Oliver Carbrera
A Trenton man was convicted last week of burglarizing five unoccupied homes before robbing and assaulting an elderly couple in Bucks County.
A Bucks County jury deliberated for less than an hour before convicting Oliver Cabrera, 26, of 30 charges, including, corrupt organizations conspiracy, robbery, burglary, simple assault, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property and criminal mischief, according to the district attorney’s office.
Deputy District Attorney Antonetta Stancu said Cabrera was involved in a New Jersey-based burglary and robbery ring that struck 18 homes in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 2012. Six of those crimes occurred in Bucks County.
Judge Diane Gibbons called the Trenton man “a menace to this community” before revoking his bail until he can be sentenced. That sentencing date has not yet been set.
According to prosecutors, Cabrera’s crimes included five residential burglaries and one home-invasion robbery from late July to mid-September 2012 in Lower Makefield, Middletown and Upper Makefield Townships.
The burglaries typically consisted of forcing entry while no one was home, ransacking the house and stealing jewelry, guns, computers, cash, and, in one case, a Lexus automobile. Three of the families suffered losses exceeding $19,000 each.
The burglary and robbery ring’s final crime in the county was its most violent, according to prosecutors. On September 10, 2012, Cabrera was among three men who forced their way into an occupied Middletown home on Fite Terrace when a 78-year-old woman answered the doorbell around 9 p.m.
Wearing masks and gloves, the men – two of them carrying guns – pushed the woman to the floor, covered her face with pillows and bound her hands so tightly with zip ties that they bled and turned blue. One man removed the woman’s engagement ring from her hand before the group set upon her 79-year-old husband. The men then pointed guns at the man’s head, zip-tied his hands until they bled, forced him to walk through the house showing them where he had hidden cash, and hit him in the face. After more than a half-hour of ransacking the couple’s house, the men left with jewelry and cash. The couple’s losses totaled $24,570.
The husband, now 84, returned to court this week to testify.
Defense attorney Sharif Abaza argued that the case against Cabrera was based largely on the testimony of three other participants in the ring, calling them “three men who had self-preservation as their primary goals.” While Stancu countered that those witnesses were supplemented by 16 other witnesses and an overwhelming amount of other corroborative evidence. Some of the defendants, she said, were arrested by police while fleeing from one of the burglaries, the stolen goods still in their vehicle.
“These men are violent. These men are greedy. These men are selfish,” Stancu told the jury. As a group, she said, they left each victimized family “stripped of their safety, their security, their dignity.”
Two of Cabrera’s co-defendants have already received sentences of seven and one-half to 15 years in state prison. A fourth man charged in Bucks County is still awaiting trial.
