Chunky diamond earrings tie ex-con to Brooklyn store stickup: feds
A brazen robber who shot a wall during a Brooklyn store stickup was linked to the violent heist by the chunky diamond earrings adorning his earlobes, federal prosecutors allege.
Ex-con Pierre Hunt, 52, stuck up a Bedford-Stuyvesant store on Jan. 8, training a silver handgun on two employees, according to the feds. Unsatisfied with the $200 in the cash register, he asked for more.
When the two terrified workers told him that was all they had, he opened fire, the feds allege.
He aimed his bullet “mere inches away” from one of the workers, and the round ricocheted of the counter and hit a wall, the feds allege in court filings. Hunt fled the Lewis Avenue store, then walked north a block to his getaway vehicle, toward Putnam Avenue.
But that car, a Nissan Rogue with mismatched side mirrors, stood out. As did his diamond earrings.
A week later, cops pulled Hunt over in the same Nissan for a traffic infraction, and body camera footage from the cop who gave him a summons showed he was wearing what appeared to be the same jewelry, according to court filings.
During the traffic stop, he gave the officer a driver’s license with a Staten Island address.
Cell phone data showed Hunt’s phone making the trip from the Staten Island to the neighborhood where the robbery took place that day, the feds say.
Meanwhile, license plate readers by the Verrazzano Bridge caught his car crossing into Brooklyn less than an hour and a half before the robbery, and heading back to Staten Island an hour after.
Hunt was arrested on federal robbery charges earlier this week. The case is federal because the store deals in interstate commerce, according to the feds.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Noble argued in a letter to Brooklyn Federal Court Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo that the robbery showed “wanton disregard” for the community’s safety.
“Simply because they had the misfortune to be working that day, two New Yorkers trying to make a living found themselves facing down the barrel of the defendant’s gun,” he wrote. “This conduct deeply affects the hardworking store owners and employees who are entitled to work in places where they need not fear for their lives, and whose livelihood depends upon community members feeling safe to patronize their local shops.”
Hunt has served time before for robberies — he spent a year behind bars in connection with a pair of heists in 2015, when he served as the getaway driver in a gas station holdup and a wine store robbery, prosecutors allege. He also spent 18 months behind bars for a 2017 felony drug conviction.
Kuo on Tuesday ordered Hunt released to home detention, with an ankle monitor, on $100,000 surety bond.
His lawyer did not return a request for comment on the case.
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