‘Serial robber’ free to spree
5 cases pending – and out with no bail
An accused serial burglar with more than 30 busts on his rap sheet keeps getting cut loose by the courts — and he’s now suspected in a rash of new heists, The Post has learned.
Juan DelValle, 32, who now has five open cases in Manhattan and Brooklyn, was again released without bail by a Manhattan judge on Aug. 15 on burglary charges, despite prosecutors demanding he be held on $10,000 bail.
Now cops say he’s wanted on more than a dozen other burglaries after investigators found 20 laptops, tablets, a stolen 9mm handgun and drugs at his apartment in a Brooklyn public-housing complex, according to court records.
“The guy is Teflon,” one law-enforcement source told The Post. “Nothing sticks. And that’s not this guy trying to hide. It’s the law.
“We can’t hold him accountable,” the source said. “We can’t keep him from victimizing people because the law is a shield. The guy is telling us who he is. He’s someone who goes out and steals.”
DelValle’s lawyer at Legal Aid could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Among his pending cases is a May 25 burglary at New York Presbyterian/ Columbia University Irving Medical Center, where DelValle is charged with sneaking in and stealing a lab coat, shoes and ID cards, according to a criminal complaint.
Prosecutors did not seek bail in his arraignment in that case because the charges are not eligible for bail under state bail reform laws.
On July 22, he allegedly broke into the Route 66 Cafe on Ninth Avenue and stole $200 in cash and more than a dozen customer credit cards, court records show. But a judge sprung him on supervised released on that case at his Aug. 15 arraignment.
In that case, prosecutors argued for $10,000 cash bail or a $30,000 bond, arguing he is a “larceny recidivist” and has repeatedly been charged.
In all, DelValle has 33 prior arrests, 29 of them on felony charges, sources said.
According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, he has five prior felony convictions and three misdemeanor convictions in the borough.
Sources said DelValle is now being eyed in over a dozen other burglaries, nearly all of them in Brooklyn — including the theft of a $1,300 laptop from one home while the victim was asleep in the other room.