'Tuxedo King' kidnapper to be released

NEW YORK, March 23 (UPI) -- One of the convicted kidnappers of "Tuxedo King" Harvey Weinstein, serving 18 years to life in New York, will be freed on parole by Aug. 12, officials said.

The 68-year-old Weinstein was abducted, chained and buried alive in a grave along the Henry Hudson Parkway in 1993. Weinstein was rescued by police using information provided by the kidnappers shortly after their arrest following delivery of the ransom, the New York Post said.

During the kidnapping, Aurelina Leonor, soon to be released from Bayview Correctional Facility, made nearly 50 telephone calls demanding $3 million in ransom.

After hearing of the ruling in her favor at Leonor's first parole hearing, retired Deputy Inspector George Duke of the New York Police Department, who had served as the Major Case Squad head, expressed his shock, the Post reported. Duke said Leonor was "lucky that Harvey was such a tough (retired) Marine …or else they all would have been arrested for homicide".

Referring to herself as "Jane Fonda from the Black Cat organization," Leonor made tapes of her taunting conversations with Weinstein though a microphone lowered in the hole during the 13 tortuous days of his captivity, the Post said.

Her boyfriend Fermin Rodriquez was an employee of Weinstein's at his Lord West Formal Wear factory and was the leader of the kidnap scheme. He was sentenced to 20 years to life