A lifelong violent crook who swiped a Ferrari for a joyride after robbing the home of a photography store owner of quarter-million dollars in valuables was sentenced to 20 years in prison Monday by a Brooklyn federal judge.
Along with two accomplices, Derrick Diaz, 40, broke into the sprawling Mill Basin home of Willoughby’s camera store owner Joseph Douek in 2010 and locked his two petrified children in a bathroom.
Their father wasn’t home during the incident.
Waving screwdrivers and screaming commands just three days before Christmas, the trio made off with $250,000 in jewelry and sports memorabilia along with $5,000 in cash.
The salivating thugs then set their sights on a gleaming black Ferrari California that was parked on the property and sped off in the six-figure sportscar before abandoning it in Red Hook.
But one of the inept invaders, Jason Cuebas, cut himself during the lucrative heist and cops were able to track him down through DNA evidence from prior crimes.
Cuebas eventaully squealed on his accomplices and even dished to cops that Diaz felt nauseous as they gunned the Ferrari down Brooklyn streets at breakneck speeds.
Diaz — who has a lengthy rap sheet dating back to 1989 when he was just 16 — told Judge Kiyo Matsumoto that he had discovered the error of his violent ways in prison and had rehabilitated himself.
But prosecutor Justin Lerer elaborated on Diaz’s horrific criminal past in casting him as an incorrigible hoodlum deserving of a stiff sentence.
“This man is a lifelong criminal, a lifelong recidivist, someone who breaks into the homes of innocent people and terrorizes them,” he said.
Diaz pistol whipped a father in front of his teenage daughter during a 2008 home invasion and sickeningly pulled her pants down at one point before making a lewd sexual comment, according to court papers.
The unidentified victims of that home invasion recounted the horrific experience to the court during a prior proceeding. The girl described watching her father getting “pistol -whipped with a gun and begging for his life,” Lerer said.
Diaz, who has four kids, an estranged wife and a home in foreclosure begged for mercy from the court and blamed his thievery on money woes.
“I’m sorry for the deepest depths of my hearts for what I’ve done,” Diaz whimpered before getting hit with the sentence.