Cross-dressing Robbers Sought in A. Turen Handbag Heist
More crime on the Lower East Side to report this morning. With a twist. Police are seeking two cross-dressing males wanted in connection with a high-end handbag heist at A. Turen on Stanton Street.
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CBS News brings word that the dynamic duo entered the posh boutique at 85 Stanton Street in female clothing Thursday afternoon, and made off with the most expensive items in the store. Apparently the shoplifters feigned interest in a pair of extra-small leggings, and instead nabbed two collectable purses before leaving the establishment uninhibited. Surveillance video from an eye-in-the-sky caught it all go down.
“They were two vintage, hand-painted Chanel bags that I happened to paint myself, and you can’t get them again,” Turen said, adding that the bags were valued at $3,000 each.
“They got into a sort of champagne-colored SUV and drove off,” Turen said, adding that they got away too quickly for her to get a license plate number.
The two characters, thought to be men dressed as women, include a 6-foot-2 black man in his mid-40s. He was wearing a tight-fitting orange dress and gray wig and is said to look like Jamie Foxx’s character “Wanda” in the show, “In Living Color.”
The other suspect is described as a 5-9 black man in his mid-40s in a snake-skin print coat and black wig.
Eponymous proprietor Ashley Turen believes both men are involved in a rash of similar heists around downtown.
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