One Of Bensonhurst’s Most Notorious Burglars Is At It Again — This Time In Staten Island
The 62nd Precinct’s former Captain William Taylor dubbed him one of “the biggest burglars” the neighborhood has ever seen and now he’s struck again.
John Catullo, 47, was caught with two other men robbing a residential property in Rosebank, Staten Island last week, reports the Staten Island Advance.
Catullo’s accomplices, Brett Hayward, 28, and Scott Todaro, 45, had previously been accused of breaking into Staten Island District Attorney candidate Joan Illuzzi’s house last December and were out on bail.
The Advance reports:
On Thursday at about 11:30 a.m., the three-man team broke into a house on Clifton Avenue, across the street from where Todaro lives, prosecutors allege.
Todaro acted as the wheelman, staying behind in a black Dodge Caravan, while Hayward and Catullo went inside and stole jewelry and cash, according to a criminal complaint.
Todaro and Hayward were already familiar faces to the NYPD’s Staten Island Grand Larceny Squad, and the criminal complaint suggests that the squad may have been onto them from the start.
A law enforcement source said detectives observed Hayward and Catullo emerge from a van driven by Todaro, enter the home, and walk back out again. The two men ripped the alarm system and motion sensors from the walls, the source said.
When detectives moved in to arrest them, Hayward and Catullo tried, unsuccessfully, to escape on foot, the source said.
Catullo, a career burglar who has been in and out of prison since the 1980s, was nabbed with three others by the 62nd Precinct last year following a month-long burglary spree across Bensonhurst.
“It was a real game of cat and mouse,” Taylor said at the time. “These are the guys we targeted from the first day and I’m convinced they were doing all of it.”
Catullo was let of prison out sometime after the November arrest, but was jailed again in March 2015 for a 2008 burglary conviction. He was let out on parole June 14, and has apparently wasted little time getting back into the burglary business.
All three men were arraigned Friday on second-degree burglary charges, according to prosecutors. Catullo’s bail has been set at $100,000 bond or $50,000 cash.