By Jennifer Warren
Two men matching a description circulated by the Queens Robbery Squad for a series of armed robberies in the Richmond Hill area were arrested March 13 and led police to a large cache of weaponry, police from the 102nd Precinct said.
The district attorney’s office said a third man was also implicated in the string of armed robberies between March 4 and March 13 at 116-02 Liberty Ave., 111-01 101th Ave., 113-17 Myrtle Ave., and 116th Street and 101st Avenue.
Police arrested Angel Conde, 20, of 97-22 116th St. and Greg Payea, 45, of 17 East Palisades Ave. in Nanuet NY., and of 97-22 116th St., said Sgt. Paul O’Donnell, the arresting officer. The third man implicated in the robberies was Jason Calixto, 24, of 123-29 95th Ave. in Richmond Hill, de Bourbon said.
Conde and Payea were charged with multiple counts of armed robbery and multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon, de Bourbon said. Calixto was charged with tampering with physical evidence, she said.
If convicted of the armed robberies, Payea and Conde could face prison sentences of up to 25 years.
Following the robberies, the Queens Robbery Squad circulated a description of a 40-year-old male Caucasian with a long ponytail and a 20-year-old male Hispanic who were suspects in the four gun-point commercial robberies, O’Donnell said.
While on routine patrol at 9 p.m. O’Donnell and police officer Patrick Keefe of the 102nd Precinct saw Conde and Payea arguing at the corner of 101st Avenue and 116th Street and believed the men fit the description of the two robbery suspects, O’Donnell said.
“We stopped them and we recovered two guns — a gun on each person,” he said.
Conde and Payea were brought to the Queens Robbery Squad at the 109th Precinct, where they were interviewed by detectives and placed in lineups for identification. The two men were positively identified in three out of four lineups, O’Donnell said.
Calixto was accused of retrieving the guns from Payea’s dilapidated two-story house on 116th Street, gathering them in a bag and removing them to his own home on 95th Avenue after he was informed of Payea’s arrest, according to the district attorney’s complaint.
The two men in police custody led detectives to Calixto’s home on 95th Avenue, said de Bourbon. There police recovered the weapons which included 14 Glock handguns, two revolvers, a sawed-off shotgun, a .357 Magnum, handcuffs, a supply of magazine cartridges and two ghostlike masks — replicas of masks from the horror movie “Scream,” said O’Donnell, displaying a series of Polaroid photographs of the confiscated arsenal.
Reach reporter Jennifer Warren by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 155.
