In 2011, police officers arrived at Sunset Park’s Sunny 39 Hotel to an incredible scene. Two men–Felipe Rodriguez and Louis Marino–were in the third floor hallway wearing rubber gloves. One had a baton. When officer Annmarie Guerra asked what the pair was doing, Rodriguez was frank, explaining that he was a drug dealer, and the man inside room 301 had stolen $55,000 from him. He was just trying to get his money back.
Police entered the room to find another man, Andre Deluca, lying prostrate on the floor. He did indeed have the 55 grand, as well as a loaded .9 mm pistol and a “golf ball-sized crack-cocaine rock hidden in his anus,” according to DNAinfo.
Rodriguez and Deluca were both arrested, though Deluca’s case was eventually dismissed. Now, he just wants his money back. Deluca’s attorney wrote a letter to the DA last week, demanding that the $55,000 be returned to him, claiming that it wasn’t stolen, but that Deluca found it in an unoccupied car.
That isn’t going to happen. “Assuming he is believed, the putative owner of the money is not Andre Deluca,” reads a court filing on the subject, “But is the owner of the vehicle out of which the money was ‘found.'”
(Photo: David Monniaux/Flickr)
