Transgender Teens Impersonate Cops, Rob Victims
November 7, 2003 -- Five transgender teens who attend Harvey Milk HS posed as female prostitutes, and then robbed their tricks by claiming to be undercover cops willing to let them go free in exchange for cash and credit cards, sources said.
The five, who were arrested yesterday, managed to pull off at least five separate Greenwich Village robberies in the last month by dressing as hookers and working in teams of two or three, authorities said.
Once the young thieves struck a deal with a prospective john for sex, they would declare that they were undercover cops, police said.
They would handcuff the victims and demand their wallets in exchange for letting them go.
In the first robbery, on Oct. 5, two of the thieves handcuffed a 24-year-old man across from 71 Greenwich St. and forced him to reveal his ATM PIN number, which they used to loot his account of $1,200, cops said.
In an Oct. 27 robbery, three of the bandits told a 39-year-old man on Bleecker Street that he was under arrest for solicitation.
They lifted his wallet and took off with $600 in cash, according to police.
Four days later, theyallegedly handcuffed a 31-year-old man who approached them for sex and ordered him to give them his credit-card and ATM PINs. He gave up the numbers in return for his freedom.
The group later withdrew $1,000 from a downtown bank near West 11th Street and Waverly Place.
On Wednesday, two members of the cross-dressing crew handcuffed a 33-year-old man to a fence on the corner of Jane and Washington streets, cops said. They took $105 and his keys.
In their last robbery, early yesterday, the group snatched only $85 dollars from a man who refused to give up his PIN.
The case broke soon after, at 3 a.m. yesterday morning, when an alert detective spotted one of the bogus officers around West 13th Street and Eighth Avenue.
Detective Andrew Rindler, who is assigned to the Greenwich Village Anti-Crime Unit, noticed the bright-red hairdo of Gerald Howard, 17, aka "Kimberly" of Jamaica, Queens, from a wanted poster issued after cops realized there had been a string of similar robberies.
They arrested him, along with Kevin "Keva" Williams, 17, of Long Island City, Queens; Brian "Whoopi" Gonzalez, 17, of the Lower East Side; Keenan "Channel" Oliver, 16, of Williamsburg, Brooklyn; and Kelvin "Keesha" Howell, 17, of Morris Heights, The Bronx. All will be charged as adults.
They all attend Harvey Milk, a high school at 2 Astor Place that opened this year for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, a source said.
Cops recovered a fake silver badge from Oliver with "Special Police" inscribed on it, while Howard was found with a phony police scanner and handcuffs, authorities said.
All five were charged with robbery and criminal impersonation of a police officer. Cops are asking anyone who thinks they were one of their victims to call the Police Impersonations Investigation Unit at (212) 741-8401. All calls may be kept confidential.
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