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Convict sought in burglaries
Police say deported Colombian native with a long rap sheet is back in the area, hiring others to help in thefts
BY LAURA ALBANESE
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/crime ... 5142.story
laura.albanese@newsday.com

August 1, 2007

Nassau police are scouring the Island to find a man they say was involved in about 20 burglaries in the county in the past three or four months and several more in Suffolk County, Queens and as far south as Atlanta and Florida.

Police say Pablo Castro, a convicted thief, recruited day workers from Astoria to carry out daytime burglaries, many in the New Hyde Park and Manhasset areas, said Det. Lt. Raymond Cote, commander of Nassau's Third Squad.

Castro and his accomplices are responsible for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" worth of stolen property, Cote said, and have used stolen credit cards to forge aliases and elude police.

Castro, 36, was deported to his native Colombia in 2005 after being jailed for grand larceny in 2002 and escaping from Moriah Correctional Facility upstate a year later. He was caught the next day.

He returned to the United States around March and obtained a fake Colombian passport using the name James Vitoria Jiminez, authorities said.

He and three friends, Monica Guerrero, 32, of Hollywood, Fla.; Juan Medina, 21, of West Palm Beach, Fla.; and Anthony Escobar, 18, of Rhode Island, stole from rooms at the Plainview Holiday Inn, police said.

Medina and Escobar were caught after a botched burglary in Dix Hills. Police traced them back to the hotel, where they found stolen property and a photo in a stolen digital camera of Castro standing in front of the loot. Guerrero was arrested at the hotel days later.

Castro, who police said was nonconfrontational and burglarized homes he thought to be empty, was again identified on June 13, when he approached a house on Old Court House Road in Manhasset Hills and repeatedly rang the doorbell, police said. A teenaged girl inside, whom police did not identify, didn't recognize Castro and didn't open the door. Castro entered through the back door and fled when the girl saw him and screamed, police said.

Police have surveillance footage of Castro and another accomplice - a man with a deformed right arm identified as Menito - filling out credit applications at Roosevelt Field Mall with stolen identities from the burglaries.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-244-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

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