Daily News from New York, New York • 171

2 9 9 i PI mm i-S "Ih? i-- i'f: ft 5 tied to slay, kidnaps I At i By WILUAM K. RASHBAUM Dty News Staff Writer Five Chinese gang members arrested in California in the King of Clubs mutilation mur- der are behind a series of savage kidnapings, including the rape and imprisonment of a pregnant woman, investigators said yesterday. NYPD detectives nabbed the men, who also have been linked to home-invasion robberies of Chinese immigrants on the upper East Side and in Brooklyn, as well as a Seattle kidnaping, as they were about to flee to Can identified as the leader of the gang, which sources said last month apparently opened a branch operation in Investigators described him as a mysterious figure, saying they had learned little about him beyond the specifics of his savage crime wave. In Seattle, five gang mem-; bers all but one from New York were charged Sept 6 in the kidnaping of three teens. Investigators have tied at least one of those suspects to the slaying of Cheng and other kidnaping.

In that ada, a law enforcement source said. Some investigators identified the lopse-knit group as the Plum Blossom Gang, saying it takes its name from a small village with a similar name in Fu-jian case, a woman who was kidnaped escaped being raped and tortured by jumping out a window, breaking both her ankles. The pregnant woman who was kidnaped was rescued after a two-week ordeal early MISNA BnmT OAH.Y NEWS SECURITY BOOTH at Gracie Mansion, which got a major security upgrade several months ago. juJD13 as last month. The 33-year-old was held in a closet and periodically taken out and raped.

She could barely stand when police arrived. Investigators said the gang was responsible for several home-invasion robberies in Brooklyn and one in a tenement apartment on E. 61st St in Manhattan, near the East River. Speculation is that the case will be the city's first death By DAVID L. LEWIS Sources said the gang members taunted police with a note saying the blossom-shaped "club" on the playing card left on the body of Brooklyn kidnap-slay-ing victim Liging Cheng, 39, was a clue to their identity.

But a police spokesman said the men belong to the Fukien-ese Flying Dragons, a splinter group from Chinatown's Flying Dragons. NYPD detectives tracked the men from Brooklyn to San Gabriel, near Los Angeles, where they had gone to stay with a sister of one of the suspects. The California arrests, two late Monday in San Gabriel and three the next day at a motel in Milpitas, near San Jose, came after ah intense crosscountry investigation that took city detectives to Seattle and California. Among those arrested in Milpitas were Jia Wu Chen, 29, penalty slaying because the body was found the day after the state's new death penalty law went into effect Arrested in San Gabriel were You Cheng Tong, 24, and Wu Guo Shun, 19, police said. In addition to the accused gang leader, Chen, NYPD and police in Milpitas arrested Fu Xin Chen, 23, and You Zhong Peng, 23.

All are expected ot be charged there with kidnaping and likely will face other charges in the other crimes. Mayor Edward Koch's silverware drawer. Last fall, the Daily News reported that cops for a time had conducted thrice-daily bomb sweeps because of unspecified threats. The new security setup was installed by Vi-konics a company whose marketing brochures tout, among other things, computerized systems that can lock or unlock doors automatically at a specified time of day. Under its emergency city contract, Vikon-ics was barred from disclosing the existence of the new system and was required to return the floor plans after the work was completed.

The company also had to post a $1 million insurance policy to cover the possibility of death or injury while the system was in use. Vikonics was near bankruptcy last year when it hired as a consultant Stanley Kreit-man, a New York executive who serves on the board of the Police Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit group that sponsors the police Crime Stoppers tip line and has funded several Bratton projects. Police spokesman Tom Kelly said security experts screened a half-dozen companies before selecting Vikonics on the recommendation of Secret Service officials. Bratton did not know of Kreitman's ties to the company, Kelly said.

Kreitman said he avoided involvement with the Gracie Mansion contract to prevent the appearance of a conflict Daily News Staff Writer Police Commissioner William Bratton invoked emergency authority to install a hightech $150,000 Gracie Mansion security system aimed at plugging what he called "substantial security problems." The system was purchased outside normal bidding procedures last spring from a New Jersey firm that boasts the Secret Service and the Saudi royal family among its clients. Officials refused to say whether a specific security threat against Mayor Giuliani or his family prompted the installation. In a letter to Controller Alan Hevesi, Bratton said only that "very troubling" flaws in the mansion's 14-year-old system could not be fixed. "Security concerns prevent me from describing the details of the recent shortcomings," Bratton wrote in the March 7 letter, obtained under the Freedom of Information Law. "Obviously, these substantial security problems must be corrected at this time." City Hall and police declined to discuss specifics of the state-of-the-art system.

The 196-year-old, 14-room mayoral mansion sits on 2.4 acres overlooking the East River, protected by a 24-hour security details and two fences. Its most recent known security breach occurred in 1987, when cops discovered a burglar rummaging through I 3J vt 3 00 play turns girl to Darb-arism MODESTO. Calif. A 6-year-old girl stabbed her 7-year-old playmate in the back with a steak knife during a quarrel over Barbie dolls, police said yesterday. The victim was taken to a local hospital and was released Tuesday after being held overnight for observation.

The two girls were playing in a grassy playground in the apartment com plex where they live when they fought over the dolls..