Suspect live-blogged standoff with police on Facebook

Thomas Santagata Jr., aka Teflon Tom, is accused of menacing his neighbor, and keeping knives, drugs and a stolen FDNY laptop in his house and cars.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - Trouble seems to be sticking to "Teflon Tom."

A Grant City man who live-blogged a police standoff at his house last week faces an array of charges -- after cops found knives, ninja stars, a sales ledger of untaxed cigarette transactions and a stolen FDNY laptop in his house and cars, authorities allege.

The saga of Thomas Santagata Jr., 29, who made headlines last year after his arrest on kidnapping charges, continued on Tuesday, when, authorities allege, he menaced a 61-year-old neighbor with a knife.

"I'm gonna stab you. I'm gonna kill you," Santagata told the man as he waved a knife at the man's face outside Santagata's home on Cascade Street, according to a criminal complaint.

On Wednesday, Santagata called the man at work and said he wanted to fight his son, and when they showed up at his house about 6:30 p.m., he ran inside, the source said.

Santagata's grandmother called 911, worried that he was about to get jumped, but when police arrived, Santataga locked the door and refused to come out.

"GOT 50 PLUS PIGS TRYING TO BREAK INTO MY HOUSE! I LOVE THIS (expletive), SO EXCITING... TEN DUDES TRY TO JUMP ME AND I HAVE TO GO INTO CUSTODY? GUESS IT IS CAUSE MY INFAMOUS REPUTATION," Santagata wrote on his public Facebook page at 6:46 p.m. Wednesday.

A two-hour standoff followed.

Police gained entry to the house and hauled Santagata out, as he yelled to them, "You don't know who you're (expletive) dealing with. I'm (expletive) King Kong!"

The search of his house, and three cars parked outside, came Thursday, after police secured a warrant looking for weapons and evidence of the alleged menacing.

Police found an unlabeled bottle with 265 Xanax pills inside, three working gravity knives, five ninja stars, a metal knuckle knife and metal knuckles in one room of the house, court papers allege.

Officers also found 78 packs of cigarettes with Virginia tax stamps and a sales ledger in two of his cars, and in the trunk of one vehicle, an FDNY "Toughbook" laptop that had been stolen from an EMT working at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, on Nov. 22, 2013, court papers allege.

Santagata made headlines in May 2014, when he was accused of holding one of his acquaintances at knifepoint for five hours to make him pay for a drug debt.

Santagata, who refers to himself as "Teflon Tom" on Facebook and Twitter, had bragged to police that he'd beat the charges, an NYPD source familiar with the case said at the time.

Thomas Santagata Jr. posted this to his Facebook page during a two-hour standoff with police on Wednesday.

Sure enough, the charges against him in the case were dismissed. The case against him fell apart after the alleged victim declined to go forward with the charges, a spokesman for Acting District Attorney Daniel Master said.

Santagata's Facebook page varies between posts about Batman and Superman, and lengthy, all-caps screeds about the various criminal cases against him and his ongoing feud with his neighbor.

Santagata has two other pending cases in Stapleton Criminal Court, and this past February, he was sentenced to 60 days in jail after he was convicted at a bench trial of misdemeanor attempted weapon possession, public records show.

He's now charged with several felonies and misdemeanors, including fifth-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and 10 counts of third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

He was arraigned on the latest charges Sunday night, and remains held on $24,500 bail until his next court appearance Thursday.

-- Advance staff writers Frank Donnelly and Andrew Simontacchi contributed to this report.

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