FBI: Men donned women’s clothes to steal jewelry
These guys disguised themselves as women, smeared their faces with makeup and covered their heads with long dark wigs to commit armed robberies at jewelry stores, according to the FBI.
But they didn’t do such a good job of covering their tracks, authorities say.
Seven months after the first suspect was arrested — hiding in a bush near the scene of a heist in Port St. Lucie — federal prosecutors have charged four Broward County men with pulling off four jewelry store robberies in Florida and Georgia during a sixweek period in March and April.
A video of one of the men dancing and waving a gun around on Facebook Live, a cellphone accidentally left behind at one of the stores, and a discarded water bottle were just some of the evidence that helped investigators link all four men to the spree.
Some of the crimes also were captured on security video that showed men disguised as women who pointed guns, manhandled staff and stole jewelry.
On Nov. 9, federal prosecutors obtained a new grand jury indictment that identified all four suspects for the first time and charged them with carrying out a robbery spree that spanned more than 400 miles. Authorities have not revealed the total value of items stolen.
The men are charged with conspiring to rob these four stores: Class Jewelers in the 3700 block of Hillsboro Boulevard in Deerfield Beach on March 3; Lilli’s Jewelry store in Spring Hill, Hernando County, northwest of Tampa, on March 16; Bishop’s Jewelers in Valdosta, Ga., on April 1; and LSO Jewelry and Repair in Port St. Lucie on April 13.
Adrian Hardy, 33, Jerome Simmons, 29, Christopher Brinson, 32, all of Fort Lauderdale, and Emmory Moore, 33, of Coral Springs, have pleaded not guilty to a slew of related federal charges. Court records suggest there could be more arrests pending.
The robbery April 13 in Port St. Lucie garnered most of the headlines.
Prosecutors said three men, who were armed with guns and wore bright red lipstick, thick makeup and women’s clothes, walked into the store and said they were shopping for an engagement ring.
Workers immediately figured out they were being robbed, because the men’s disguises were not very convincing, according to court records. A fourth man waited outside to act as a lookout and getaway driver, authorities said.
The gang terrorized two female employees and scooped up an estimated $1 million worth of jewelry, investigators said. But the men panicked and left behind all the loot — with the exception of one Rolex watch — when police showed up just 10 minutes into the heist.
Simmons — wearing only his underwear, socks and makeup — was arrested as he crawled out of a nearby bush moments after the robbery. He also had a walkie-talkie and had discarded a wig and women’s clothing nearby, agents said.
Hardy fled to a nearby house, where he kidnapped four adults at gunpoint and forced them to drive him to Fort Lauderdale, according to court records. He released them, uninjured, when they dropped him off, agents said. Investigators linked him to the crime when they found his fingerprints inside the Port St. Lucie house and on a water bottle he dropped in a Fort Lauderdale parking lot as he ran from the kidnap victims.
Hardy went on the lam for nearly a month but was arrested May 8 as he left a Golden Corral restaurant in Orlando.
Brinson was initially arrested April 21 on unrelated charges by agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives. That investigation started when FBI agents saw a Facebook Live video that featured Brinson and a friend — singing and dancing while Brinson waved a gun around — outside a convenience store in Fort Lauderdale’s Franklin Park neighborhood.
Brinson acknowledged that he was the man in the video, which was posted publicly on his friend’s Facebook page March 20, but denied it was a real gun. He said the gun, which was never found, was a realisticlooking replica that did not fire bullets.
Ballistics experts who analyzed the cellphone camera video said it was a genuine Glock pistol. Brinson was arrested and locked up without bond on a federal charge of being a convicted felon who illegally possessed a firearm.
In July, prosecutors filed new federal charges against him, accusing him of robbery and using a gun during the Port St. Lucie robbery.
Recently unsealed court records reveal that witnesses in the Deerfield Beach robbery later identified Brinson as a customer who walked into the store and asked about selling a ring about 10 minutes before two men dressed as women burst in and robbed staff at gunpoint.
Moore, who was publicly identified as a suspect in the robberies for the first time earlier this month, had been locked up on state charges since April 6 for violating probation with a misdemeanor arrest, records show.
The recently unsealed court records also reveal that a cellphone, which was accidentally left behind at the Spring Hill robbery, was registered to Moore. Cellphones were also seized from Brinson after his arrest.
Agents were able to link the suspects to one another and to the robberies using photos, text messages and saved contact numbers on those phones. Cellphone tower records also proved that some of the suspects’ phones had been near the robbery locations when the crimes occurred. Agents also used Sunpass toll records linked to a minivan that had been rented by one of the men to link them to the crime scenes.
If convicted of the most serious charges, all four men could face life in federal prison. Their trial is scheduled for January in federal court in West Palm Beach.