Three Nassau police officers indicted in plot to rob armored security truck
RIVERHEAD NY June 22 2018
Three Nassau police officers were among 13 indicted Wednesday inside a Riverhead courtroom in connection to a multistate drug ring and plot to rob a patron and armored car at Jake’s 58 casino.
According to investigators, the lynchpin to the crimes was a man named Daniel Caceres, 29, from Port Jefferson Station. Prosecutors say he was the leader of a drug ring that distributed marijuana, cocaine, heroin, painkillers and steroids throughout Nassau and Suffolk. Ten other people were allegedly involved, including officers Erik Skoglund and Karen Ernst, who authorities say are a couple. Prosecutors say Caceres and Skoglund are high school friends.
According to prosecutors, marijuana from California was being shipped to the two officers’ houses. The drugs would then allegedly be picked up by Caceres or mailed to his house.
At one point, prosecutors say Caceres texted Skoglund about the irony of their alleged arrangement:
Prosecutors say this is a text conversation between accused drug dealer Daniel Caceres and Nassau Police Officer Erik Skoglun. The pair allegedly worked together in a drug ring, and here they discuss the irony of their unusual arrangement.
At the same time, Caceres was also allegedly involved in a separate scheme with a different Nassau police officer. Prosecutors say a video shows Caceres and Officer Bruce Moeller, who are also childhood friends, walking into Jake’s 58 casino in Islandia last month, with their sights set on robbing at gunpoint a gambler who had just won more than $78,000.
Authorities say Moeller had been tipped off about the big winner by his wife Christina, who worked as a cashier at the casino until recently.
“Bruce Moeller and Daniel Caceres responded by promptly driving to the casino with firearms supplied by Moeller, which he was dually licensed to carry as a police officer,” said Suffolk District Attorney Tim Sini.
Moeller and his wife are also accused in a plot to rob an armored car at Jake’s 58.
Sini says it seems more like a Hollywood plot than reality.
“This investigation started out as a narcotics investigation, and we came across information regarding something quite unique, and that’s a casino heist involving active police officers,” says Sini.
All three officers have been suspended without pay.
