NEW ORLEANS – A former rap artist has been arrested in connection with two cases in which thousands of dollars of cigarettes were stolen from a St. Bernard Parish store on Dec. 5.
Watch surveillance video of heist
The incident was captured on surveillance video.
Kevin Ventry, 41, of Algiers, who used to be known by the stage name of T.T. Tucker, was arrested on felony theft charges Monday in a dual effort by the NOPD and St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office detectives.
Nearly 200 cartons of premium cigarettes, worth about $8,000, and a case of premium whisky were stolen from a Meraux store’s storage area at night while the business was open. A store surveillance system recorded that three people were involved. They escaped in a late model Nissan Titan, described as a gray extended cab pickup truck.
St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office spokesman Steve Cannizaro said Ventry is jailed in New Orleans on warrants involving burglary and theft and will be booked in St. Bernard with felony theft.
Cannizaro said that a second man, John Glenn Tillman, 56, also of Algiers, has been identified as involved with Ventry in the Dec. 5 theft from a storage area at Meraux Pit Lane, 3225 E. Judge Perez Drive.
Tillman faces the same felony theft count in St. Bernard and burglary and theft charges in New Orleans, Pohlmann said.
A third person, a woman known only by a street name, Sizzlin’, is also sought in the St. Bernard Parish heist but she hasn’t been further identified, Pohlmann said. She is seen on a store surveillance tape with the two men and is wearing a distinctive New Orleans Saints jacket.
