A Torah scroll valued at more than $50,000 has been reunited with its owner following the arrest of the crook who stole it from a Queens yeshiva three months ago, prosecutors said Monday.
Saul Colon, 37, was indicted for snatching a safe that contained the holy item in an early-morning raid at Siach Yitzchok, a Jewish school located on Beach 9th Street near Caffrey Avenue in Far Rockaway on May 7, the Queens District Attorney’s Office said.
Colon and a still-at-large accomplice broke into the school office at around 2:20 a.m. and used a hand truck to cart the safe away, stash it in their Ford Taurus and drive off, according to the DA’s office.
The Torah – donated to the yeshiva by a family – was inside the locked box in the school office when showed up around 2:20 a.m., prosecutors said.
An “extensive investigation” eventually led the NYPD to Colon, who directed cops to his hiding spot – a wooded area near the Van Wyck Expressway in Kew Gardens Hills, according to authorities and court documents.
“The safe is by Jewel Avenue in a grassy area; the Torah is inside the safe,” Colon confessed, according to the criminal complaint.
“We took the safe and we went over to Jewel Avenue and manage[d] to open the safe and the Torah was in there. We closed the safe back up and that’s it.”
Investigators tracked down the locked box and found the Torah scroll, which had suffered some water damage, inside, prosecutors said.
The religious item was returned to the family who had donated it to the school.
Colon was arraigned on an indictment and charged with grand larceny in the second degree, burglary in the third degree and grand larceny in the fourth degree, officials said.
Judge Karen Gopee ordered him held on $40,000 cash bail, $75,000 partially secured bond or $100,000 insurance company bond.
Colon’s next court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 19 – and he could spend between 7.5 and 15 years behind bars if convicted, official said.
“This defendant and an accomplice allegedly broke into a religious school and showed profound disrespect for the Jewish community by stealing a sacred Torah scroll,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said in a statement.
“For the yeshiva, this Torah was priceless and could never be replaced,” Katz said. “My office and the NYPD never gave up on this case and, several months later, we arrested one of the suspects and were able to recover the Torah.”
Katz urged anyone with information about the second suspect to call NYPD Crime Stoppers at 800-577-TIPS.
