Cops: Multiple suspects arrested in connection with Nassau bank robbery spree

Nassau police arrested two men in connection with a series of armed bank robberies beginning last year that grossed nearly $18,000, police said Thursday.

Nassau Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said police already arrested two other men last year in connection with some of the bank robberies, which began last September and continued through Wednesday when a Capital One Bank on Grand Avenue in Baldwin was held up at gunpoint and $5,300 was stolen. Another man was arrested on gun possession charges, but not in connection with the robberies, police said.

The latest suspects — Dimitri Miller, 58, of Northern Parkway in Uniondale and Curtis Williams, 35, of Hudson Avenue in Freeport — were arrested Wednesday during a car stop and both were charged with three counts each of first- and second-degree robbery in connection with three of the bank heists, Ryder said.

Ryder called Miller "a career criminal in and out of prison since 1981" who had been arrested 32 times previously, including for committing a robbery with a gun, and convicted 31 times and said Williams was "in and out of prison since 2014" with nine previous arrests, including six convictions. Defense attorneys for the men could not be reached.

The robberies began, according to Ryder, on Sept. 4 when a suspect walked into the Chase Bank on Old Country Road in Carle Place and, after making a "verbal threat of shooting an employee," stole $3,700.

The next was on Sept. 13 at a Capital One Bank on Glen Cove Road in Carle Place that included "a note of a threat to shoot the employee" and resulted in a loss of $1,300, Ryder said. On Nov. 8, a Sterling National Bank on Merrick Road in Merrick was robbed of $3,400 after "a note threatened to shoot the employee," Ryder raid. On Nov. 30, the Chase Bank on Hempstead Turnpike in Franklin Square was robbed of $1,300 when a similar note was presented.

On Feb. 7 at a Chase Bank on Grand Avenue in Baldwin a note was presented and a handgun displayed, Ryder said, and the assailant made off with $1,000. The alleged robber also displayed a handgun when two more banks were robbed — on Feb. 19, when a Citibank in Roslyn was hit for $1,900, and the Capital One in Baldwin on Wednesday.

By Nicole Fuller

nicole.fuller@newsday.com@NicoleFuller

Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.