A nightclub bouncer, described by a prosecutor as a “stone-cold killer,” was jailed without bail yesterday on murder, attempted murder, and assault charges in the shooting of four people outside a Manhattan lounge.

Stephen Sakai, 30, of Brooklyn, was jailed after his Manhattan Criminal Court arraignment in connection with the Tuesday night shootings outside the Opus 22 lounge in the Chelsea area. One man was killed, and two were critically wounded.

Mr. Sakai’s lawyer, Edward Wilford, complained after the arraignment yesterday that police and prosecutors had interrogated his client for 21 hours without allowing him to see a lawyer “despite his repeated requests for an attorney.”

Meanwhile, police were investigating whether Mr. Sakai was involved in three unsolved killings – a stabbing and two shootings – last year in Brooklyn, law enforcement officials said yesterday.

An assistant district attorney, Charles Whitt, said during the arraignment that the Tuesday shootings happened after Mr. Sakai and other bouncers tried to clear the club of patrons. He said one man insisted on waiting for his girlfriend to return from the bathroom.

“There was an exchange of words, pushing and shoving, and it spilled outside,” Mr. Whitt told Judge ShawnDya Simpson. “The defendant takes out a gun and shoots him in the groin.”

When another man tried to intervene, Mr. Whitt told the judge, “the defendant shoots him squarely in the neck. The victim is paralyzed from the neck down, and he may not live.”

A third man tried to shield the second victim from more gunfire by throwing his body over his wounded companion, and the bouncer shot victim no. 3 in the back of the neck, Mr. Whitt said.

Victim no. 3, Gustavo Cuadros, 25, of Red Bank, N.J., was killed by the gunshot, a felony complaint filed in court quotes the medical examiner’s office as saying.

A fourth victim was shot in the back as he tried to flee, Mr. Whitt said. The felony complaint said he suffered a punctured small intestine and a bruised liver and had to have a kidney removed. The complaint says he is now on a respirator.

Two of the victims were in critical condition at St. Vincent’s Hospital; the third was discharged from Bellevue Hospital Center.

“Your honor, this defendant is a stone-cold killer,” Mr. Whitt told the judge. “If convicted, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

The prosecutor added that Mr. Sakai had been “identified in multiple lineups.”

The law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was continuing, said Mr. Sakai’s statements put him at the scene of the earlier stabbing and one of the shootings.

Mr. Sakai admitted the stabbing slay but claimed it was in self-defense during a fight, the officials said. In the shooting, he allegedly said he was using the bathroom inside a basement apartment when the person who lived there – a bouncer at a strip club – was shot in the head by somebody else.

The officials said ballistics evidence had linked him to the third killing.

At the arraignment, Mr. Whitt alluded to the continuing investigation but did not say specifically that police were probing whether Mr. Sakai committed the slayings.

Mr. Wilford, Mr. Sakai’s lawyer, was questioned about reports that the bouncer had confessed to several killings, and he replied, “As far as I’m concerned, it is a false confession.”

“If you’re under pressure, some people will say anything to get out from under it,” he said.

Mr. Sakai was taken into custody early Wednesday after a manhunt but wasn’t formally charged by police until late at night.

A spokesman for New York’s Department of State said Mr. Sakai passed a criminal history check when he obtained a license to work as a security guard but did not have a license to carry a gun on the job.

The agency has suspended Mr. Sakai’s security guard license with the intention of revoking it, spokesman Larry Sombke said.