Addicts in L.I. holdup spree
COPS BUSTED a crew of machete-wielding thieves responsible for 18 Long Island robberies undertaken to feed their heroin addiction, authorities said Tuesday.
Nassau County detectives tracked down the robbers in the three-month spree after they identified a Hyundai Tiburon as their getaway vehicle. They then followed the distinctive car to the next heist, cops said.
“They were using the proceeds of the robberies to fuel their heroin addiction,” Suffolk County Police Commissioner Timothy Sini said.
In fact, one of the thieves, 31-year-old Juliana Pantaleone of Levittown, was shooting up inside the Tiburon when cops closed in at about 9:40 p.m. Monday — just moments after she and her comrades robbed a Carvel ice cream shop on New York Ave. in Huntington Station. Ringleader Shane Cashmore, 30, and Paul Drab, 26, both of Levittown, were also arrested.
Cops believe Cashmore orchestrated 18 robberies in five different Long Island towns since February, officials said. Cashmore waved around a machete or large knife during some of the heists, police said.
Cops set their sights on Cashmore and his crew after obtaining surveillance video that identified the getaway vehicle as a 2006 Tiburon.
“There was some video of the car, and through oldfashioned police work, we were able to find a car (matching) the one on the video,” Sini said.
There were only 200 Tiburons in New York City and Long Island when cops began investigating, said Acting Nassau County Police Commissioner Thomas Krumpter. The field got even narrower when a Nassau County cop alerted detectives that he had arrested a man in a Tiburon a month earlier for drug possession.
Cops kept an eye on the car’s owner — Pantaleone — who ultimately led them to Cashmore and Drab.
No one was hurt in the robberies, police said.
Cops charged Cashmore with eight robberies. Drab and Pantaleone were charged with the Huntington Station robbery, cops said.