Crime Watch

Suspect charged in knife-wielding thefts

Valley Stream woman was getaway driver

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A Hempstead man and a Valley Stream woman face federal charges after they were arrested on June 8, accused of working together to rob businesses in Nassau, Suffolk and Queens counties in recent months. Authorities said the robberies, all of which included the threat of violence with a kitchen knife, funded one suspect’s heroin addiction.

The pair’s capture resulted from a series of events that started on the night of June 7 at about 9:50 p.m., when Khalif House, 24, of Hempstead, allegedly tried to rob a Dollar Store in College Point, Queens. A female employee fought off the would-be robber and chased him outside.

“That’s a great kick by her, by the way,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a press briefing at Nassau County Police Department headquarters in Mineola on June 8, pointing to footage of the incident captured on the store’s surveillance video.

“We had about 80 people deployed … throughout southeast Queens,” Boyce added. “They held their deployment due to the fact that he did not get any money. We felt he would strike again, and he did.”

Officers from the NYPD’s 105th Precinct spotted House 15 minutes after the College Point incident, walking near a Dunkin’ Donuts on Hillside Avenue at Little Neck Parkway in Queens. They approached him and he fled. Several blocks away, officers noticed a woman in a silver 2015 Honda Accord acting suspiciously.

The car matched the description of a vehicle that Nassau County police linked to the pattern of robberies. “As soon as she saw the officers, she ducked down … gave conflicting statements left and right,” said Boyce said.

The woman, Lisette Veltri, 24, of Hollywood Avenue in Valley Stream, was taken to the 105th Precinct and questioned. Police said that she identified House, her boyfriend, and “the case progressed at that point.”

Acting on a tip from a Floral Park resident, police discovered House hiding in a van in a parking lot shortly after 10 a.m. the next day. House had broken into a 75-year-old man’s home during the night as police searched for him, they said, and fallen asleep on a couch. The resident discovered and confronted House at around 7 a.m., and he fled, police said. He continued to evade police until a business owner spotted him walking through a parking lot and alerted officers who were blocks away.

Nassau County Police Chief of Department Steven Skrynecki said that 27 cases are being investigated as part of the robbery pattern, which targeted Subway, Dunkin’ Donuts, 7-Eleven and Carvel stores. Thirteen robberies took place in Nassau, 10 in Queens and four in Suffolk. “The pattern was discovered here in Nassau County beginning in March,” Skrynecki said. “Indications are that the pattern might have been existing in New York City as early as February.”

Two of the robberies occurred in North Valley Stream: one at a Carvel ice cream store, at 1551 Dutch Broadway, on April 12, and another at a Dunkin’ Donuts, at 238-19 Linden Boulevard, on May 17. Others occured in East Meadow, Elmont and North Merrick.

Officials did not indicate that House is being investigated for more than 20 similar robberies that have occurred in Valley Stream since February 2015. Nassau County police said in April that the patterns appear to be separate “This is going to be a federal prosecution,” Skrynecki said.

Boyce said that after two robberies in May, NYPD detectives connected two February robberies to the pattern. The robberies began to intensify in frequency, Boyce said, with incidents occurring on June 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6. House usually kept the knife in his pocket, revealing only a portion of it to his victims before demanding cash. The knife has not been recovered, Boyce said.

He explained that database checks had not previously brought House to detectives’ attention because he had no prior robbery arrests. He does have a criminal record that includes charges of possessing stolen property and drugs, as well as a DWI.

House and Veltri were charged with interfering with interstate commerce by robbery. Veltri was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Central Islip on June 8, and House was arraigned the following day. He had been taken to a hospital after he was arrested due to effects of his drug use, police said. Magistrate Judge A. Kathleen Tomlinson ordered House held without bail at the Nassau County Correctional Center, and indicated that he is “in substantial need of detox services,” at the request of his court-appointed attorney, Newsday reported.

Veltri, who has no prior criminal record, was released after posting $150,000 bond.