YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: A Teaneck woman “enticed” two men to a local street corner so that they could be robbed by an ex-con accompanied by a blind man, an indictment returned by a grand jury in Hackensack alleges.
Evidence against the quartet includes a Lorcin LT-25 .25-caliber handgun that authorities said two of the defendants used in robbing both men, according to the indictdment.
The bandits were wearing masks over the bottoms of their faces when they approached the victims at the corner of Linden and Elm avenues last Dec. 17, police told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time.
One “pulled up his shirt, displaying a handgun, and threatened to shoot the two victims if they moved,” they said.
The robbers grabbed their cellphones and all the cash they were carrying, then took off on foot, they told police.
Asked to describe their assailants, the men said they noticed that one was blind.
(l. to r.) Andre Ziemoore, Marshall Harper, Ayesha Mitchell, Jamila Eason
(MUGSHOTS: Courtesy TEANECK PD)
Police arrested 25-year-old Michael Harper, who they said lives with two women who were also charged in connection with the holdup.
Police spotted the trio leaving their American Legion Drive home in a white Ford Freestar minivan with a second man, Andre Ziemoore.
They followed as the four drove a short distance before stopping at a supermarket. There, police said, Ziemoore got out and “retrieved a plastic bag that was buried under some snow by a tree.”
Police stopped the minivan moments later on Palisade Avenue in Teaneck and got consent to search it from Mitchell.
Inside the bag were the two phones stolen from the victims the night before, authorities said.
All four were taken into custody.
Detectives then obtained a search warrant for the apartment, where they said they found the handgun.
Ayesha Mitchell, 22, spent nearly two months in the Bergen County Jail before being bailed out on $100,000 on Feb. 11, records show.
Jamila Eason, 20, was bailed out on $75,000 the same day.
Ziemoore, 22, remained held on $175,000 bail and Harper, 25, on $150,000 bail.
The indictment returned Thursday charges all four with first-degree robbery by threat of injury, as well as a trio of second-degree weapons counts, among other offenses.
The 4-foot-11-inch, 115-pound Mitchell — who authorities said lured the victims into the holdup — additionally was charged with hindering. Ziemoore, meanwhile, was also charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.