Crime Gone Wrong? Alleged Accomplice Struck By Car During Home Invasion: One Arrest

NEWPORT, RI—Cassie L. Medeiros, 33, of Newport, said she was supposed to go into a second floor apartment on Ayrault Street and take some valuables while her friend "intimidated" the residents, police allege.

But her alleged accomplice was hit by a Jeep on the corner of Broadway and Ayrault. He failed to exercise proper caution, police said, when he stepped off the curb into the path of an oncoming car.

The driver, Veronica St. Onge, 22, of Newport, said she didn't see the pedestrian, who had stepped into a dark section of road at 8:53 p.m. He was grazed on the right side of his hip by the 2011 black Jeep and refused medical treatment. St. Onge was not charged.

Medeiros on Dec. 12 at 8:51 p.m. was charged with a felony for breaking and entering into a house without the owner's consent. She was also charged with simple assault and battery and with disorderly conduct for threatening to hurt the resident.

Police said when the male resident confronted her, she threatened to punch him in the jaw and knock his teeth out. They found her at the corner of Broadway and Ayrault Street after the resident told police she had just run down a driveway at 7 Ayrault St. He identified her, and so did his wife, who was also home at the time of the break in.

The couple told police she entered by the door at the top of the front stairs. They do not typically use that door but were storing paintings behind it. Medeiros knocked the paintings over when she went through the door, and they heard the bang. She walked through the house and allegedly hit the man with her hands then left by the front door. On the porch, she threatened to knock the man's teeth out.

The first-floor resident told police she heard knocking at the front door and a woman say, "Let me in." She also heard someone lift the screen on a first-floor bedroom window, as if trying to open the window. After that, she heard knocking on the couple's door and a sound similar to someone using a shoulder to force a door open.

Medeiros told police her friend "Mark" told her to break into the house and he would "intimidate them, so she could steal stuff."

He later told police she had called him, but police ascertained he had called Medeiros. He appeared to be watching the house when Medeiros was arrested.

Police did not identify him.