Queens Duo Sentenced In Armed Robbery At Aqueduct Racetrack: Feds

QUEENS — A former Aqueduct Racetrack security guard acting as an “inside man” and another man from Queens were sentenced to prison after a heist of more than $280,000 in 2020, according to federal officials.

Lafayette Morrison, a security guard at the track, alerted his friend Lamel Miller, both Queens residents, when and where cash would be taken to a vault following “Gotham Day” races at Aqueduct Racetrack in South Ozone Park on March 7, 2020, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said.

Miller, 41, was sentenced to nine years and Morrison, 41, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, Peace said.

“These sentences are the finale to the armed robbery that played out like a Hollywood movie heist,” Peace said. “Miller and Morrison made the wrong bet in robbing the Aqueduct Racetrack and have been justly punished for their violent crimes.”

Miller and a third man held up several racetrack employees, including Morrison, as they were transporting more than $280,000 in cash to a vault at the racetrack about 9:45 p.m., federal prosecutors said.

Miller and the third man emerged from a stairwell and confronted the employees at gunpoint demanding the cash, Peace said.

Then they took the employees’ cell phones, the cash, and forced them into a closet, and demanded they count to 1,000, prosecutors said.

Miller and the other men then went to a hotel where they divided up the robbery proceeds —
each taking $100,000 and giving the remaining $84,000 to Morrison, who had falsely posed as
a victim during the robbery, Peace said.