Say Clerk, Contractor Staged Corona Stickup
A female MTA worker assigned to the 7 Line’s 111th Street subway station in Corona and a male accomplice have been charged with conspiring and stealing approximately $4,000 in cash from the station during a staged robbery earlier this month.
In carrying out their alleged scheme, law enforcement sources said, 42-year-old Anthony Brown of Kosciuszko Street in Bedford- Stuyvesant, Brooklyn duct taped the hands and mouth of 48-year-old Tracy D. King of Van Wyck Expressway in South Ozone Park on May 11. Reportedly, he took the key to the MTA ticket booth and stole the money from the booth before King was found by co-workers and reported that she had been robbed.
According to Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown, Anthony Brown and King were charged of third- and fourth-degree grand larceny, defrauding the government, fifth-degree conspiracy and third-degree falsely reporting an incident. If convicted, they each face up to seven years in prison.
District Attorney Brown said, “Instead of being the alleged victim of a gunpoint robbery at her job, the MTA employee charged in this case is accused of staging the purported robbery and splitting the proceeds of the crime with an accomplice. They now face the likely prospect of significant time behind bars.”
According to the charges, King told police that she was working at the 111th Street subway station on the MTA’s 7 line at approximately 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 11, when Anthony Brown came to the station wearing an MTA reflective vest and asked to use the microwave in the station’s break room.
It is alleged that King additionally told police that once in the break room, Anthony Brown held a black revolver and a stun gun in his hand and pointed them at her. She claimed that he duct-taped her hands and mouth, removed the key to the MTA ticket booth and stated “I don’t want to hurt you; it’s all about the money.”
Reportedly, King told the police that Anthony Brown left her in the break room and that she heard a grinding noise coming from inside the MTA ticket booth. It is alleged that approximately $4,000 was taken from inside the ticket booth.
It is also alleged in the criminal complaint that Anthony Brown told police that King asked him if he wanted to make some money and told him to come to the 111th Street subway station on May 11 and that when he got there, King told him that there was four to five thousand dollars in the booth and that she wanted $2,000.
It is alleged that Anthony Brown also told police that it was King’s idea to put the duct tape on her because she said if he did not, the police would not believe that she had been robbed.
Anthony Brown alleged that he put two thousand dollars or more in her bag and that he never had a gun or any weapon, and that he had known King for about 10 years and that they were friends.
Following the alleged robbery, according to the criminal complaint, King was found in the break room duct taped by other MTA employees, who she told that she was a victim of a robbery, and who called police. It is alleged that King was taken to the NYPD’s 115th Precinct, where she filed a complaint stating that she was the victim of a robbery.
As part of the investigation, police allegedly recovered a roll of duct tape and a plastic container from the subway break room and discovered a latent fingerprint on the container, which matched those on file for Anthony Brown. Telephone records also allegedly showed that Brown had called King on her cell phone on numerous occasions, the most recent being at approximately 12:52 p.m. on May 10.
On May 13, the Queens Transit Robbery Squad executed a court-authorized search warrant on Anthony Brown’s residence and recovered a reflective contractor vest, a metal grinder, grinding blades and painter’s tape and that, in addition, they recovered $2,334 in cash from inside the Queens apartment of Brown’s girlfriend.
The investigation was conducted by the NYPD Queens Transit Robbery Squad.
The case is being prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau, which is under the supervision of James W. Evangelou, bureau chief, and Robert J. Hanophy, deputy bureau chief, and under the overall supervision of Senior Executive Assistant District Attorney for Trials James C. Quinn.
It was noted that a complaint is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
