Babylon Body Parts Suspect in Jail on Shoplifting Charges

It didn’t take long for a suspect out with no bail in the Babylon Body Parts case to be arrested again, this time for stealing cosmetics from a Lindenhurst CVS, according to police. Amanda Wallace, 40, of Amityville, was arrested for petit larceny while wearing an ankle monitoring device Friday evening.

Suffolk DA Ray Tierney says NY bail laws don’t consider ‘dangerousness’

Wallace and three other defendants reignited a firestorm of criticism over the state’s cashless bail law after they were charged in a case involving body parts discovered in a Babylon park by a young girl walking to school. District Attorney Raymond Tierney lambasted the law after the suspects were released on their own recognizance. He is actively pursuing a double murder investigation based on the body parts, which were also found in two other locations, and a gruesome crime scene at a house in Amityville where Wallace lived with two of the suspects.

CVS EAST MONTAUK HIGHWAY LINDENHURST Google Maps Street view

According to information filed in District Court following her arrest, Wallace admitted to a Suffolk Police officer that she stole eyelashes and nail polish. “I forgot my money and really didn’t feel like walking back over,” she reportedly said.

Since she violated the terms of her cashless release in the body parts case, Wallace was held without bail by Judge James McDonaugh. He set bail for the shoplifting at $5,000 cash or $10,000 bond. “At the bare minimum, you should be able to go nine days without being rearrested,” Judge McDonaugh reportedly told the defendant. Also charged were Steven Brown, 44, and Jeffrey Mackey, 38, of Amityville, and Alexis Nieves, 33, who is homeless.

The four suspects have pleaded innocent to felony counts of first-degree hindering prosecution, concealment of a human corpse, and tampering with physical evidence by concealing or destroying it. Police have identified one of the victims as Donna R. Conneely, 59, with a last known address in Yonkers. The second victim, a male, has not been named.

The case put the state’s cashless bail law back into the spotlight and renewed calls for Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democrats who control the legislative process in Albany to rework the state’s criminal justice system, which was radically altered under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.