BOSTON, Aug. 20, 2014—A man who allegedly stole an SUV with a teenage boy inside was held on high bail at his arraignment yesterday thanks to the exhaustive efforts of Revere Police and the quick thinking of the young victim, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
ROBERT CONSOLO (D.O.B. 1/11/82) of Melrose was arraigned in Chelsea District Court yesterday on charges of carjacking, kidnapping, larceny of a motor vehicle, and taxi fare evasion. At the request of Assistant District Attorney Myriam Feliz, Judge Matthew Nestor imposed $20,000 bail.
Consolo has been in custody since his Aug. 12 arrest in East Boston and his arraignment the next day in on one count of possession of a Class B substance, two counts of possession of a Class E substance, and furnishing a false name to police. East Boston Municipal Court Judge John McDonald imposed $1,000 bail, revoked his bail on two open drug cases out of Boston Municipal Court, and ordered that Consolo be held without bail while he awaited arraignment on his Chelsea case.
Prosecutors assigned to the Revere case say a Boston Cab taxi driver picked Consolo and another man up in the area of Tremont and Waltham streets in Boston at approximately 10:30 a.m. Aug. 1. He drove the men to Empire Loan on Washington Street, where one of the men entered the store for roughly 10 minutes before returning to the cab. The men then asked to be taken to Route 1 in Revere or Saugus. While en route, the driver pulled into the Northgate Mall to insist the passengers pay the fare for the first leg of the trip before continuing. After the driver threatened to call police, the men offered to get money out of a bag in the cab’s trunk; they instead grabbed some – but not all – of their belongings and ran to an SUV parked nearby. Inside the SUV was a 14-year-old boy waiting for family members on a shopping trip inside the mall.
Despite the driver’s attempts to block the SUV’s path with his cab, the vehicle escaped the lot with Consolo allegedly behind the wheel, prosecutors said.
Consolo allegedly refused the victim’s repeated demands to be let out of the vehicle as it was driven at high rates of speed. He allegedly ignored his associate’s instruction to “pull the car over and let the kid out.” The teen called his mother, who was at the mall, and was able to provide his location to be transmitted to police. The victim informed his captors that his phone was equipped with GPS and could be tracked by police, prompting the men to abandon the vehicle in the area of Main and Green streets in Melrose, prosecutors said.
The victim was not physically harmed and was able to provide police with a detailed description of the men and information that the man behind the wheel had been called “Robert” by the second suspect.
“This young man showed courage and clear thinking well beyond his years,” Conley said. “But he didn’t just keep his cool – he helped police identify and apprehend the defendant.”
Police undertook a search of the area but could not locate the men. Both the taxi and the stolen SUV were processed and multiple fingerprints were pulled from each vehicle. Police also recovered items the men abandoned in the cab, including clothing, a lighter, seven cans of Budweiser beer, and a bottle of Goldschlager schnapps.
Using the surveillance video from Empire Loan, the public’s assistance, and information from police in neighboring cities and towns, Revere Police identified Consolo as the man who drove the stolen SUV with the boy inside and found that his Green Street address was just three blocks from where the stolen vehicle was abandoned. Surveillance images from the building depict two men matching the description of the carjacking suspects enter the front door.
On Aug. 12, Boston Police officers patrolling in the area of Maverick Square observed a man later identified as Consolo take part in what they believed to be a drug transaction. As officers attempted to speak with him, prosecutors said, he fled on foot in the direction of the Lewis Mall, where he was stopped by another Boston Police officer working a detail at the location, prosecutors said.
Officers searched Consolo and discovered a prescription bottle in the name of another person that contained Metformin, Sulfamethoxazole, and a baggie of cocaine, as well as crack cocaine found in his wallet, prosecutors said. At booking, Consolo told police his name was “Robert Carter,” prosecutors said.
Consolo was represented by attorney John Haggerty. He will return to East Boston Municipal Court on Sept. 10 and to Chelsea District Court on Sept. 25.
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All defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
