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$36K of Jewelry Stolen From Apartment in Frank Gehry Tower, Police Say

By Irene Plagianos | March 20, 2014 4:38pm | Updated on March 21, 2014 2:20pm
 Jewelry was stolen from the 30th floor of the soaring Spruce Street tower.
Jewelry was stolen from the 30th floor of the soaring Spruce Street tower.
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DNAinfo/Julie Shapiro

FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Rings, necklaces, watches and bracelets worth a total of $36,500 were stolen from an apartment at the tony Frank Gehry-designed 8 Spruce St. tower, after a teenager who lived there invited over a friend with a criminal past, police said.

According to police, the 19-year-old woman invited a friend she knew through work — 21-year-old Jamar Allah — to her family's 30th-floor apartment on March 16. Allah arrived at 10 p.m. with five additional friends, and the 19-year-old said she felt "scared and uneasy" with the group there, according to police reports.

When the crew eventually left, at about 4 a.m., the woman asked Allah to open his backpack so she could search it, but he refused, she told police. She then threatened to call police.

"How will you call the police if you're dead?" Allah responded, according to his criminal complaint,

"I'll slit your throat," Allah added, spitting in the woman's face, prosecutors said.

The young woman's mother told police that when she came home on March 17, after being away for the weekend with her husband, she found that 26 pieces of jewelry — including an $8,000 bracelet and a $9,000 ring — were missing from a dresser drawer, which looked like it had been tampered with.

Police arrested Allah on March 19 and charged him with one count of third-degree grand larceny, a felony.

According to the New York Post, Allah had 20 previous arrests, including a Sept. 1, 2013 incident in which he punched a 22-year-old woman in the chest. That case is pending.

Allah is being held on $50,000 bail.

Other recent crimes in the 1st Precinct include:

► Jewelry worth $19,895 was stolen from TriBeCa jeweler Cass Lilien last week, police said. The owner told police she closed her 24 Harrison St. shop at about 6:15 p.m. on March 13, and when she returned to reopen her store the next day, she found nine pieces of jewelry missing.

Items included a $15,000 Judith Leiber bracelet, a $1,000 diamond bangle and a $600 gold bracelet. Cass Lilien, the shop's owner, said her doors were locked when she came back to the shop.

"It's been awful, but I'm ready to move on," Lilien told DNAinfo New York. "It's very tough financially, but we'll just keep looking ahead."

Lilien wrote a letter addressed to the thief and hung it on her storefront window the day after the incident.

"I felt really terrible, and I thought, this thief might pass by again, I want them to see what this means to me," she said.

Lilien took the letter down Thursday, but said the process of writing it made her feel better, even though the goods remain stolen.

► A woman had her $800 Norma Kamali coat, along with her $800 iPad and $1,200 MacBook Pro, stolen as she dined at China Chalet, police said. The 25-year-old told police she checked the coat and other items at the 47 Broadway restaurant on March 7 at about 11 p.m. When she went to retrieve her things several hours later, she couldn't find her ticket— and the coat check no longer had a matching ticket stub for the missing items.

► Five women stole four handbags worth a total of $1,190 from SoHo boutique Etienne Aigner on March 15 at about 2:15 p.m., police said. The women quickly grabbed the bags from the 65 Greene St. shop, then fled outside and hopped into a silver Nissan Maxima that was waiting for them. The male driver sped away north on Greene Street.