A Brooklyn man was sentenced in Queens Supreme Court Friday to more than a decade in prison for an armed robbery spree that hit ten locations across the borough, including gas stations and convenience stores, with 15 people being held up at gunpoint, in November 2022.
His two accomplices have pleaded guilty and will be sentenced next month.
Reginald Williams, 23, of Boerum Street pleaded guilty on June 9 to two counts of robbery in the first degree before Queens Supreme Court Justice Gia Morris.
According to the criminal charges, Williams admitted that his crew entered eight different commercial establishments in Ridgewood, Maspeth, and Flushing between Nov. 8 and Nov. 17 and stole thousands from the cash registers and additional items from the stores at gunpoint.
On Nov. 20, the trio hit an East Elmhurst deli located at 92-22 Astoria Blvd. where they held up two people at gunpoint and made off with $3,000 in cash and rolling papers. About a half hour later, they hit a Gulf gas station at 39-04 Skillman Ave. in Sunnyside where they took $1,700 in cash and multiple packs of Newport cigarettes.
Later that night a police officer from the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst was on routine patrol in Jackson Heights when he heard a radio call regarding the two heists saying the perpetrators were driving a blue or black Nissan Maxima. Garvey spotted the vehicle in Broadway around 2:30 a.m. and followed it for about five blocks before pulling them over for a traffic infraction. He observed three men in the vehicle along with multiple cartons of Newports that were reported stolen from the Gulf station, and the three men were taken into custody.
The defendants were identified from the victims in both Nov. 20 robberies and a search warrant was executed on the vehicle and a loaded .40 caliber handgun was recovered from the truck.
Each incident was captured on video surveillance and showed the three perpetrators wearing distinctive clothing and face masks. Williams was arrested wearing clothing from some of the robberies.
“Small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “We will prosecute anyone trying to take advantage of their hard-working proprietors and employees, or their customers. We can never lose sight of the fact that communities thrive when local businesses thrive.”
Justice Morris sentenced Williams to 11 years in prison to be followed by five years post-release supervision. When sentenced on July 10, co-defendant Calvin Scantlebury, 39, faces up to six years in prison and Dewkwan Cooper, 23, is expected to receive five years’ probation.
