Robbery suspect ordered to trial
CARMICHAELS – The Cumberland man accused of a robbery spree in the township last month was ordered Thursday to stand trial on two of the cases.
District Judge Lee Watson held over for court charges against Clarence Otis Lancaster III, 28, in connection with the robbery of an elderly couple in their Cumberland Township home Jan. 18 and a theft nearby inside the Shop’n Save grocery store Jan. 11.
Cumberland police also re-filed charges against Lancaster for allegedly robbing the Carmichaels Beer Distributor Jan. 21 and taking $200. District Judge Glenn Bates dismissed those charges Feb. 17 because an officer was unable to attend the hearing.
During Lancaster’s preliminary Thursday afternoon, Cumberland police Detective Tony Gismondi testified that investigators immediately suspected the same man in both the grocery store and home robberies because of the “similar crimes with similar situations” and the identical clothing descriptions.
“We had a couple other recent crimes, nearly the same with someone wearing a reflective jacket,” Gismondi said of his investigation of the Jan. 18 robbery of the elderly couple at the Route 21 Mobile Home Park. “I shook my head and said, ‘Another one.'”
Gismondi testified they received an anonymous tip that Lancaster was involved and he later confessed during an interview with police.
The first theft occurred Jan. 11 at the grocery store when employees who were preparing to open the store noticed cash register trays in a back room tossed around the floor next to an open safe.
“My God, we’ve been robbed,” store manager Charlotte Ward testified as how she reacted when she was informed of the situation.
She and Gismondi reviewed surveillance video and saw a man wearing a reflective jacket enter the front doors in a manner only employees would know how to do. Lancaster worked at the grocery store for about two months in late 2015.
The second reported theft occurred a week later when Margaret Vinisky testified a man wearing a jacket with yellow reflective stripes knocked on the door of her home in the Route 21 Mobile Home Park. She was home alone at the time and didn’t answer, but thought the man was a utility worker.
He returned about four hours later, and this time Vinisky allowed him inside because she thought he knew her husband, Jerome. But the man was wearing a handkerchief over his face “like a bandit” and mumbled inaudibly as he spoke to them briefly, Vinisky testified. He then took about $60 in cash located on a TV stand near where Jerome Vinisky was sitting and ran from the house.
“I told my husband, ‘I think we’ve just been robbed,'” she said.
Gismondi testified that Lancaster targeted that home because he had a “run-in” with Jerome Vinisky at a store on an earlier date.
Greene County Assistant District Attorney Christina DeMarco argued that all charges should be held over trial because Lancaster “used trickery to take advantage of an elderly couple.”
Lancaster is now awaiting formal arraignment on two counts each of burglary, trespassing, theft and receiving stolen property for the two cases.
He is also once again facing charges of robbery, theft, receiving stolen property and disorderly conduct for the Jan. 21 beer distributor robbery in Cumberland Township. His preliminary hearing before Watson is scheduled for March 3.
Lancaster is being held in the Greene County jail on $125,000 bond.