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NYPD Officer Nabs Shoplifting Crew Red-Handed, Police Say

By Noah Hurowitz | December 30, 2016 8:35am
 Four would-be shoplifters were arrested after an officer spotted them casing a CVS.
Four would-be shoplifters were arrested after an officer spotted them casing a CVS.
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DNAInfo/Noah Hurowitz

FLATIRON — A crew of shoplifters who stole more than $1,000 worth of goods from a Sixth Avenue Duane Reade on Christmas Eve were caught by a police officer who followed them and caught them red-handed, according to prosecutors.

Jamalee Reese, 46, Tammy Bethea, 51, Charles Moore, 57, and Renese Stokes, 47, were arrested after an officer watched them shoplift from a Duane Reade at 777 Sixth Avenue on Dec. 24, according to Police Officer David Verna in a criminal complaint.

Verna first spotted the crew at about 2 p.m. standing next to a Dodge Durango peering into what he described as a “booster bag,” before heading into a CVS at West 18th Street and Sixth Avenue, according to their criminal complaint. The officer followed Stokes and Bethea into the store where he saw an employee make eye contact with the pair, prompting them to walk out of the store without taking or buying anything, he said.

The group piled into the Dodge Durango and headed to the Duane Reade at West 26th Street and Sixth Avenue, where Stokes, Bethea, and Reese entered the store with the bag, Verna said. About two minutes later, the trio came dashing out of Duane Reade, climbed into the SUV, and drove off, according to the complaint.

Verna tailed the vehicle for several blocks before pulling the crew over, and upon searching them found an H&M bag lined with aluminum foil and filled with “many different kinds of items” from the Duane Reade, he said in the complaint.

An employee who spoke to police told Verna that he watched as Stokes, Bethea, and Reese pull items from the shelf and put them into the bag, and estimated they had stolen about $1,582 worth of goods, Verna said in the complaint.

Prosecutors charged all four defendants with grand larceny, records show. A judge ordered Reese held on $1,000 bail, Bethea held on $5,000 bail, Stokes held on $2,500 bail and released Moore without bail, according to a spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Bethea and Stokes were released on Tuesday after posting bail, but Reese remained locked up at Rikers Island as of Friday morning, records show.

The four were due back in court on Friday.

Lawyers for the defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.