PAROLEE CONVICTED OF ROBBING FOUR WOMEN AT KNIFE-POINT IS FACING A MAXIMUM SENTENCE OF UP TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a 49-year-old ex-convict has been found guilty of robbing four women at knife-point within a period of seven days in October 2004.

A jury convicted Hoyt Phillips on four counts of Robbery in the 1st degree, a Class B felony offense punishable by a maximum sentence of up to 25 years imprisonment. Acting State Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg set sentencing for Tuesday, June 12, 2007 in Part T 29. Phillips will be sentenced as a Mandatory Persistent Violent Felony Offender and is facing a maximum term of 50 years to life imprisonment. Phillips committed this series of armed robberies a year after being released on parole after serving 18 years for a 1985 armed robbery in Manhattan. Phillips also had served time on two separate occasions for robbery and attempted robbery in the Bronx in 1978 and 1976.

Phillips’ latest knife-point robberies began on October 13, 2004 in an apartment building on University Avenue where he attacked a 34-year-old woman as she stepped out of the elevator into the lobby. Phillips fled with the woman’s backpack and wallet.

The second robbery occurred the next day on October 14, 2004 in the lobby of an apartment building on Featherbed Lane. Phillips’ 40 year old victim was robbed of a necklace, earrings and other jewelry as she got off an elevator. On October 15, 2004, Phillips accosted a 21-year-old pharmacy student in the lobby of an apartment house on the Grand Concourse and forced her to turn over an iPod and approximately $200 in cash. Several days later on October 19, 2004, Phillips confronted a 40-year-old woman and her 14-year-old son in the lobby of an apartment building on Grand Avenue. Phillips pushed the boy out of the way, held a knife against his mother’s side, took her pocketbook and fled. The woman ran out of the building after Phillips and screamed for help. Police who were nearby writing an accident report chased Phillips onto the Jerome Avenue entrance ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway, where he was caught and taken into custody.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney George M. Suminski