NJ hotel guests ambushed at gunpoint in $390,000 jewelry heist, prosecutors say

🔴 $390,000 in jewelry was stolen from victims outside a Fort Lee hotel.

🔴 Three of the suspects are from the Bronx

🔴 The suspects used a stolen car and followed victims before the heist, prosecutors say.

FORT LEE — Five men have been accused of stealing expensive jewelry from unsuspecting victims outside a North Jersey hotel, according to authorities.

The arrests announced on Friday were the result of an investigation that started in late June, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella said.

Authorities said the victims were returning to a hotel in Fort Lee on Route 4 when a group of masked men with guns sprang on them in the parking lot.

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The armed robbers stole an extraordinary $390,000 worth of jewelry from the victims, prosecutors said.

Nearly three months later, prosecutors have charged five men with three counts each of first-degree armed robbery plus a long list of other offenses.

Stolen Dodge Durango linked to heist

The carefully planned robbery happened around 4 a.m. on June 28, prosecutors said.

According to officials, they stole a black Dodge Durango in Brooklyn two months earlier.

Leading up to the robbery, the men followed their victims around and watched their movements, prosecutors said.

The stolen Dodge Durango, with stolen license plates from another vehicle, was in the Fort Lee hotel parking lot waiting for the victims to get back, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that while one man stayed in the driver's seat, the other four robbers got out armed with various firearms and cornered the victims.

Suspects arrested across New Jersey and New York

Authorities said that Justin Martha, 24, of the Bronx, was the first suspect arrested on Aug. 22.

Along with armed robbery, Martha is charged with weapons offenses and five counts of fourth-degree aggravated assault.

On Aug. 30, fellow Bronx man Jose Peralta, 23, was arrested, prosecutors said. The next day, Michael Mercedes Marte, 28, was arrested in his home city of Newark.

Jarol Ledesma, 22, of Brooklyn, was charged earlier this month. He was already being held in a jail in Massachusetts.

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The last suspect arrested was Javier Pena, 21, of the Bronx.

Peralta, Marte, Ledesma, and Pena face the same offenses as Martha.

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