R’wood Shooting Victim Framed For Robbery
Originally charged with attempting to murder a man inside a Ridgewood barber shop last year, a Brooklyn man was indicted on Tuesday, May 21, for allegedly plotting to frame the victim with an armed robbery and sexual assault that never took place, law enforcement sources said.
Hipolito (a.k.a. Armoni) Rodriguez, 38, of MacDougal Street in the Ocean Hill section of Brooklyn was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on Tuesday in a seven-count indictment including charges of firstdegree perjury, bribing a witness, third-degree tampering with a witness, third-degree intimidating a victim or witness, second-degree unlawful imprisonment, third-degree false reporting and fifth-degree conspiracy.
Rodriguez was arrested in March 2012, days after allegedly firing a shotgun at Joshua Robles, 39, inside a barbershop on Seneca Avenue near Menahan Street; as previously reported, the blast grazed the victim’s head and he has since recovered from his injuries. The suspect pled guilty last August to a first-degree assault charge and is awaiting sentencing.
Law enforcement sources said Rodriguez and his son-Jordan (a.k.a. Blaze) Rodriguez, 19, also of MacDougal Street in Ocean Hill- coerced and bribed a woman Jordan Rodriguez dated into falsely claiming that Robles robbed and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.
Jordan Rodriguez was also charged in Tuesday’s indictment but remains at large as of press time, prosecutors said.
Robles was arrested on Aug. 29, 2012 on robbery and sexual abuse charges and indicted in December by a grand jury based on the testimony provided by the woman. Prosecutors learned, however, that the woman’s testimony was false.
Nevertheless, Queens District Attorney RichardA. Brown noted, Robles was jailed for eight months and faced “the frightening prospect of spending a lengthy time behind bars if convicted of the trumped-up charges.” Robles was released on his own recognizance in April and is set to return to court this Wednesday, May 29.
According to law enforcement sources, it is anticipated that the charges against Robles will be dropped at the May 29 hearing.
“This is not a case of the wrong man being accused of a crime, but a case of no crime ever being committed except for those the defendants are accused of committing,” Brown said in his statement on Tuesday. “Thanks, however, to the efforts of my staff who listened to the victim’s claims of innocence and continued to investigate the case, the victim is now a free man and it is the defendants who now face the prospect of spending a lengthy time behind bars.”
According to the indictment, Hipolito and Jordan Rodriguez paid the woman to falsely report to law enforcement agents that she was held up and sexually assaulted by Robles in the Ridgewood area in August. Reportedly, the suspects drove the woman to a pay phone located at the corner of Cypress and Greene avenues, which she was told to use to call police and report the purported crime.
Prosecutors said the woman was instructed by the Rodriguezs to tell police that the man who purportedly attacked her had a cross tattoo on his face similar to that which Robles has between his eyes.
Based on the victim’s claims, Robles was taken into custody by police on Aug. 29, 2012 on charges of first- and second-degree robbery, first-degree sexual abuse and forcible touching. He was subsequently held on $75,000 bail.
Authorities later learned that the grand jury testimony which the woman provided was done under durress, as the Rodriguezes allegedly threatened to physically harm the woman if she did not testify against Robles.
During his arraignment hearing on Tuesday, Hipolito Rodriguez was ordered held without bail by Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard L. Buchter and to return to court on June 4. If convicted, he faces up to seven years behind bars.
Assistant District Attorney Jared R. Rosenblatt of the DA’s Special Victims Bureau, who is prosecuting the case against the Rodriguezes, conducted the investigation with the assistance of Trial Prep Assistant Daniel T. Quinn.
