High bail set for Lynn armed robbery suspects

LYNN – A judge ordered high bail for each of the three defendants who allegedly robbed a RadioShack at gunpoint then tried to evade police by stealing new clothes at a local Walmart. The judge also ordered one of the defendants held on four previous cases.”The suspects selected a number of items off racks, changed out of their clothes, ditched the weapon, and adorned themselves in stolen Walmart goods, some of which still had tags on them when the defendants were arrested,” Essex Assistant District Attorney Doug Sheehan said in Lynn District Court Monday.Steven Huntley, 32, and Stephani Casimir, 26, of 50 Howard St. #1, and Tyrone Jones, 25, of 100 Camden St. #1, Boston, were arrested and each charged with armed and masked robbery; and receiving stolen property; on Saturday.Pleas of not guilty were entered on behalf of each defendant at their arraignment in Lynn District Court Monday.Police responded at 12:38 p.m. Saturday to RadioShack on State Street on a report of an armed robbery in progress. Sheehan said three store employees were checking shipments when two men wearing ski masks and gloves entered the store, with one man ordering the employees to the floor at gunpoint.The suspects demanded an employee show them where they kept the Apple products, then stole a box of iPads and iPhones and the employees’ personal phones before running to a white getaway car, Sheehan told the court. He said the stolen merchandise totaled approximately $24,000.Police chased the vehicle from the Lynnway to the Point of Pines exit in Revere but lost the suspect vehicle, Sheehan reported. One of the store employees, however, allegedly told police he/she had a GPS tracker on his/her phone, which police said they used to track the suspects as the car doubled back down the Lynnway to Walmart.Police found the vehicle, which they learned Casimir had rented, and watched surveillance footage of the suspects coming into the store, grabbing clothes and running to the bathrooms, Sheehan said.Police evacuated the Walmart and arrested the suspects. Officers searching the men’s bathroom also found a black revolver and discarded clothes that matched the clothes the suspects were wearing when seen on video entering the store, Sheehan said. Police recovered a box of unopened Apple products and the store employees’ cellphones (which had missed calls from Lynn Police Headquarters as officers had called the phones during the chase) in the car, Sheehan said.The prosecutor said the defendants denied any involvement in the armed robbery. But he said Huntley asked officers if they found any of his clothes inside the store. Police also allegedly heard Jones ask his codefendant “you know how much time we’ll have to do if we get convicted of this.” A witness identified Casimir as a former RadioShack employee and Huntley as Casimir’s boyfriend, Sheehan added.He requested $250,000 cash bail each for Huntley and Jones and that Huntley’s bail be revoked in four open cases. Sheehan requested $150,000 cash bail for Casimir, citing her lack of a record. He requested GPS monitoring for all defendants due to the seriousness of the charges.Court-appointed defense attorney Christina Liwsky requested Huntley’s bails not be revoked and that he be held on at most $25,000 cash.She said the witness identified Huntley only as “not the driver of the vehicle” and said he/she “recognized him from somewhere else.””I wouldn’t even call it an identification,” Liwsky said. (She had successfully argued the defendants be hidden behind a blackboard so their pictures would not be distributed by the media.)Court-appointed defense attorney Joseph Finn said his client said she simply got a call to give somebody a ride. Finn questioned why Casimir would have parked down the street from the RadioShack if she was supposed to have been the getaway driver.(Finn said his client also said she quit working at RadioShack.) He said there were inconsistencies in descriptions of what occurred in the surveillance