Parents zip-tied in front of their four kids during violent NY home invasion, feds say
A small business owner saw an unfamiliar car with its headlights on outside his house when he arrived home with his daughter one evening in New York, moments before a violent robbery ensued.
A man stepped outside of the car and pulled out what looked like a gun, telling the father and his child to “keep walking,” court documents say. Then another man holding a metal rod appeared.
They all walked to the front door of the business owner’s home, where his wife and their three other children were inside, as two more men joined them at the house in Wallkill on Dec. 1, according to a complaint written by an FBI task force officer.
The four men forced the father and his daughter inside the house at gunpoint and brought out zip ties, according to a Jan. 16 news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
They zip-tied the man and his wife by their hands and legs in front of their four children, who were between the ages of 2 and 10, and had the family sit together on a couch, the complaint says.
Three of the accused robbers began raiding the home, looking for valuable items, as the fourth accused robber stayed with the family, holding what looked like a black pistol, according to federal prosecutors.
One of the children pleaded with the men not to hurt her parents and told them she’d reveal where the family kept their valuables, prosecutors said.
The girl led the men to a safe inside a master bedroom, but she couldn’t unlock it, according to prosecutors.
Then the men forced her mother to open the safe, stealing several pieces of jewelry and about $10,000 that was inside, prosecutors said. After about 15 minutes, they left the home after stealing multiple items, according to the complaint.
The four men and a woman who acted as a “lookout” during the robbery were arrested in connection with the crime on Jan. 16, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said in a news release.
The complaint charges all five of them — Bhupinderjit Singh, Elijaih Roman, Corey Hall, Erik Suarez and Divya Kumari — with a conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery and Hobbs Act robbery.
The four accused robbers, Singh, Roman, Hall and Suarez, are also charged with using, carrying, possessing, and brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, prosecutors said.
Information regarding their legal representation wasn’t immediately available.
“This alleged forceful intrusion violated the privacy and security expected inside one’s home, and terrorized four young children left to helplessly beg for the safety of their restrained parents,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James E. Dennehy said in a statement.
The investigation
After the robbery, the business owner told authorities that he owns several stores that sell beer, soda, snacks and other goods in Orange County, New York, according to the complaint.
He said he was supposed to pay his businesses’ vendors with some of the money that was stolen from his safe, the complaint says.
At his home, investigators found a cellphone that one of the accused robbers had dropped and left behind, according to the complaint.
This led authorities to Singh, who the phone belonged to, the complaint says.
Law enforcement secured a search warrant to look through the phone, which revealed messages between Singh and the other accused robbers before the home invasion, as well as location data that further implicated him in the crime, the complaint says.
The group started planning the robbery in late November, when Singh and Kumari are accused of scoping out the house on Nov. 29, based on evidence found on his phone, according to the complaint.
A video of the business owner’s neighborhood in Wallkill was found on Singh’s phone from that day, the complaint says.
Evidence from surveillance footage also implicated Singh and the others, including footage that showed him Roman, Hall, Suarez and Kumari stopping at a restaurant in Middletown, New York, about 2 miles away from the business owner’s home, a few hours before the robbery, according to the complaint.
A home security camera also captured the four men outside of the house when they’re accused of forcing the man and his daughter inside, the complaint shows.
“Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners and the career prosecutors of this office, the defendants will now face charges stemming from this brazen robbery,” U.S. Attorney Edward Y. Kim said in a statement.
The Town of Wallkill Police Department, New York State Police and the FBI’s Hudson Valley Safe Streets Task Force worked together in the investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Wallkill is about a 75-mile drive northwest from New York City.
This story was originally published January 17, 2025 at 1:08 PM with the headline "Parents zip-tied in front of their four kids during violent NY home invasion, feds say."
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