Daily News from New York, New York • 629

i 7 7 mm9i 1 1 rBNTOwfWr i Theft KOs repair of escalator By JAMES RUTENBERG Daly News Staff Writer Crime has been escalating in at least one city subway station. Thieves made off with 80 escalator steps at Brooklyn's Court St station in June, and it's set back a repair job by two months. Transit Authority officials said the burglars took the 80 aluminum stairs worth S1.000 each new from a padlocked construction shed on the busy station's mezzanine level June 10. Also taken were tools, for a grand theft total of $100,000. Because of the theft, the down escalator leading to the M.

and trains won't be back in action until Aug. 22, officials said. The job started Dec. 31 and was supposed to be finished by mid-June, before summer. Without the escalator, riders are forced to squeeze past one another on a single set of stairs, raising temperatures even higher in the crammed sauna of a station.

For the elderly, straphangers with disabilities or children in strollers, it's 35 treacherous steps to the platform at all hours. And it's got riders grumbling. "I have a knee problem, so it's hard for me," complained John Williams, 68, who walks with a cane and regularly uses the station to transfer to the TOOOIUISEL VIEW that subways users face at the Court St. station in Brooklyn. Escalator rehab has been set back two months by thieves who took 80 steps.

said it occurred at 5:30 a.m. "If the people knew what they the burglars were doing, and they wore vests, they could do it right in front of the general public," said the source. Transit officials said they're shocked that the bandits got the steps, each of which weighs 40 pounds, out of the station without being noticed. "This is the first time I've Borough Hall IRT platform. Once he gets there, he's got another long hike because the IRT escalator also is closed for maintenance.

"I wish they'd fix it already," said Amy Shapiro, 31, as she navigated the station with a stroller and her daughter Brittany, 2. A police source said cops have found no witnesses to the theft, although NYPD officials ever heard of someone stealing the steps," said agency spokeswoman Melissa Farley. "What they could possibly be doing, we can only guess at" One theory, she said, is that the thieves sold the steps as scrap. But people in the salvage industry said yesterday that the value of the steps to them would be far less than the TA's cost "As far as scrap, they're garbage," said Andy Petriello, who owns AA Scrap Metals in Queens. He said the steps would go for 35 cents a pound, meaning the Court St steps could have brought in $1,120.

Farley said the TA bought used steps for $350 each, which are expected to arrive Aug. 15. Officials said they'll see to it that the new set isn't stolen. pay SimgMffeirs dod som laou erase Chelsea admirer a prisoner of love A New Jersey troublemaker accused of trying to make unwanted contact with Chelsea Clinton remained in a New Jersey jail yesterday. Vladimir Zelenkov was being held in the Union County Jail on $500 bail on charges of driving with a revoked license.

Zelenkov, 26, was awaiting transfer to a Washington court to face a charge of possessing a gun without a permit Chelsea Clinton's unwanted admirer "never made any threats" about the First Daughter when he wrote her letters this year, the Secret Service said yesterday. Federal agents described Zelenkov, of Elizabeth, N.J. as a Chelsea groupie with a burning desire to meet the President's 17-year-old daughter in person. Secret Service agents found a pistol and 156 rounds of ammunition in Zelenkov's safe-deposit box in a Washington bank. He reportedly voluntarily gave the feds the key to the box.

Zelenkov had a New Jersey permit to buy a gun but not to carry one. ni Yesterday, his neighbors said Zelenkov kept to himself in the six-family apartment building at 255 Franklin St j- "He didn't bother with us, and we didn't bother with him," said a neighbor, who identified herself as Donna. She said she was not surprised that Zelenkov would become infatuated with the First Daughter. "He told me he loved me, too," she said. Julia Gorin CO 5 By GREG B.

SMfTH Daily News Staff Writer The Palestine Liberation Organization has settled a lawsuit with the family of Leon Kling-hoffer, the wheelchair-bound tourist shot and pushed from the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985. Without admitting responsibility for Kling-hoffer's death, the PLO will pay an unspecified amount of cash to his survivors as part of the secret deal, both sides said. "Both parties have agreed not to reveal the amount," said the PLO's lawyer, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark. A spokeswoman said the family of the slain tourist whose killing awoke many Americans to the horrors of Mideast terror ism was relieved the legal fight was over. "They're pleased that it's finally been resolved," said long-time family friend and spokeswoman Letty Simon.

"It is an amicable settlement" A travel agency that handled the Klinghoffers' ill-fated vacation, Crown Travel of Massachusetts, also received an unspecified payment in the secret pact "It's been a long road," said Rodney Gould, attorney for the travel agency. "I can't tell you the amount of the settlement because it's under seal." The deal appeared to eliminate an agreement in principle for the PLO to fund an institute in Klinghoffer's name "designed for peace studies aimed at the prevention of terrorism." "That was something we were very hopeful about, but I think it fell along the wayside," Clark said. "Its viability depended upon support, and the continued difficulties in the peace process insured that such support would be problematic." Klinghoffer, 69, and his wife, Marilyn, took a cruise to the Mediterranean aboard the Achille Lauro in October 1985. On Oct 8, four terrorists tied to the PLO took the passengers hostage, shot Klinghoffer in the head and pushed him overboard. Terrorist Abu Abbas was sentenced in absentia to life in prison by Italian authorities.

He remains at large and was seen attending a meeting of PLO offi cials this year. A month later Klinghoffer's killing, his daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, took the unprecedented step of holding an organization accountable for an act of terrorism by suing in Manhattan Federal Court In 1990, Judge Louis Stanton ruled that the PLO could be sued. After a drawn-out legal battle, the PLO and Jay Fisher, the attorney for the Klinghoffer estate, met this summer and reached a secret agreement two weeks ago, one month before the case was to go to trial. Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert for Kroll Associates, said the settlement shows the PLO wants to improve its image with the American public: "This is public relations." 00 T3.