Crime and court briefs

SHIRLEY

Suspect in armed robbery

of game store is on video

Go figure that a video game store would have a video surveillance system in place.

A suspect wanted in connection with the armed robbery of a GameStop store in Shirley last week was recorded on camera -- giving Suffolk County police investigators some pretty good pictures of himself.

Police are asking anyone with information about the suspect -- or the robbery at the store on Montauk Highway on Oct. 2 -- to call Crime Stoppers at 800-220-TIPS. All calls will remain confidential.

Callers are eligible for a cash reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to an arrest.

Police said the man, wearing a Brooklyn Brawlers T-shirt and carrying a backpack, entered the store, displayed a gun and demanded cash. He then fled the scene, but not before being captured on video.

WOODMERE

Cops: Burglary thwarted

when homeowner arrives

A Woodmere man remained jailed last night, arrested after police said a Hewlett Harbor homeowner arrived home to find the man burglarizing his house.

Torrey Wells, 24, of 8 Woodmere Blvd. N., was arraigned yesterday at First District Court in Hempstead on charges of third-degree burglary, operating an uninsured vehicle and having one registration plate or obstructed plate, Nassau County police said in a news release.

Judge Eric Bjorneby ordered Wells held on $10,000 bond or $5,000 cash bail and he was still in custody, according to online court records.

Wells was arrested at 9:43 a.m. Tuesday, after a 50-year-old man "returned to his residence on Seawane Drive in Hewlett Harbor and observed his property inside a green Toyota Camry parked in front of his home," police said in a news release.

The victim went inside his house and encountered Wells, who "then left the home, removed the proceeds from his vehicle" and left them on the walkway before getting in the car and fleeing, police said.

Fourth Precinct officers found Wells and the Camry at Broadway Street and Franklin Avenue and arrested him. The unregistered, uninsured car was impounded, police said.

The stolen merchandise -- a guitar, guitar book, chess set and marionette -- was recovered, police said.

WOODBURY

Mortgage broker sentenced

for $650G real estate scam

A mortgage broker from Woodbury was sentenced to 1 to 3 years in prison yesterday for stealing more than $650,000 in a real estate scam in which he duped his mother-in-law -- an unknowing participant in the fraud, prosecutors said.

John Tuozzo, 48, pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud and was sentenced in a Mineola courtroom by Judge Susan T. Kluewer, prosecutors said.

Tuozzo will serve the 1- to 3-year sentence concurrently with Suffolk County and federal sentences "on other mortgage and tax convictions he's now serving in a federal facility in Massachusetts," Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement. Specifics on those convictions were not immediately available.

Tuozzo was responsible for "tricking his mother-in-law into signing various real estate documents that allowed him to steal more than $600,000 from several financial institutions," and he left the victim "facing civil lawsuits in addition to foreclosure proceedings on a nearly $1 million home she had no idea she owned," prosecutors said in a news release.

Tuozzo's Mineola attorney Joseph Conway could not immediately be reached for comment.

District attorney investigators arrested Tuozzo, a self-employed mortgage broker, in March 2010, Rice said.