FLATIRON — A pack of cigarettes dropped at the scene of a Flatiron burglary in December led police to their culprit months later thanks to some forensic work, according to a police report.
Officers tracked down Earl Brown, 47, on April 12 in connection to a break-in at the office of a health insurance agency at Fifth Avenue and East 19th Street after a DNA swab of a pack of cigarettes dropped at the scene matched with Brown, police said.
Brown broke into four offices in the agency's seventh-floor suite on Dec. 6 at about 5 p.m. by shattering their windows, and stole three laptops worth $4,010 in total, according to a police report.
Surveillance footage at the scene also showed Brown trying to force the front door of the offices open, according to a criminal complaint.
In the process, he dropped a pack of cigarettes on the floor, which an employee later found, police said.
The pack was sent to the forensic biology unit at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where the lab was able to match DNA found on the cigarettes to Brown’s profile, according to a police report.
Brown, who is also listed under the name Aziz Shahid and Abdul Shahid in state criminal history records, has spent more than 20 years in New York state prisons since 1990 on various burglary and robbery charges, and was last paroled in 2014 after a seven-year stint for burglary, according to public records.
For the recent incident, prosecutors charged Brown with grand larceny and burglary. A judge ordered him held on $15,000 bail pending his next court date on May 25, according to court records.
Brown’s lawyer and a representative of health insurance company did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
