Crime & Safety

Crimes Nearby: Mechanic Arrested, Couple Robbed

Crimes from nearby communities.

Mineola

A Nassau County Police auto mechanic was arrested in Mineola Friday morning after he was found in possession of a stolen non-police vehicle.

According to police, mechanic Steven M. Vitalo turned himself in at  in Mineola after being charged with criminal possession of stolen property in the third degree, a class-D felony.

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Vitalo was arrested after investigations by the Nassau County Police Department Internal Affairs Unit, in conjunction with the Public Corruption Bureau.

He has been suspended from duty without pay.

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Plainview

An elderly Plainview resident returning home from shopping was accosted by a man with a gun who ordered the victim into his home and proceeded to ransack the residence.

The attacker, who pulled a handgun, took money, credit cards, a cell phone and jewelry from the man and his wife, who was home at the time, Nassau County Police said last week.

The robbery occurred Wednesday. The suspect ordered the victim into a room where his 77-year-old wife was watching TV. After taking the money and credit cards, the assailant proceeded to the second floor, where he ransacked the bedrooms and took additional jewelry, police said.

The victims managed to call police and activate an audible alarm. The subject fled on foot.

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A young Plainview woman encountered a burglar in her home Wednesday and, undetected on the stairs, slipped into a closet and called police.

The 18-year-old was in her bedroom about 5:45 p.m. Wednesday when she heard noises coming from the first floor of her Eton Place home, said early Thursday.

She started down the stairs and spotted a strange man standing in her home. The burglar apparently didn't see the victim, who fled undetected into a second-floor closet, detectives said. From inside the closet, the woman used a cell phone to contact police.

As she hid, the victim heard the burglar moving through the house. After a while, the intruder fled out the back door of the home in an unknown direction, police said.

Malverne-West Hempstead

The located at 611 Hempstead Turnpike in West Hempstead was . The suspect is described as a black male, 40-50 years old, approximately 6-foot-2, wearing a gray puffy jacket, a red and white Yankees baseball cap and silver rimmed glasses.

Tire and rim thieves . The incident happened between 1 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. with thieves appearing to be targeting Nissan Maximas.

Hempstead

A Lynbrook man has been arrested and charged with rape after a violent home invasion and robbery in Hempstead Sunday night.

Wiseallah Hightower-Castro, 24, of Lynbrook, was arrested several days after his alleged participation in the incident.

According to Nassau County detectives, around 11 p.m., a 22-year-old male victim went to visit his 47-year-old mother at her home on Grove Street in Hempstead. Also present at the time was a 44-year-old woman.

While in the upstairs apartment, the male heard a knock at the door and answered it, police said. Three men then pushed their way into the apartment.

Two of them took the 44-year-old woman into the bathroom and sexually assaulted her.

Shortly afterward, a 49-year-old woman stopped at the house and was confronted by one of the suspects, police said. She was ordered to lie on the floor while a cell phone and an unknown amount of cash were removed from her pockets by the suspect. One of the women managed to escape by jumping out a window and notified police. The three men fled the scene.

Hightower-Castro is being charged with rape in the first degree, criminal sexual act in the first degree, robbery in the first degree, robbery in the second degree, two counts of burglary in the first degree, criminal use of a firearm in the first degree, assault in the second degree, criminal possession of a weapon in the third degree.


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