A brazen street crew tore through Long Island, New York City, Westchester and Dutchess counties — and even hit places in Florida — during a 17-day string of wild armed robberies, prosecutors said.
Nine men, some with known gang ties to the Bloods, were indicted on 38 charges from a crime spree that includes 10 auto shop burglaries, three armed robberies, a home invasion, and stealing multiple vehicles in both states from July and August of last year.
“The escalation of criminality alleged in such a short period of time — is staggering,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney told reporters Friday at the H. Lee Dennisson building in Hauppauge.
Tierney said the alleged Suffolk County-based crew operated like a mobile smash-and-grab unit — targeting auto-body shops for cash, blank checks, keys and license plates, then swapping out stolen plates to stay ahead of law enforcement as they barreled upstate and down the East Coast.
The spree began last July, when the crew allegedly drove a stolen BMW M3 from Suffolk to Westchester County and smashed through the front windows of three auto-body shops in a single night, making off with hundreds of dollars and roughly 200 blank checks.
Just days later, two of the crew allegedly hit shops in Dutchess County, stealing a white Chevrolet Suburban from a Hyde Park business before using it to burglarize another shop in Poughkeepsie, where the DA said they walked out with blank checks, 48 sets of New York State license plates, and an entire safe that contained $5,000 in cash.
On the ride back to Long Island, the pair allegedly took a detour into Nassau County and shattered the front glass of a Lamborghini dealership, but the store’s alarm system sent the crew running in a failed attempt to steal one of the high-end sports cars.
Two of the men then traveled to Florida between July 27 and July 29 to buy guns, as they’re easier for criminals to acquire in the state, and continued their spree down south.
While there, they allegedly obtained two guns and stole a Dodge Charger — swapping its plates with the ones taken from the upstate shop to avoid detection, they then carjacked a BMW sedan on the drive back north.
But they ditched the ride just moments after realizing it was a stick-shift and they had no idea how to drive it.
They then drove back to New York where they allegedly stopped in Sleepy Hollow, breaking into another auto-body shop before returning to Suffolk, according to the DA,
Once back on Long Island, the crew was now beaming with confidence and decided to escalate their crimes, the DA alleged.
The crew used the guns purchased in Florida, and carried out a home invasion at an Amityville apartment complex — stealing keys to a Porsche SUV and several thousand dollars in cash.
The Porsche was later abandoned in Queens, according to prosecutors.
Over the next two days, members of the crew then allegedly hit a Deer Park auto shop and then carjacked a woman outside her residence and stole her Mercury sedan before attempting yet another break-in in Amityville.
The spree finally ended on Aug. 4 with a gunpoint home invasion in Bay Shore, where five of the crew members are accused of storming into a residence, terrorizing a woman who was home alone at gun points, and stealing roughly $4,700 in cash before police arrived and arrested two of the men involved.
One of them, Leny Cruz, 23, from Brooklyn, was allegedly carrying a loaded .45-caliber handgun, $2,000 in cash and the key fob to the stolen Dodge Charger they had boosted in Florida, prosecutors said.
Police also recovered the Charger in the area and allegedly found several of the stolen New York license plates inside — the same ones swiped from the Dutchess County auto shop days earlier.
Authorities said the alleged ring is responsible for nearly 20 separate crimes across multiple counties and states in just over two weeks.
The nine who are charged in connection with the spree are Cruz, Edward Nunez, 28, and Noel Santelises, 21 — all from Brooklyn — along with Harvin Parra, 20, Jose Ramos, 20, and Carlos Benitez-Montoya, 20 — all of Bay Shore — as well as Justin Kenny, 24, of Bohemia, Savion Jones, 22, of Huntington Station, and Robert Salters, 20, of Wyandanch.
Several of the defendants face top counts of Robbery in the First Degree, facing up to 25 years in prison if convicted while others face mainly burglary and robbery charges.