Jewelry store robbed

Deepa Bharath

Masked robbers armed with large sledgehammers smashed the display

window of a Lido Isle jewelry store Thursday afternoon and fled after

bagging several diamond rings worth tens of thousands of dollars,

officials said.

Two or three people, their faces covered with ski masks, drove up

in a van in front of Jewelry by Mardo in the 3700 block of Via Oporto

at about 12:25 p.m., Newport Beach Police Sgt. Steve Shulman said.

“It appears that the suspects got out of the van that had a

sliding door,” he said. “They used a large sledgehammer to smash the

display window and removed the jewelry.”

The robbers were confronted by the owner of the store, “who pulled

out a gun and took a shot at” them, Shulman said.

“But he missed, and they left in a getaway vehicle,” he said.

Several witnesses saw the van go over the island’s bridge. Police

later found the vehicle abandoned near a Mariner’s Mile restaurant

about half a mile away. Shulman said they got into another vehicle

that was waiting for them at that location.

They made off with several diamond rings, some in platinum

settings, he said.

“The individual diamonds were more then two carats in size and

worth tens of thousands of dollars,” Shulman said. “Anyone who is

offered for sale rings with large diamonds or with platinum settings

should contact the police.”

No one was injured in the heist, which happened in broad daylight

and was witnessed by several people on the narrow brick street

fronting the harbor.

Shattered glass was strewn on the sidewalk. A diamond ring that

the robbers had dropped in haste sparkled as it lay on the ground

amid the broken glass.

An unusually large sledgehammer with a long wooden handle and

three iron heads welded together rested against the display window.

Police said that was one of the hammers used to break the window.

Sandy Skahen, who was walking out of a bookstore nearby, said she

thought she was watching “a movie being filmed.”

“I saw this black van come screeching,” she said. “Two men with

ski masks and these huge sledgehammers smashed the store’s window.

They hit it about five times.”

Ray Cruz was eating lunch at a restaurant next door to the jewelry

store.

“When I saw the van pull up and the guys in the masks, I knew they

were going to rob the store,” he said. “They were wearing

Halloween-type white ghost masks with something black over their

eyes.”

Carl Ulrickson, who was also at lunch at the same restaurant, said

he heard the glass shatter.

“It was pretty loud, and then I heard the guys yell, ‘Come on,

let’s go, let’s go,’” he said. “Then I saw them pile in the van and

split.”

Maureen Castana said she saw the van speed down the small, narrow

street at 80 mph.

“They were zooming down very, very fast,” she said. “We walk

around here all the time. Anyone could’ve been killed.”

Shulman said it was a “well-planned and well-cased robbery.”

“They had studied the location,” he said. “They hit the store in

broad daylight and knew that the kind of jewelry they took would have

been put away at night in a safe.”

The entry and exit to the store have locked electric gates, and

the display window was “a thicker glass, heavier than standard

glass,” Shulman said.

The heist was the first such high-profile robbery in several

years.

That last, of Fashion Island’s Traditional Jewelers in January

2001, left a security guard wounded after a quick shoot-out. It also

was the last in a small string of such robberies. Between May 1997

and that month, there were five such incidents.

In the first, thieves made off with $325,000 in diamonds and Rolex

watches from South Coast Plaza’s Ben Bridge jewelry store.

Anyone with information about the robbery is asked to call (800)

550-6273.

* DEEPA BHARATH covers public safety and courts. She may be

reached at (949) 574-4226 or by e-mail at [email protected].