Hampton Bays man convicted in murder of romantic rival, DA says

A Suffolk County jury convicted a Hampton Bays man Tuesday in the murder of a romantic rival he planned to rob after learning the man had contacted his girlfriend, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said.

Alcides Lopez Cambara, 42, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2020 death of 34-year-old Marco Grisales of East Hampton following a trial before state Supreme Court Justice Anthony Senft in Riverhead.

“The defendant and his accomplices senselessly and brutally murdered the victim on his birthday,” Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said of Lopez Cambara and three others who helped him with his plan to rob Grisales.

Tyara Lemus, Lopez Cambara’s 18-year-old girlfriend, was also charged in the murder, but later pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery in exchange for testimony against her boyfriend.

Prosecutors said Lemus, now 20, helped lure Grisales for the planned robbery by agreeing to meet him to celebrate his birthday on Nov. 11, 2020. They met at McDonald’s in Riverhead before departing for a nearby farm, where Lopez Cambara and two other men were waiting to rob him, according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.

Lopez Cambara and another man, who has never been identified or charged in the crime, dragged Grisales out of his pickup truck and “bludgeoned him to death with the barrel of a shotgun,” prosecutors said. Lemus and Dennis Jonathan Hernandez Abanao, who pleaded guilty to second-degree attempted murder, stole jewelry and other valuable items from Grisales’ truck. Lopez Cambara then drove the truck from the scene and parked it on nearby Roanoke Avenue in Riverhead, leaving Grisales’ lifeless body in the bed of the vehicle.

Lemus later used an alias and called police to report details about the crime, implicating the others involved, prosecutors said.

Surveillance video obtained from McDonald’s and neighboring Peconic Bay Medical Center was used to corroborate details in Lemus’ testimony, and her cellphone contained messages of her and Lopez Cambara discussing their plan to lure Grisales to the farm, prosecutors said. During a search of the home Lopez Cambara shared with Lemus, investigators found Grisales’ jewelry and the shotgun used in his death, which prosecutors said was “adorned with a distinctive bejeweled skull.”

Lopez Cambara, who was also convicted of first-degree robbery, is facing 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing Jan. 13. Lemus and Hernandez Abanao will be sentenced at a later date.