Staten Island bandit dooms gang by leaving business card at crime scene

BY Thomas Zambito
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, June 17th 2009, 4:00 AM

Schwartz for News

Anthony Kalika of Staten Island, alleged member of burglary ring, is taken by law officials to Brooklyn court.

A brazen gang of New York bandits was smart enough to pull off a multistate spree, but so dumb they left a real business card at one crime scene.

The card bearing the name of Anthony Kalika, 19, of Staten Island, listed his proficiency at trades like electrical wiring and plumbing, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

"You Name It, I Can Do It," read the card, which was found in a car abandoned at the scene of one burglary.

Nine members of the ring from Brooklyn and Staten Island, were charged in the series of middle-of-the-night break-ins at chain stores such as Best Buy and Petco in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Prosecutors say the gang also posed as cops during several gunpoint robberies.

On Nov. 15, 2008, five gang members kidnapped a Staten Island pot dealer at gunpoint from the Pleasant Plains train station for his stash of drugs and money, prosecutors say.

The victim was handcuffed and driven to a Staten Island beach, where he was forced to his knees while one gang member clicked a round off behind his head, prosecutors say.

Kalika was a key player in an attack that gave "the drug dealer the impression he was about to be executed," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Skinner.

"He [Kalika] not only participated in it, but he's the one who put the handcuffs on the victim," Skinner said.

State criminal charges were dropped by the Staten Island district attorney when the victim in the staged execution recanted his identification of the suspects, Skinner said.

Skinner said the feds bolstered the case with recent wiretap evidence and statements from co-conspirators that linked gang members to the kidnapping.

The nine arrested yesterday were charged with crimes that include burglary, extortion, credit card theft, marijuana trafficking and identity theft.

The first break-in occurred in January on Staten Island, followed by one in suburban Greenburgh a month later.

They allegedly moved on to a store in Copley, Ohio, in March and one in Scranton, Pa., in April.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/17/2009-06-17_life_of_crime_not_in_cards.html#ixzz0Ijk5UrJx&C