As I drove down the Pennsylvania turnpike, at a very high rate of speed, my mind was a whirlwind of thoughts and scenarios. The only words spoken by Nadine so far were “We were robbed!”. Was anybody hurt? How are my employees? What was taken? Did the police catch the robbers? A mile a minute. I had to get there.
The police activity was crazy. I walked into the store. Many officers were taking pictures, processing fingerprints, collecting evidence and watching the video recorder that was hidden from view…good move Jeff. The one perpetrator tried to tear a broken VCR dummy tape out of the visible dummy player that was put there for that reason. His frustration had him pull the unit out of the wall and carry it out of the store upon his getaway. Let’s get to the story.
A beautiful brisk sunny day was November 4th, 2011. A kind gentleman, dressed nicely, was buzzed into the store. Nadine asked how she could help him and he countered by drawing a 9mm semiautomatic pistol on her and vaulting the counter, then buzzed his accomplice through our gate. Two middle aged men deciding to rob and terrorize my employees that day. Racking their guns and letting rounds eject out of the chamber, luckily no bullets were fired by these animals. The original gangster opened my office door and leveled his firearm directly at my 21 year old employees head. What a piece of shit. He instructed her to disarm the camera system and then lay on the floor in my office. Luckily, she knew not what to disconnect. Nadine and my Jeweler “Tha” were also told to lay on the floor while they zip tied their wrists. The big boss had a hefty bag and began clearing out jewelry cases in the front of the store. The other clown started clearing out our office safe and antagonizing my crew. Then…a savior! A customer came in the store and saw that we were being robbed, ran out, and called the Police. The loser in the front of the store ran back in to the office and said “let’s go!”. The other loser tore the old VCR out of the wall and the two vaulted the cases and ran out the front door. My younger employee had dialed 911 while her hands were tied and Nadine was able to hit the hold up button to alert the alarm company.
While the thieves were making their getaway, an off duty officer saw what was happening and took off after them while his wife talked to Philly PD dispatch. Their wild chase ended in the officer losing the perps during a high speed chase that became too dangerous to continue. Back at the store, I made sure everyone was safe and everyone was escorted to the 2nd District to be asked questions pertaining to the robbery. I remained at the store with the other detectives to finish up and get the store in condition to close for an extended period of discovery and inventory taking. I went home that night and thanked God that no one got hurt and thanked Nick for having me away from the store. It could have gotten ugly if I had been there. The next few days, we had to do very intensive inventory to try to make the insurance company happy. It actually took two months to finally come to a proper count and dollar agreement, as far as they were concerned. My number was $154,000 in loss of inventory. They settled on $65,000. Not very fair. That’s the way it goes after paying so many years of high premiums. Oh, well. What else is new.
We waited two months with no reports from the Philadelphia detectives. I was contacted by Action News Crime Busters to see if I wanted to have the story highlighted on the 6 pm and 11 pm news. So…I had to put up a $2000 reward for information that leads to the scumbags capture. The next day, the Robbery was front and center on CrimeStoppers with the video, plain as day, of the perpetrators and the $2000.00 reward for information to the arrest of these two asses. Within one week, they were captured in North Philadelphia and arrested to face Federal charges of 1st Degree Robbery Committed with a firearm. Minimum sentence 10 to 15 years in Federal Prison. It only cost me $2000.00 plus the $89,000 in unrecoverable assetts and the innocence of my employees who wanted just to be kind humans and help people with their jewelry needs. Just awful. These fine gentlemen also knocked off several Radio Shack locations, a few gas stations and fast food restaurants. Real nice guys. Their own mother probably turned them in for the $2000k. Wouldn’t doubt it.
I wrote a letter to the Judge on the behalf of my employees. About the mental duress and anxiety they were experiencing caused by the actions of these animals. It was to the point. No mercy and well received. The two were sentenced for the crime and received 10 plus years each in Federal Prison. They were also directed to pay me reparations for the unrecoverable merchandise. Basically all of it. I never received a dime. I figured that anyway.
We really had to pick it up now and resupply for the Christmas season. It took a while to get paid by the insurance company and then I would owe a lot more to the vendors for the loss that the insurance company didn’t cover. I then have to buy more jewelry from them to replace the stolen inventory. It was tough going for a while but it is what it is. I’m used to tough times in business but now my business would never be the same. This was different. What a shame…Innocence lost. We’ll get through it though. Ho Ho Ho…bring it on Santa.
Next Up: Flying to Bradenton