A third man linked to a bold “movie mask” stick-up crew was arrested today and held in connection with the robbery of a check-cashing store in Queens earlier this year.
Derrick Dunkley was arrested in Hartford, Conn., by Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agents and charged with being a member of a three-man stick-up crew that donned realistic, theatrical-quality masks and dressed as police officers wearing raid jackets to rob a check-cashing establishment of nearly $200,000, officials said.
His alleged fellow crew members, Edward Byam and Akeem Monsalvatge, both of Jamaica, Queens, were arrested in August after investigators traced the specialty masks — which disguised the black robbers as white — to CFX Composite Effects, a high-end prop store, officials said.
The agents uncovered an e-mail supposedly written by Byam thanking the store for its work.
“I’m sending this message to say I’m extremely pleased by CFX work on the mask,” he allegedly wrote. “The realism of the mask is unbelievable.”
Since then, investigators tracked down Dunkley – who normally resides in Queens – after checking telephone records and seeing hundreds of calls placed to him by the two alleged robbers now being held in custody, officials said.
Brooklyn federal Magistrate Judge Marilyn Go yesterday ordered Dunkley to be held without bail.
mmaddux@nypost.com