Burglars Sentenced After Posing For Photos With Stolen Property: DA

VALLEY STREAM, NY. — Two men were sentenced to jail time after prosecutors said they posed as construction workers and broke into a home.

According to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly, 31-year-old Dejuan Michaels and 30-year-old Daiquan Smith stole over $1 million in property from a Valley Stream home in 2023. That $1 million, prosecutors said, included a combination of cash, watches and firearms, all of which the men photographed themselves with on the same day as the robbery.

“Incredibly, after absconding with the proceeds of their theft over state lines, the men memorialized their crime in photographs, posing with the cash, watches, and guns they stole in the very same clothes they wore when committing the crime," Donnelly said.

Prosecutors said the robbery took place on Sep. 23, 2023, after the owner of the home left for work. The men arrived to the house in two vehicles, accompanied by 45-year-old Tehron Green, whose sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 3, and a fourth man who has not been arrested, the DA said. All four men were wearing construction gear, prosecutors said.

Once they were on the premises, prosecutors said, the men broke a window and brought a hand truck into the house, leaving later in the morning with two safes on the hand truck filled with cash, firearms, watches and other property.

Prosecutors said they discovered the photos of Michaels and Smith holding the stolen property while reviewing their cell phone records. In those photos, prosecutors said, the men were holding the cash, firearms and watches in a Pennsylvania warehouse, wearing the same clothes they were captured wearing on surveillance footage outside the burgled home. Appearing in the background of one of the photos was Green, prosecutors said.

Michaels and Green were arrested on April 11, 2024, in New Castle, DE and Philadelphia, PA, respectively, the DA said. Green was arrested almost a year later, this past March, in Montgomery County, PA, Donnelly added.

Prosecutors said Michaels and Smith pleaded guilty this September to one count of second-degree burglary and one count of first-degree grand larceny. Green pleaded guilty to the same charges on the same day, prosecutors said, but his sentencing is scheduled for December, the DA said.

The district attorney recommended 12 years in prison for each defendant; prosecutors said Michaels and Smith were each sentenced to nine years.