LOS ANGELES – Sacked Wests Tigers NRL forward Matthew Lodge has made $US50,000 ($F 106,000) bail after spending a weekend with murderers, rapists and gangsters in New York’s infamous Rikers Island jail complex.
If New York prosecutors get their way, Lodge will serve at least a five-year prison sentence.
They have charged the 20-year-old from Sydney with burglary in the first degree, which carries a minimum sentence of five years’ jail and a maximum of 25 years.
Lodge, an imposing 193cm tall, 110kg prop forward who was vacationing in Manhattan, allegedly terrorised two female German tourists who were walking along an Upper West Side street around 4am on Friday.
“This is the night you die,” the New York Police Department alleges Lodge told his victims.
The frightened women randomly buzzed apartment buildings hoping someone would let them in and, when a good Samaritan did, Lodge punched the man in the face, it was alleged. Lodge then allegedly locked himself inside the man’s apartment with the man’s terrified wife and child.
