Two Pennsylvania men sentenced for burglarizing Valley Stream home while dressed as construction workers

Two Pennsylvania men were sentenced Friday to nine years in prison for burglarizing a Valley Stream home while posing as construction workers and stealing items worth over $1 million, prosecutors said. 

Prosecutors said the defendants' cellphones showed photos of themselves posing with the proceeds of their crime, wearing the same clothing they had worn during the burglary.

"These defendants thought they could outsmart law enforcement, casing a Valley Stream home and posing as construction workers as a ruse to break-in and steal over $1 million in property," Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly said in a statement. "But through terrific detective work by investigators and my prosecutors, and the defendants’ own hubris, these men now find themselves heading to prison." 

Dejuan Michaels, 31, and Daiquan Smith, 30, had pleaded guilty in September to second-degree burglary and first-degree grand larceny in connection with the September 2023 burglary. Prosecutors had asked for 12-year sentences. 

Their co-defendant Tehron Green, 45, also pleaded guilty to the same charges in September and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

Attorneys for the defendants could not immediately be reached for comment Friday. 

According to prosecutors, the three defendants and a fourth co-defendant who has not yet been arrested, went to the Valley Stream home at about 7:15 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2023, after the homeowner went to work.

Dressed in what appeared to be clothes to work on a construction site, the defendants broke a window in the rear of the home to gain access to the residence. More than an hour later, at about 8:50 a.m., one of the defendants left the home and came back about a half-hour later with a hand truck that prosecutors said he purchased from an Elmont home improvement store during the burglary. . 

The defendant put the hand truck into the home through the broken window, prosecutors said. 

Surveillance video captured all four of the defendants leaving the home with two safes on the hand truck. The safes contained cash, guns, two Rolex watches and other items with a value of more than $1 million, prosecutors said. 

Prosecutors said the defendants' cellphones showed photos of Michaels and Smith — wearing the same clothing they were wearing on the surveillance video outside the burglarized home — posing on the same day of the burglary in a Pennsylvania warehouse with cash, and the victim's Rolex watches and firearms. Prosecutors said Green could also be seen in the background of one of the warehouse photos.

The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Michaels on April 11, 2024, in New Castle, Delaware and also arrested Smith on April 11, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Detectives from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania arrested Green on March 5. .

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.