melted into the night. Weinstein dreamed of tennis. He thought of his girlfriend, Susie. She plays with Mayor Dinkins, Weinstein later explained to detectives. The mayor likes to play doubles, he later explained. I don't, he said. Even when I get out of here, I'll never play doubles, Weinstein said he promised himself.

Occasionally Weinstein's thoughts would drift to the kind of life he led. He is a millionaire who eats in a diner every day.

"I just couldn't understand why they took me," Weinstein would tell police. "I'm not a wealthy man."

On Sunday, Aug. 15, the kidnappers came to see Weinstein for the last time. They lowered a cellular telephone and allowed Weinstein to stand up for the first time. Weinstein was amazed that his legs even worked. He was weak and wet, but the mind worked. The call was being recorded by police.

"Give them the money," Weinstein said. "It's my money. They say they're going to release me three hours later."

Then the voice on the phone went soft. Weinstein had lost 15 to 20 pounds and some of his gung-ho confidence. Was this the last time anyone would hear his voice? Weinstein mentioned each of his children by name. He also mentioned Susie.

"I'm so sorry that you have to be put through these things," he said.

`I'm going to die in here'

Weinstein couldn't know that the first drop went awry when two unsuspecting cops, in an unrelated car chase, plowed through the setup, scaring off the kidnappers. That cost him another week in the hole. He couldn't have known the drama of the second drop and how the money was ultimately paid. He did not know that there were 60 detectives assigned to the drop. He later had to have a surveillance technique called the Loose Tail explained to him. Only then did Weinstein understand fully the tension of the chase.

"You mean if you lose the car, you lose these guys?" he asked later.

"Yes," he was told. "I don't think we'd ever have found you."

All Weinstein knew was that no one came back after the phone call. The food stopped and he began to think, "Well that's it then, isn't it? I'm going to die in here."

The last day, Monday, was the worst. And then, the break came. Detectives got the captured bagman suspect - Ferman Rodriguez - to tell them, generally, where to look.

"Mr. Weinstein?" yelled two of the detectives searching for him, Ruben Santiago and William Mondore. "Where are you?"

"Down here," came the reply. The Marine had survived his war.

Weinstein came out of the hole asking for a cigarette. He was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center. Weinstein wasn't hungry. He nibbled at Jell-O and drank coffee. Cup after cup. He asked the doctors to leave the room so he could smoke, and everyone laughed.

"If I ever hear anybody ever say anything bad about a New York city cop again, I'll drop them," Weinstein promised.

The detectives liked everything about him. They drove him home. His family filled the apartment.

Someone filled his iced tumbler with Absolut. Weinstein had cigarettes. He had family. Is there anything more to live for, he asked them all, than this?

"Are you sure you feel OK?" asked his son Mark.

"I'm fine," Weinstein said. "Hell, I'll be playing tennis again by Saturday."