How much ransom money would you pay to get your cell phone back from  a robber?

Perhaps $50 or $100  — maybe more  if the phone were equipped with all the latest features.

But not a whopping $185,000.

Believe it or not, that was the initial amount an alleged purse snatcher told his victim he wanted in return for her cell phone, Lancaster police said.

After a few minutes of negotiating with the victim,  the robber lowered his ransom figure dramatically — down to $200.

But the victim, a 29-year-old Philadelphia woman, got her phone back — and her stolen purse —\!q without paying a single cent.

That's because Lancaster police listened to the negotiations and met the alleged robber at a rendezvous point with drawn guns.

The suspect, Randy-Jay Adolphos Jones, 29, of 2565 Ironville Pike, Columbia, was arrested on charges of robbery and indecent assault with his bail set at $100,000, police said.

Officer Jeff Gerhart, who filed the charges, gave this account:

Shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday, police got word of a  purse-snatch robbery in the 400 block of West Lemon Street.

The Philadelphia woman had  pulled up to a friend's  home and was about to get out of her car. But Jones, whose nickname on police paperwork is  "Baby boy," apparently also was in the area.

Gerhart said Jones grabbed the woman, pulled her out of the car, and started fondling her.

The woman broke away from the attacker. As she started to run, the man pulled her purse off her shoulder. He also ran and was last seen heading south on Lancaster Avenue, police said.

When Gerhart and other officers arrived, they had the woman call her cell phone number.

Jones answered and told the woman  "he wanted money, $185,000, to give her her phone back," Gerhart said.

The woman kept Jones on the line, stalling for time, as police tried to trace the suspect's location. "Who are you? Where are you? What do you want me to do?" she kept asking the man while trying to get him to lower the ransom amount.

The suspect agreed to a price of $200, and told the woman to meet him at the Harrisburg Avenue pedestrian walkway that connects Franklin and Marshall College and Doc Holliday's restaurant.

Gerhart and about four other officers from Platoon A accompanied the woman to the meeting point. When they saw Jones standing by a pillar on the campus side of the walkway, they moved in shortly after 2 a.m. and arrested the suspect at gunpoint.

Jones had the woman's cell phone with him, and police found her purse at a location on Chestnut Street where the suspect had discarded it, Gerhart said.

During questioning following his arrest,  Jones gave no explanation why he initially demanded $185,000 for the return of the cell phone, Gerhart said.

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