Attempted robbery at Chase ATM in Millwood part of a string of robberies

June 25, 2010
by Christine Yeres

An attempted robbery at a Chase ATM in Millwood this Sunday, June 20, at 10:30 a.m. turned out three days later to have been part of a string of three robberies, one in the Thornwood Town Center parking lot Sunday evening and another in Elmsford on Monday, June 21. A call from one of the suspects for emergency medical assistance on Tuesday, June 22 was the break in the case that enabled police to connect the three incidents.

“The Millwood incident was an attempted robbery,” explained Detective Sergeant James Wilson of the New Castle Police Department, “because the perpetrator didn’t get anything.  The female victim was really on her toes.  The ATM is on the outside of a building, completely wide open.  When you’re using it your back is toward the parking lot.  She felt someone behind her, felt something pressed into her side, saw a masked face and took off running.”  The woman called 911, but when New Castle police officers responded they found no one.  The woman described the would-be robber as a white male wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled low over his head and a blue bandanna covering his face.

Similar MO in Thornwood and Elmsford robberies

“Mt. Pleasant PD reported a similar robbery that same night at a Citibank in Thornwood,” noted Wilson. “We all work together.  The detectives [from the different towns] know one another, and we send out messages among departments.  Monday morning on my way to work a detective sergeant from Mt. Pleasant called me and we compared notes.  The incidents seemed very similar, and the descriptions of the suspect matched.  Monday morning there was another incident in Elmsford, same MO, same description of the suspect.”

Shortly after midnight on Wednesday, June 23, Wilson was called at home by the Mt. Pleasant police, who requested that he come in to their police station to work on the cases together. When he arrived, they laid out for him what they had found out so far. A call had been received for emergency medical attention on Tuesday, June 22, around 3:00 p.m. from the Pleasantville apartment of Tara Persaud, 19, and James Graziano, 25. Persaud was complaining of sickness and back pain.

While in the apartment, the police noticed drug paraphernalia.  Persaud was taken to the hospital and the police went to obtain a search warrant.  When they returned to the apartment with the warrant, the Mt. Pleasant police found what they believed to be heroin, crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, as well as equipment used to process and package such drugs.  More drugs were found in the couple’s car as well as some property stolen in the robberies.

“We put the results of our investigations together that night,” recalled Wilson, “and determined that the two subjects were responsible for the New Castle attempted robbery incident as well. The couple were arraigned by a judge in Mt. Pleasant [on Wednesday afternoon] and charged with robbery in the first degree, then taken to the [Westchester] county jail [in White Plains].”  Although the couple will appear at some point in New Castle town court to be arraigned on the attempted robbery charge, the case will eventually be tried in county court in White Plains, according to Wilson, as are all serious criminal offenses. “Our town courts handle mostly misdemeanors and felonies.  Armed robbery is a very, very serious offense,” he pointed out. Armed robbery in the first degree, a class B violent felony offense, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.