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On Friday, East Hampton Village Police arrested a pair suspected of shoplifting handbags from Balenciaga on two occasions. Police believe they had returned to the store on Friday to do it again. T.E. McMORROW
For the second time over the past two years, a shoplifting team traveled a long distance before targeting the Balenciaga store in East Hampton Village on Newtown Lane — only to end up under arrest, charged with grand larceny, according to police.
Uriel Dogel Rodriguez Guzman, 30, of Flushing, Queens, and Liliana Varela Garcia, 41, of Corona, Queens, had previously hit the store twice, according to East Hampton Village Police, first on July 1 then on September 17, shoplifting handbags on both occasions. Police said they returned on Friday afternoon, November 10, to do it again.
On July 1, the two entered the store at about 3:45 p.m., then concealed under their loose clothing several bags, including a silver XS crush handbag with the company’s signature B on the front, a copper crush bag with a silver chain, and a white crush bag and a black XS crush handbag with a B on a silver chain, police said. The total value was over $19,000.
Then on September 17, the pair returned at about 4:30 in the afternoon and made off with a black small crush bag and a white small crush handbag with a combined value of $4,000, police said.
When the duo returned on Friday, police said, store employees, familiar with their appearance, thanks to in-house surveillance video from the prior incidents, quietly called 911 while they were walking through the store.
Perhaps aware that they were being watched, the two left the store without taking anything, according to the police. They crossed the street, walking toward Main Street, when two squad cars swooped in, and they were taken into custody near the Gucci store on Newtown Lane, police said, and charged in connection with the two earlier incidents.
It is not the first brush with the law for either defendant, according to statements made in East Hampton Town Justice Court during their virtual arraignments on Saturday morning. But while there is an outstanding bench warrant out of Pennsylvania for Rodriguez Guzman — who was charged with two counts of third-degree grand larceny, a felony, connected to the shoplifting incidents — he apparently has no prior felony convictions. Pennsylvania authorities told East Hampton Village Police that they would not be exercising the warrant, Justice Steven Tekulsky said.
So after he was arraigned, Rodriguez Guzman was released from police headquarters on Cedar Street.
Such was not the case for Varela Garcia, who was charged with one count of third-degree grand larceny. She has previously been convicted twice of felony crimes similar to the one she’s now charged with, Tekulsky said. In 2006, in Pennsylvania, she was convicted of a grand larceny charge and sentenced to five years in prison but was released on parole.
The second felony conviction was also out of state, it appears, in 2017.
Because of those two felony convictions, she is not eligible to be released on the new felony charge by a local judge and was remanded to the Suffolk County Jail in Yaphank. She will be held there until Thursday afternoon. If she’s not indicted by then by a grand jury, she will be released, Tekulsky explained.
However, there is also an outstanding arrest warrant for her out of Maryland. Maryland authorities told the Village Police that they would, in fact, exercise that warrant and pick up Varela Garcia upon her release.
The pair were represented on Saturday morning by Brian DeSesa, who was on hand, virtually, as part of the county’s weekend arraignment program, which guarantees legal representation for defendants during the arraignment process
When Tekulsky asked DeSesa what Rodriguez Guzman was doing in East Hampton, DeSesa replied that he had been told by the defendant that he was there on business purposes.
Unlike the group that struck the store last year, Valera Garcia and Rodriguez Guzman did not drive to East Hampton. Instead, it appears that they traveled via either bus or train to and from Queens.
The previous shoplifting case involving the Balenciaga store occurred in March of last year. Five individuals from the Newark, New Jersey, area drove out to East Hampton and launched a swarm-and-snatch raid at Balenciaga, making off in less than two minutes with $94,000 worth of purses and bags.
Driving a Dodge Durango, they were pursued by police, who had to break off the chase at least twice due to concerns that innocent bystanders and drivers could be seriously injured in a crash.
Eventually, they were pursued approaching the Long Island Expressway, headed west.
In that incident, the Dodge Durango broke down at Exit 69. Police pursued the five of them on foot. Four were taken into custody.
Jamal Johns, Wazir Rodgers, Bahseema Davis and Ali Harris all pleaded guilty to felony charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property and were sentenced to between two to six and three to nine years in state prison.
Rodgers and Harris have since been released on parole, while Davis and Johns, each of whom had more serious criminal records, remain incarcerated in upstate New York.
A fifth suspect, a woman, who in the surveillance videos appeared to be the ringleader, eluded capture and is still at large.
