Cops: 2 arrested in charity bin scam
Cops say Cesar Antonio Martinez-Duran was arrested just as he was about to repaint a stolen clothing donation bin. (Dec. 14, 2011) Credit: SCPD
An Amityville man was arrested Wednesday just as he was about to repaint a stolen clothing donation bin and Suffolk police said he confessed to a clothes-for-profit operation with up to 40 bins across Long Island for a nonexistent charity.
After a rash of stolen donation bins, GPS tracking devices on two bins led Third Precinct detectives and Crime Section officers to a gated, gravel lot in Lindenhurst, where they saw Cesar Antonio Martinez-Duran, 29, defacing the serial number of one, said Det. Sgt. Jeffrey Walker.
He had white paint ready to cover three pink bins from Breast Cancer Help Inc. and another one from a leukemia charity, police said.
"All the clothes or anything in there, he'll take to a location in the [New York] city confines and he'd sell it," Walker said. "A hundred percent of the money he got for the clothes, he'd keep."
Walker said most of the bins stolen by Martinez-Duran belonged to Breast Cancer Help, a Bay Shore nonprofit that sold the clothes and used some proceeds for breast cancer awareness. The nonprofit reported the thefts Tuesday night, police said.
Martinez-Duran and Sergio Sandoval-Martinez, 46, also of Amityville would rebrand the bins with "Donations International Helping Hand," a fake group, in hopes of getting clothes, Walker said. Martinez-Duran sublet the gravel lot where the bins were altered, he said.
Martinez-Duran will be held overnight and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property, fourth-degree criminal mischief and an outstanding warrant.
Sandoval-Martinez was released on precinct bail and is expected to be scheduled for arraignment on fourth-degree criminal mischief.
Police Wednesday night were questioning Martinez-Duran through a translator. They said they are trying to locate the bins he took and return them to their owners.
No details were available on alleged profits and when the alleged scam started.
Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at 631-854-8352 or anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 800-220-TIPS.
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