Man Sentenced For Role In Meriden Kidnapping, Jewelry Store Robbery: Feds

FAIRFIELD, CT — A Pennsylvania man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for his role in a kidnapping and jewelry store robbery in Fairfield in 2013. Jeffrey Houston, 30, of Allentown, Penn., also received three years of supervised release following the 90-month prison sentence, U.S. States Attorney Deirdre M. Daly announced in a press release.

Houston was part of a group that stormed into a Gravel Street apartment in Meriden and bound four people on April 11, 2013, according authorities. Houston, Kasam Hennix, William Davis and Christopher Gay were all wearing masks and gloves and two were armed with handguns. The victims were bound with duct tape and their heads were covered with pillowcases, towels and jackets.

Houston, Hennix and Davis then forced two of the victims into a victim’s vehicle and drove to Lenox Jewelers in Fairfield, where the two victims worked. Timothy Forbes traveled to Fairfield in a separate vehicle, and Gay remained in the Meriden apartment to guard the two other victims.

“After Houston, Hennix and Davis arrived at the Fairfield store, they stole jewelry, watches and loose diamonds with a total replacement value of more than $3 million,” Daly wrote in the press release. “They then fled in the victim’s car, leaving the two victims bound inside the store.

“Houston, Hennix and Davis abandoned the victim’s vehicle and got into Forbes’s vehicle. One of the defendants called Gay to advise him that they had successfully carried out the robbery and that he should leave the apartment. The defendants then fled the state.”

The five defendants were arrested in May 2013.

Investigators determined that Houston, Forbes and Gay had traveled from Pennsylvania to Connecticut on several occasions in the weeks prior to the robbery in order to track the victims’ movements between Lenox Jewelers in Fairfield and their residence in Meriden. In addition, Forbes and Gay placed a GPS on one of the victim’s vehicles in an effort to make it easier to track him.

On Dec. 8, 2015, Houston pleaded guilty to one count of interference with commerce by robbery and one count of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.

Forbes, of Allentown, Hennix, of Easton, Pa., Davis, of Allentown, and Gay, of the Bronx, N.Y., also pleaded guilty to federal charges. On April 17, 2015, Davis was sentenced to 176 months in prison; on January 27, 2016, Gay was sentenced to 102 months in prison, and, on February 8, 2016, Hennix was sentenced to 171 months of imprisonment. Forbes awaits sentencing.

The defendants have been ordered to pay restitution of more than $3.1 million, and have forfeited gemstones, jewelry, watches, a vehicle, and more than $127,000 in cash seized from them at the time of their arrests, according to Daly.

Image via Shutterstock

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