NEW YORK.- The ex-con who pulled a "Houdini," speeding away from several agents while still handcuffed, was arrested Thursday morning at a Connecticut hotel, newspaper NYDailyNews.com reports, quoting police.

"This time, police said, Jose Rodriguez, 27, was taken into custody without incident when a slew of officers from the NYPD, Connecticut cops and members of a federal task force rolled up on a hotel in Uncasville, near the Mohegan Sun casino, at about 3:15 a.m.." the media outlet said.

FILE.- Dozens of federal, sheriffs and SWAT officers of the State and municipal Police from New Jersey and New York, using helicopters, speedboats, trained dogs, detectors, armored vehicles, conduct an intensive manhunt to recapture the Dominican national Jose Rodriguez  27, resident of the Bronx, who spectacularly escaped yesterday, despite being guarded, handcuffed and shackled in a police vehicle.

Rodriguez fled around 1:15 p.m. from the parking lot of the Holiday Inn hotel in Fort Lee, New Jersey, located a few minutes from Upper Manhattan, after Police and U.S. Marshalls had captured him there.

The Dominican is wanted for jumping bail, drunk driving and in connection with a nonfatal shooting on November 1 in the Bronx.

New York Police spokesman Paul Brown said Rodriguez, who had seven prior arrests on those cases, fled despite being handcuffed and shackled, in a van that contained a 9mm pistol. The van was found in the city Ridgefield a half hour after the escape but the gun wasn’t found.

Helped by a Police helicopter and armed with automatic weapons, 50 agents began a house to house search for the fugitive described as armed and extremely dangerous.

Captain Richard Besser said the manhunt includes the town Palisades Park and Fort Lee, whose schools were closed and the children handed to their parents. He added that Rodriguez asked to borrow a cell phone from a passerby around 1 kilometer from where he escaped.

“When the passerby saw the shackles on his ankles, he thought about it and didn’t help him.” the report adds. Rodriguez is 5´8’’ and weighs 180 pounds.