Victim of New Castle home invasion is businessman

Neighbors gather as police investigate the scene of a home invasion robbery at 12 Yeshiva Road in New Castle on Tuesday. / Frank Becerra Jr./The Journal News













NEW CASTLE — A man who lives in a Yeshiva Farm Settlement home that two men invaded Tuesday afternoon is a businessman who is "well off," an administrator for the community group said.

But the administrator, Hershel Reich, said he had no idea why the home on Yeshiva Road was targeted, as New Castle police said it was, in a frightening incident that involved the occupants being bound up.

"I wish I knew," Reich said Wednesday.

Town detectives returned Wednesday to the Yeshiva Road home.

"Preliminary investigation indicates that this was not a random crime and the home was a planned target," New Castle police said in a statement.

The robbers were posing as deliverymen when they went to the home at 12 Yeshiva Road in a private Hasidic Jewish community known as Yeshiva Farm Settlement about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday. They attacked and bound three people before fleeing when one of the victims freed herself and ran to a neighbor. Police did not say what, if anything, the men got.

Reich said Wednesday that neighbors are trying to deal with the incident.
"It's not so easy. It was such an ordeal, but everyone is trying to cope," Reich said.

The roughly 250-acre community of about 100 housing units is on Croton Lake Road in the woods near the New Croton Reservoir. To reach it requires crossing a narrow bridge. A sign that reads "Private Property, No Trespassing" is posted at the gateway.

The two robbers remained at large Wednesday, police said. They are described as black males in their 30s. Both wore dark jackets and one may have had a beard. They may have fled in a white van that was seen in the driveway at the time of the crime, police said.

Workers at the home Wednesday replaced a door damaged in the incident.
A woman who lives up the road, but did not want to give her name, said the crime has shaken the neighborhood of modest two- and three-family homes.

"We were all scared," she said. "The whole neighborhood is scared."
A woman at the house told police she answered her door when a man said he had a package to deliver. He then attacked and bound her with duct tape, police said. The second robber then came inside and bound two other people, police said.

The men fled after one of the women got loose and ran to a nearby house. Police said one woman was taken to a hospital, where she was released after treatment.

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call New Castle police at 914-238-4422.