{"id":301078,"date":"2026-07-20T20:55:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301078\/"},"modified":"2026-07-20T20:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T20:55:09","slug":"police-nab-suspect-in-thefts-of-religious-statues-in-queens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/301078\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Nab Suspect in Thefts of Religious Statues in Queens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-280027 size-full\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" data-lazy- data-lazy- data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/replacement-statue-of-St.-Anthony.jpeg\"\/><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-280027 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/replacement-statue-of-St.-Anthony.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"  \/>Howard Beach resident Giovanno Battaglia replaced a stolen statue of St. Anthony, and to prevent a second theft, secured it to a pedestal with a chain. (Photo: Paula Katinas)<\/p>\n<p>by Tablet Staff<\/p>\n<p>HOWARD BEACH \u2014 Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the thefts of\u00a0several\u00a0religious statues from residents\u2019 private property in Ozone Park and Howard\u00a0Beach,\u00a0it was announced on July 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Howard Beach Lidenwood Civic, a community organization which had raised concerns over the spree of thefts, announced the arrest on\u00a0its Facebook page.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe suspect arrested was a white male, mid to late 30\u2019s, from Ozone Park,\u201d the\u00a0group posted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The spree of thefts of religious statues in Howard Beach and Ozone Park angered and perplexed Catholics in the two communities and led a local\u00a0councilwoman\u00a0to call for stricter law enforcement penalties for the crimes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople are concerned.\u00a0They\u2019re\u00a0concerned that their faith is under attack,\u201d said Phyllis Inserillo, president of Howard Beach Lindenwood Civic, told The Tablet after the most recent theft.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"https:\/\/thetablet.org\/religious-statue-thefts-shock-queens-residents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">RELATED: Spree of Religious Statue Thefts Leave Queens Residents, Officials Shocked<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to the NYPD, there were\u00a0five\u00a0thefts of religious statues in the Howard Beach and Ozone Park communities between June 11 and July 13.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0first incident reported to police was the theft on June 11 of a\u00a0St. Anthony statue, which stood outside Rockwood Park Chiropractic at 91-17 157th Ave. for more than two decades.\u00a0The property owner quickly replaced the statue.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks later, on June 23, a homeowner reported the theft of two statues \u2014 one of the Blessed Mother and another of St. Pedro \u2014 from the front of a home near Bristol Avenue and Hawtree Street in Ozone Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Someone struck Ozone Park again the following day, stealing a statue of the Blessed Mother from a property near Bristol Avenue and Centerville Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On July 13, a fifth incident was reported to police in which a thief removed a statue of the Blessed Mother from the front of a house in the vicinity of 159th Avenue and 98th Street.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The NYPD\u2019s Hate Crime Task Force was notified of\u00a0all of\u00a0the incidents, officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Councilwoman\u00a0Joann\u00a0Ariola, who is Catholic, lamented\u00a0the fact that the law\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0appear to have any teeth when it comes to punishments for these types of crimes.\u00a0\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t be a slap on the wrist,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0This is a developing story.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Howard Beach resident Giovanno Battaglia replaced a stolen statue of St. Anthony, and to prevent a second theft,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-301078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}