Melissa Bailey File Photo
Fair leaves court in August with grandmother (left) and mom, Ruby Avent.
After a jury acquitted him of murder, Tashaun Fair was said to be getting his life back, working, attending college, and spending time with his daughter — until police arrested him Monday on armed robbery charges. An aunt defended him and dismissed the charges as “insane.”
Fair, who’s 20, was arrested Monday in connection to an armed robbery in the Hill neighborhood. Police said they saw Fair near the scene, chased him into a house, and found a gun he had ditched in a trash can. A 48-year-old victim supported cops’ case by identifying Fair as one of two men who robbed him at gunpoint, according to police.
The incident came just two months after Fair was released from state custody because a jury acquitted him of murder. Fair spent nearly a year behind bars on charges that he killed Mitch Dubey, a popular downtown bike mechanic, in an armed robbery inside Dubey’s Newhallville home. Fair’s family and defense lawyers claimed he was innocent.
Reached Tuesday, Tashaun’s aunt, Barbara Fair, maintained her nephew’s innocence of the latest charges as well.
Barbara Fair looks on as Fair hugs his lawyer, Chief Public Defender Tom Ullmann.
After his release, Tashaun had gotten his life together, she said: He enrolled at Gateway Community College and started working a job on campus.
“When he’s not there, he’s spending all of his time with his daughter,” 2‑year-old daughter, Zamaya, she said.
“To me, it would be insane for him to be involved in a robbery and to be doing so well,” Fair said.
“I will not believe that he did that until he tells me that he did,” she continued. “Just that the police said that he did it? No.”
Police spokesman Officer Dave Hartman gave the following account of Fair’s arrest:
At 7:33 p.m. on Monday, Officer John Schmaltz responded to the report of an armed robbery at the corner of Congress Avenue and Bond Street. He met with the alleged victim, who’s 48.
The man told police that two young men came up to him. One pulled a gun from his pants and “pressed the barrel into his stomach.”
“What you got — look,” the gunman told the victim, according to Hartman.
The victim told police that while the first assailant held the gun, the second assailant robbed him of his cell phones, and stole some cash from his pocket. The victim gave Officer Schmaltz “detailed descriptions” of the assailants, which were broadcast to patrol cops.
“As soon as Officer Chris Alvarado heard the broadcast, he spotted two men who matched the robbers’ descriptions,” Hartman wrote in a press statement. “They were walking at a fast pace on West Street. The two men were so busy looking behind them that they hadn’t yet seen that they were headed toward Officer Alvarado.”
As the suspects approached Alvarado, Officers Joseph Silvestrini and Osvaldo Garcia arrived. “The two suspects saw the officers about 15 feet away and stopped.” The first suspect, whom police later identified as Fair, raised his hands above his head. The second suspect fled. Then the first suspect fled, too.
Police caught up with the second suspect, who’s 19, on Frank Street near West Street.
Meanwhile, Officers Jenna Davis and Ross Van Nostrand also arrived in the area. “Someone from the neighborhood” told them the second suspect involved in the robbery was running up Truman Street. The cops “headed that way and spotted Fair duck into 32 Truman St.” Hartman wrote.
Fair leaves court after his acquittal.
“They went in after him and found Fair on the second floor, on the floor and with his hands on top of his head. [Fair] said he was there visiting a friend,” according to Hartman.
Meanwhile, police looked for the weapon.
A witness told police he’d seen one suspect leave the gun on the ground after the robbery, and the other suspect pick it up. “Based on that information, Officers Robert Mencucci and Garry Monk searched the area around 32 Truman St. They found a black HiPoint 40 caliber semi-automatic pistol in the trash can by the door. A loaded magazine lay next to the cans on the ground,” according to Hartman.
The alleged victim identified Fair as the accomplice to the robbery, and the other suspect whom police had detained as the gunman.
Fair was charged with “robbery in the first degree, larceny in the second degree, criminal possession of a pistol, conspiracy to commit robbery in the first degree and conspiracy to commit larceny in the second degree.”
Barbara Fair said she does not know what happened, but “I absolutely cannot believe he was robbing anyone.”
Fair said since her nephew’s release from prison, she has talked to him every week.
“I just told him, watch who he be around; who he befriends,” she said.
“This is just too shocking for me to actually hear.”
WOW...
that last name Fair!!!!