Suspect in N.Y. deaths caught in Maine

HOULTON – The Border Patrol arrested a Virginia man sought in two fatal New York shootings after a 22-mile chase that ended Sunday morning on Interstate 95.

Roberto Carlos Mayen, 35, of Woodbridge, Va., was taken into custody at 7:30 a.m. Sunday after the Border Patrol chased a silver Audi south on I-95 and overtook the car in Dyer Brook, said Jim Michie, spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service.

Authorities in New York City had reported that an unidentified man driving a silver Audi with a New Jersey license plate was suspected in the Saturday night shootings in the Bronx.

The 2001 Audi had been taken in a carjacking in New Jersey, Michie said.

U.S. Customs officials first noticed the silver Audi when it drove without stopping through the Canadian port of entry at Woodstock, New Brunswick, just across from the U.S. line in Houlton at 5:04 a.m. Sunday. The same car returned to the Houlton checkpoint and re-entered without stopping at 7:11 a.m.

The Customs Service alerted the Border Patrol, which chased the Audi south on I-95 and overtook the vehicle at 7:29 a.m. Michie would not elaborate on how officials overtook the vehicle.

It was not clear where Mayen went during his two hours in New Brunswick.

Mayen was being held in Houlton on Sunday in connection with the shooting deaths of two Bronx men, according to Ray Kelly, New York City police commissioner.

Agents retrieved a 9 mm handgun from the car, a round in Mayen’s pocket and three martial arts-style knives taped to his legs, Kelly said.

Detectives from the New York Police Department immediately flew to Houlton.

The car that Mayen had been driving was turned over to Maine State Police for processing, Michie said. Mayen was taken to Bangor by two U.S. Customs agents Sunday for his initial court appearance in federal court in Bangor today.

The first shooting took place about 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Bruckner section of the Bronx.

Police said the shooter stepped out of his car and fired several shots at another man sitting in a car. The victim, identified as Joe Robles, 35, of the Bronx, died at a New York hospital.

A second victim, Valencia Kleber, 29, of the Bronx, was shot about 13 minutes later while standing in front of his house in the Harding Park section. He also died at the hospital, police said.

Kelly, the police commissioner, could not say whether the shooter knew the victims, who were both part-time livery cabdrivers, and he had no information about a motive.

A phone number listed for Mayen in Woodbridge, Va., had been disconnected. Woodbridge is a Washington, D.C., suburb.

The car Mayen was driving had been stolen at gunpoint from a parking lot in Fort Lee, N.J., at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, police said. Police in a van spotted the car at a Bronx gas station about 8 p.m. and chased it through the entrance to the Bronx River Parkway, where they lost sight of it. Authorities then launched a citywide search, setting up checkpoints, Kelly said.

“It was indeed a massive undertaking that allowed for a quick and effective search of the entire city,” Kelly said.

Mayen was in the Marine Corps for three years and was honorably discharged in 1999. An initial background check found no prior criminal record, Kelly said.