Louis Peduto
PLAQUE ATTACK: A guard snapped this pic (right) of alleged robber Louis Peduto at St. Raymond’s Cemetery. Above, Alicia DeCurtis safeguards her brother’s plaque. (
)
Here’s photographic evidence that ghouls exist.
The alleged bronze-stealing graveyard robber who treated the final resting place of dozens of New Yorkers as his personal scrap yard was busted yesterday after being caught on camera by an eagle-eyed security guard.
Over a single weekend, Louis Peduto allegedly removed $160,000 worth of bronze from 65 mausoleums in the St. Raymond’s Cemetery in The Bronx — and had so unnerved area residents that they removed their own family members’ grave markers as a precaution.
Peduto, 56, returned to the cemetery Monday morning, but this time he was confronted by a security guard. He stood with a confused stare on his face holding a plastic flower as a guard snapped his picture.
The guard then gave chase, but Peduto dumped a bag of purloined bronze and got away, sources said.
That image, however, was turned over to cops, according to Matt Horace, chief of FJC Security, which patrols the grounds.
Charges were pending against Peduto, sources said.
News of the thefts had spread quickly to New Yorkers whose loved ones are interred in the Catholic cemetery.
“I was like, ‘I can’t believe this,’ ” said Alicia DeCurtis, 56, whose brother was buried there in 1988 with a bronze grave marker supplied by the Army.
“So I decided to walk over before somebody does steal it, you know, and just bring it home,” said DeCurtis, who lives nearby in the Throggs Neck section.
“It’s a good thing nobody had stolen it yet, because it wasn’t secured on the stone,” she said of the plaque. “And I said, ‘Before they steal it, I’m going remove it, I’m going to safe-keep it in my house.’ ”
Her brother, Jacinto Ramirez, a US Army veteran and active Reservist, died in a car crash at age 34.
Meanwhile, cemetery officials were trying to track down living family members of the mausoleums Peduto allegedly hit.
“The cemetery is attempting to contact the families of the mausoleums that were involved in this crime,” said Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York. “Our thanks to the police for their careful handling of this matter.”
There are about 4,000 graves in the 130-year-old cemetery, and it is regarded as one of the busiest ones in the country. Among the notable people buried there are jazz singer Billie Holiday and boxer Hector “Macho” Camacho.
Scrap dealers typically pay about $2 per pound of scrap bronze, but have been known to pay more when market conditions change.
Additional reporting by Jamie Schram