Feds: Robbery ringleaders made dumb move
A still image from raw surveillance video from a robbery at the Gold Fashion store in Far Rockaway. Credit: Handout
The defendants "thought they were smarter than everyone else" because they rarely entered the locations of robberies they masterminded, but were caught because they left their "calling cards" behind, federal prosecutor Thomas Sullivan said Monday.
Sullivan was summing up the government case in federal court in Central Islip against two South Ozone Park cousins -- Sharod Williams, 39, and Travis Walker, 25 -- who are accused of orchestrating robberies on Long Island and in Queens.
The "calling cards" were the records of personal cellphone calls between the defendants and members of their crew, who actually robbed most of the premises while the defendants waited nearby, said Sullivan, who is prosecuting the case along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Treinis Gatz.
Several of the accused members of the robbery crew have testified for the government with hopes of leniency during the trial, saying how the two cousins were behind the crimes that included the Wyandanch post office, a Far Rockaway jewelry store and six banks.
But in their summations, Williams' attorney, Randi Chavis, and Walker's attorney, Glenn Obedin, scoffed at the government's case.
Chavis said the government's witnesses were "cooperators with nothing to lose and everything to gain" by testifying. Most were facing more than 25 years in prison unless they get leniency.
Obedin said at best the records showed that his client's cellphone was near the scene of most of the robberies, and calls were made to and from it from the phones of those who admitted committing the robberies.
But Obedin said the government had not proved "who was using the phone at the time of the robberies."
The seven-woman, five-man jury is expected to begin deliberations Tuesday after U.S. District Judge Arthur Spatt completes his charge.
