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Thieves Pose as Patients, Steal $70K Worth of Hospital Heart Monitors: NYPD

By Noah Hurowitz | November 18, 2015 5:03pm
 Imani McBride and Joel Alicea stole heart monitoring equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars, police said.
Imani McBride and Joel Alicea stole heart monitoring equipment worth tens of thousands of dollars, police said.
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Shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel

GRAMERCY — This was a heartless crime.

Two men allegedly stole thousands of dollars in medical equipment from two Manhattan hospitals in three separate heists, registering as patients under assumed names before making off with the goods, according to police.

Imani McBride, 20, and Joel Alicea, 21 allegedly stole more than half a dozen pieces of cardiac equipment from Lenox Health Greenwich Village and Mount Sinai Beth Israel, hitting Lenox Hill last November and plundering Beth Israel once at the end of October and again in the beginning of November, police said.

The pair stole more than $70,000 worth of property overall, according to a police spokesman.

McBride was seen on a security camera on Nov. 28, 2014 at 3:30 p.m. entering an examination room at the Greenwich Village Hospital with an empty plastic bag and leaving with a bulky plastic bag. Shortly after, security found a heart-rate monitor valued at $21,690 and an otoscope — for examining ears — worth $1,182 had gone missing, according to a police report.

McBride struck again on Oct. 30, registering at Beth Israel under a fake name shortly after 11 p.m. and disappearing with a wall-mounted heart monitor, police said. He returned on Nov. 3 at about 2 p.m. and repeated his act, stealing another heart monitor, police said.

Alicea then showed up at Beth Israel on Nov. 3 at about 11 p.m. with two unidentified accomplices, loaded six wall-mounted heart monitors into plastic bags, and ran out a back exit, police said.

Police caught up with McBride and Alicea on Nov. 11. They acknowledged they were in several surveillance photos from the crimes, and said they knew each other from high school, according to a police report.

Prosecutors charged the pair with grand larceny, and a judge ordered McBride held on $7,500 bail and released Alicea without bail, according to court records. Both are due back in court on Feb. 2.

Attorneys for the men did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Neither Hospital responded to requests for comment.