Aqueduct Racetrack security guard charged as ‘inside man’ in $280K heist
Queens NY June 16 2020
A security guard at Aqueduct Racetrack was charged Monday as the “inside man” in the armed heist of more than $280,000 there — with the feds saying he committed another robbery with one of the crooks more than 20 years ago.
Lafayette Morrison was accused of telling pal Lamel Miller and another man when and where the cash would be taken to the vault at the Queens racetrack following the lucrative “Gotham Day” races on March 7.
The information let Miller and the unidentified accomplice emerge from a stairwell hiding spot, brandishing handguns and wearing surgical masks, when Morrison and two Aqueduct clerks moved the money along a catwalk around 9:45 p.m., according to the Brooklyn US Attorney’s Office.
Miller and the other man allegedly grabbed a black duffel bag holding the racetrack’s winnings, then stripped the workers of their cellphones, forced them into a closet and told them to count to 1,000 before leaving.
When one of the clerks tried to “look outside of the closet at the robbers,” Morrison “told the clerk not to do so,” according to court papers.
Authorities allege that Morrison and Miller, both 37 and from Queens, are “long-time associates” who “were arrested for perpetrating a robbery together in Queens” in January 2000.
Phone records also show that Miller called Morrison after he was arrested following a pair of traffic stops in 2017 and 2019, according to court papers.
The second incident involved allegations that Morrison “threatened an NYPD lieutenant and four others who were trying to tow his vehicle by saying, ‘I’m going to get something from my trunk and clear all you mother f–kers out,” according to court papers.
In addition, court papers say, Morrison and Miller used a pair of “burner” cellphones that Miller bought one day before the robbery to speak to each other 38 times.
One of those conversations took place about 30 minutes ahead of the caper, when surveillance video allegedly captured Morrison walking out of the racetrack and calling Miller.
A longtime neighbor who lives across from Morrison’s family home described him as a “sticky-fingered” thief since he was an adolescent.
“You’d shovel your snow and the next thing you knew your shovel was missing,” the neighbor said.
“I know this for a fact, because I wrote my name on my broom, and my broom ended up over there. My garbage can ended up over there.”
In a prepared statement, Brooklyn US Attorney Richard Donoghue said, “The defendants allegedly gambled that they could pull off a high-stakes robbery with the benefit of inside information, but thanks to the outstanding efforts of ATF Special Agents and NYPD detectives, they ended up on the losing end of that bet.”
A spokesman for the New York Racing Association, which runs Aqueduct, declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the state Gaming Commission, which runs background checks on racetrack workers.
Morrison and Miller were both charged with robbery under the federal Hobbs Act, which prohibits crimes that affect interstate or foreign commerce.
They were ordered held without bail during separate, video appearances before Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Ramon Reyes and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
Court-appointed defense lawyers for both men declined to comment.
