BY Michael Frazier
Newsday
NEW YORK — Four men from Queens and Brooklyn with a plot to don law enforcement uniforms to penetrate drug dens they targeted to rob were arrested in an undercover operation, Nassau police said yesterday.
The men were arrested Tuesday while en route to rob an undisclosed Hicksville target, police said, - and were each charged with second-degree conspiracy, first-degree attempted robbery, second-degree and third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and criminal use of a firearm.
During the course of investigations, Narcotics Bureau officers became aware of “a group of individuals who over time ... expressed interest in ripping off a drug operation for drugs and cash,” Police Commissioner Lawrence Mulvey said yesterday in a news briefing in Mineola. He stood before two tables covered with badges, a police scanner and other law enforcement items as well as authentic-looking vests, jackets and other clothing with the words police or U.S. Department of Justice emblazoned across them. Those items and some firearms were seized from the men, Mulvey said.
Arrested were plot mastermind Juan Pichardo, 26, of 103rd Road, Corona, Queens; Fredis Arias, 27, of 37th Avenue, also in Corona; Carlos Martinez, 37, of 85th Street, Jackson Heights, and Santos Daniel Mendez, 54, of South Street, Brooklyn.
Arias, Pichardo and Martinez pleaded not guilty in First District Court and were ordered held without bail. Their next court date is Monday.
Mendez had not been arraigned as of late yesterday.
Citing a continuing investigation, police offered few details about the the alleged plot. After tracking them for about two weeks, police determined the men planned to strike the Hicksville location Tuesday so police units were set up nearby.
At 11:15 p.m., officers tried to pull over a 2000 Lincoln carrying the four men on Holman Boulevard, but the driver sped off. While trying to get away, the car crashed into another parked vehicle.
Mendez and Martinez were arrested at the crash site, while K-9 handlers tracked down Arias and Pichardo about 1:15 a.m., hiding in a nearby backyard, police said.
Copyright 2007 Newsday