An alleged accomplice was charged Monday in the theft of more than $258,000 in cash that was supposed to have been loaded onto a Miami-bound flight from JFK Airport.
Emanuel Asuquo Okon, 32, of Queens, was accused of serving as the driver who picked up the loot and hauled it away after a Delta Air Lines worker allegedly swiped it on the airport’s tarmac last week.
Surveillance video shows Okon driving a blue Nissan Sentra into a parking lot behind Building 21 and pulling up behind a Delta van that held the bag of stolen money around 9:15 a.m. Tuesday, court papers say.
Okon drove off two minutes later, and a transfer manifest belonging to the armored-car company that carried the cash to the airport and a Delta waybill that said “Piece 8 of 8” were found in the Sentra on Sunday, according to a criminal complaint.
There was no mention of whether the stolen money had been found when Okon was hauled before a judge in Brooklyn federal court on Monday afternoon.
The banknotes — a mix of US and foreign currency — were part of a massive load of cash that came from a cruise ship, law enforcement sources have said.
It remained missing as of Thursday, when Delta Ground Services worker Quincy Thorpe of Brooklyn was busted in the brazen heist.
Thorpe — described in court papers as a “friend and close associate” of Okon’s — is accused of stealing one of eight bags of money he was assigned to put on Delta Flight 1225, then transferring it to the van in a remote area of the airport.
A third person allegedly drove the van but isn’t named in court papers.
Okon was charged with theft from interstate shipment, which carries a maximum 10 years in prison, and was released on an $80,000 bond cosigned by his sister, who works as a mail carrier for the US Postal Service.
He declined to comment outside court, but defense lawyer Douglas Rankin said that Okon “did not commit any crime.”
“The complaint is completely devoid of any evidence of him committing a crime. It’s very circumstantial,” Rankin said.