Elmont man, two others arrested in robbery

Three young adults were arrested in Lynbrook and Elmont last week after holding up a Valley Stream Chinese restaurant with a BB gun. No one was hurt in the incident.

Detectives from the Fifth Precinct said on Wednesday that Andrew Alonge, of Lynbrook, Nicholas Vaccaro, 20, of Elmont, and Stephanie Ambrosio, 18, of North Valley Stream, worked together to rob the Kim Wong Chinese Kitchen on West Merrick Road in Valley Stream last Tuesday.

Police said the incident started at 10:25 Tuesday night, when Alonge and Ambrosio took a taxi from her home in North Valley Stream to the restaurant.

When they arrived, Alonge walked in with what appeared to be a black handgun and demanded that the store owner give him all the cash in the register.

The clerk handed over the money and Alonge fled on foot with Ambrosio in an unknown direction, eventually hooking up with a cab that Ambrosio had waiting for them on Casper Street.

After an investigation, police caught Ambrosio and Alonge at his home on Woods Street in Lynbrook. The two confessed to getting the handgun — which turned out to be a realistic-looking BB gun — from Vaccaro, who was arrested while at home in Elmont.

All three of the suspects were charged with first degree robbery and arraigned in district court in Hempstead last Wednesday.

After some investigation, detectives also charged Alonge with robbing the Broadway/Scranton Auto Care Center on Scranton Avenue in Lynbrook. The incident, which took place on Sept. 1 of this year, involved a young man matching Alonge’s description bursting into the auto care center armed with a knife and demanding cash from the register. He allegedly then took the money and ran off in an unknown direction.