A 56-year-old man was arrested for posing as a Con Edison worker and stealing a woman’s purse at gunpoint on the doorstep of her Brooklyn home, cops said Wednesday.
Gregory Jones was charged with robbery, strangulation, burglary, grand larceny, criminal use of a firearm, and criminal impersonation, among other charges, for the armed home invasion on Monday.
Jones was wearing what looked like a Con Edison utility vest when he knocked on the 29-year-old victims’ door near E. 54th St. and Clarkson Ave. in East Flatbush around 2:15 p.m. and she opened it, according to police.
Jones then pulled a gun, grabbed the woman by the neck and snatched her purse, containing her cell phone and credit cards.
The woman’s husband, who was just a few blocks away, sprinted home after hearing his wife’s screams through their Ring doorbell app as the attack was taking place, according to local outlet CrownHeight.INFO.
The husband, 30, managed to disarm Jones before striking him in the head with his own gun, cops said.
Jones took off, but cops later found and arrested him by tracking the victim’s stolen phone.
The suspect has a criminal history that includes three arrests since Jan. 1993, when he was charged with robbery. He was also charged with attempted murder in August of that year.
Jones was also convicted of criminal possession of a weapon in 1993 and sentenced to five years behind bars, according to a law enforcement source.
His most recent arrest came in May, when he was charged with a pair of armed stickups in Crown Heights, first at a discount mart on April 16 and then at a realty office on May 4, court documents show.
At the discount mart, on Classon Ave. near Bergen St., Jones barged into the store and grabbed a cashier by the neck around 8:40 p.m., before sticking a gun to his chest and grabbing cash from the register, according to a criminal complaint.
Less than three weeks later, he pointed a firearm at a worker inside the realty office, on Dean St. near Franklin Ave., around 10:28 p.m. and nabbed the man’s wallet, bag, passport, glasses, $300 and two iPhones, court documents show.
While Jones was in custody for the two robberies, police showed him surveillance footage of the discount store stickup and he identified himself as a man featured in the video, the complaint states.
Jones was released on $50,000 cash bail on June 2 for the stickups, court records show.