Dejuan Michaels (left) and Daiquan Smith (right) pose with the money, guns and watches they stole from a Valley Stream home in September 2023. 

By Michael Mashburn From Daily Voice

Two Pennsylvania men who disguised themselves as construction workers and stole more than $1 million in cash, watches, and firearms from a Long Island are heading to prison.

Dejuan Michaels, 31, and Daiquan Smith, 30, were each sentenced Friday, Oct. 31, in Nassau County Court to nine years in prison for their roles in the September 2023 burglary.

It followed their guilty pleads to second-degree burglary and first-degree grand larceny. Prosecutors had recommended a 12-year sentence for each defendant.

Michaels and Smith — along with co-defendant Tehron Green, 45, and a fourth suspect who remains at large — arrived at the Valley Stream home around 7:15 a.m. on Sept. 23, 2023, after the homeowner left for work.

Dressed in construction gear, the men broke a rear window to gain entry, prosecutors said. Surveillance footage showed them using a hand truck to remove two safes filled with cash, Rolex watches, firearms, and other valuables worth roughly $1 million.

Investigators found that Michaels had purchased the hand truck from a nearby home improvement store in Elmont while the burglary was underway.

Detectives later recovered cellphone photos showing Michaels and Smith posing in a Pennsylvania warehouse the same day with the stolen cash, watches, and guns — wearing the same clothing seen in the home surveillance footage. Green also appeared in the background of one of the images.

Michaels was arrested in New Castle, Delaware, and Smith in Philadelphia on April 11, 2024, by the US Marshals Service. Green was arrested in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, on Wednesday, March 5. He pleaded guilty to the same charges and is scheduled to be sentenced in December.

“These defendants thought they could outsmart law enforcement, casing a Valley Stream home and posing as construction workers as a ruse to break-in and steal over $1 million in property,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. “Staring down nearly a decade behind bars, these defendants are not smiling now.”