Lehigh Student Mugged at Gunpoint, Police Say

This post was written and reported by Jack Tobias; posted by Daryl Nerl.

Two teenage males—a 17-year-old Liberty High School junior and an 18-year-old whose father apparently kicked him out of the house—are charged with pointing a handgun at a Lehigh University student and stealing his laptop and cell phones.

Court records identify the accused as Jose Antonio Rivera, the 17-year-old, who is being charged as an adult, and 18-year-old Luis Daniel Maldonado.

Rivera confessed to police, the records say.

The teens are neighbors in Marvine-Pembroke. Rivera lives at 1110 Dover Lane and Maldonado lived at 1042 Essex Court before apparently being kicked out of the house.

The weapon the teens allegedly used was a CO2 pellet handgun. Although not as lethal as conventional guns, the pellet guns can cause injury or death, according to several websites.

Both teens are charged with pointing the gun at the Lehigh student shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday at Taylor Street and Memorial Walkway on the Lehigh campus. They got away with the man’s backpack—also referred to in the records as a book bag—wallet and cell phones, the records say.

Inside the backpack was an Apple laptop valued at around $1,000.

Lehigh University police Officer Mathew J. Hyman writes in criminal complaints that he caught up with the teens after seeing four young men around 1:15 a.m. running north on Taylor Street near Packer Avenue. One was carrying a “book bag.”

Hyman began following the young men at the same time that campus police were dispatched for a robbery on campus. The men split up and began running in different directions.

Hyman yelled “Police, stop.” The young men then began running through yards and jumping fences, the complaints say.

After a “brief foot pursuit,” Hyman stopped Rivera, who had the victim’s “cell phone, iPhone and book bag.” The pellet gun was in the book bag, the complaints say.

An information sheet in Rivera’s file says the boy was born in Chicago and is a Liberty junior. A fact sheet on Maldonado says his father kicked him out of the Essex Court home.

Rivera and Maldonado each were charged with robbery, criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, receiving stolen property, possessing an instrument of crime, simple assault and theft by unlawful taking.

They were arraigned later Wednesday by on-duty District Judge John Capobianco of Nazareth and committed to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $40,000 bail for Rivera and $25,000 bail for Maldonado.