News: Crimes on Long Island
(Long Island, N.Y.)A level three sex offender was convicted this week for the crimes he committed against a seventeen year old girl from Plainview. The charges include first-degree robbery and coercion, criminal possession of a weapon in the third-degree, and second-degree misdemeanor of unlawful imprisonment. Though he’s already served a twenty-year sentence for previous violations, this time he will face another fourteen years behind bars come sentencing in April.
The five-foot-nine hundred-and-sixty pound criminal forced himself into the teenager’s car after knocking on her window and asking about the time. She was parked at a red light when he reached over and unlocked the passenger’s door as she rolled down the window to respond. He then forced her to drive around the area of Old Country Road, and ordered her to park at a specific side street. Once the vehicle came to a halt, he assaulted her; but she was able to grab the keys and get away. Her screams caused the criminal to flee to his vehicle where he was spotted by authorities.
He was arrested on December 19th, 2009 around six-thirty at night after a witness recognized his face from a poster for sex offenders in the area. The witness saw him get into his vehicle, which was parked across from the Plainview Public Library. At the time of his arrest, he was found with a knife.
In 1982 the criminal went to jail for first-degree rape charges and sexual abuse in crimes against two women. He served twenty years in maximum security at Sing Sing prison in New York. This time around, he was convicted by a jury in two days for his crimes against the Plainview woman.
A string of robberies across the Great Neck/ Kings Point area brought residents together for a town meeting this week. The criminal is considered a serial burglar and has attempted to break into seven known homes in the communities within the time frame of December 2010 to January of this year. Police are led to believe that his motives are sexual. Though he had ample opportunity to steal from the residencies, nothing was ever taken.
Nonetheless, the man authorities believe is responsible for the break-ins is a Hispanic man in his twenties and is guilty of a violent past. He is the suspect in an attack with a hammer against a woman from Hempstead. He’s also suspected of raping a two year old in Texas.
Four of the recent break-ins occurred in less than a week. He entered one of the homes through the bathroom window, causing the family’s five year old daughter to scream for help. He tried to pinch her mouth shut, but when that didn’t stop the child from screaming, the man fled from the scene.
In a different break-in the man held a knife to the throat of a sixty-one year old woman who was able to wrestle the weapon away, causing him to flee again. In a third instance, he held a piece of cloth over the mouth of a fifteen-year-old who was also able to subdue the criminal before he fled.
Another instance of crime occurred between Hicksville and the Northern State Parkway when a thirty-eight year old car thief from East Northport led police on a wild pursuit. Because it happened during bumper-to-bumper traffic, a police cruiser and nearly twelve cars were damaged by the chase. The man was eventually accosted, while high on drugs, around Exit 36 near South Oyster Bay Road in a stolen Nissan.
