Cumberland man strikes up quick friendship then ends up jailed for robbery
WOONSOCKET — A Cumberland man is held without bail on charges of robbing an acquaintance of a gold necklace at gunpoint.
Police had been looking for Dorakis “Raco” Turvi, 22, since the crime took place on Jan. 23. He was arrested on Feb. 7 after police spotted a car Turvi is known to drive and pulled him over near Gaskill Street.
He was ordered held at the Adult Correctional Institutions as a probation violator following an initial appearance in Sixth District Court on one count of first-degree robbery.
Police reports say the victim was a 33-year-old Jamestown man who met Turvi in Sixth District Court a day before the robbery for the first time. The victim told police they accompanied each other to Providence Place Mall, a Walmart in Providence and Twin River Casino together before they split up. The man told police he bought Turvi a phone at Walmart, although he “did not feel good about it” because he hardly knew him.
The next day, Turvi called the victim and asked him to buy some marijuana for him. The two later met up on Farm Street in Blackstone and “drove around Woonsocket for a while” before Turvi told him he knew a place where “they could meet some girls,” a police report says.
They drove to a house on Willow Street where Turvi appeared to be texting someone on his phone, then “pulled out a large caliber, two-tone silver revolver” and pressed the barrel against his face between his eyes.
At that point, the victim told police, Turvi used an ethnic slur and told him, “Take off the chain...take off the chain. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”
The victim said he was having trouble with the clasp on the chain, so he ripped it from his neck, gave it to Turvi and ran from his own car to a nearby pizza parlor to call the police. He looked back to see if Turvi was chasing him and saw him rummaging through the car.
Later, when he went back to the vehicle, he realized Turvi had also taken a large bottle of vodka from it.
The 20-inch, 24kt gold chain, with a marijuana-leaf charm, was worth about $600, the man told police.
The victim identified Turvi as the perpetrator from a photograph of himself on his Facebook page, which investigators located by searching for the suspect using his nickname.
Turvi has a criminal record that dates back to 2016 and includes convictions for motor vehicle theft, larceny from the person, breaking and entering and possession of a controlled substance, all of which carried probationary sentences that were still active, the judiciary’s database says.
Following an appearance in Sixth District Court last Friday, Turvi was declared to be in violation of the active probation sentences, the most recent of which was a 2018 case that carried five years.
Turvi, who provided police with an address of 13 Chambers St., Cumberland, is due back in court for another hearing on Feb. 24.