At approximately 4:00 a.m. on July 5, 2010, three intruders broke into a Medina, New York, home, approximately forty-five miles northeast of Buffalo. One of them struck and split the lip of the resident, Homer Marciniak, and bound his hands with bed linens in his bedroom. When the already frail seventy-seven-year-old attempted to move, another robber kicked him and threatened him with a BB gun. Homer then stayed silent and still as he heard the intruders ransacking his house. After they left, he freed himself and made his way to the home of a neighbor who called 911. He was treated at the Medina Memorial Hospital and released several hours later.

Homer could not provide any descriptions of his assailants as they had worn ski masks and gloves. In the course of further police questioning, he nearly lost consciousness. The ambulance was again summoned and returned him to the hospital where he succumbed to a heart attack. Medical experts determined the physical and emotional trauma from the attack of ten hours earlier had directly caused the beloved bachelor and retired bank janitor’s death.

Homer Marciniak

The robbers had cut the phone line outside Homer’s home and had entered through a side window. They had taken a few belt buckles and guns, several strong boxes containing cash and valuables, along with Homer’s collections of coins, and, most upsetting to him, his cherished comic books, monetarily valuable but even more so personally.

All of Homer’s friends and acquaintances were cleared of involvement. Police believed he had been killed in a robbery gone wrong by perpetrators to whom he had no prior association. Confirmation came three months later.

Homer’s Home

On October 13, a twenty-four-year-old woman arrested for prostitution in Rochester said she knew who had killed the “old man” in Medina, roughly forty miles to the west. She said the comic books were the main items sought and that she had been enlisted to provide the getaway car, her mother’s van, by twenty-five-year-old Arlene Combs in exchange for forgiving a debt she owed her.

Combs quickly caved, saying she had recruited the three robbers, along with a woman and another man, for involvement in the crime. The crooks first comic book caper attempt was comical, as they had become lost. For their second effort, the bungling burglars were supplied with a GPS directing them to Homer’s home. After parking the van a few blocks away, the three assailants, whom Combs identified as Donald Griffin, Juan Javier, and Albert Parsons, approached the residence on foot under the false impression that no one was inside.

For organizing what was supposed to be a simple home burglary, Combs said she was promised $ 2,500 while the robbers were each pledged $1,000 from her employer and the heist orchestrator to whom the stolen items were given.

Arlene Combs

Combs worked for Rico Vendetti at his Papa Van’s Pizzeria on Rochester’s north side. The thirty-nine-year-old entrepreneur also owned a pawn shop, a bar, and had formerly owned a collectibles business.

After learning of Homer Marciniak’s visiting several comic book stores in the Rochester area inquiring of his collection’s value, Vendeti had, several months earlier, dispatched an associate to Medina to try to purchase the comics, but Homer had declined to sell them. The pizzeria proprietor, so coveting the collection, then plotted to pilfer them.  After two other associates refused to rob a frail elderly man, Vendetti went further down on his totem pole, soliciting Combs to assemble a gang of thieves, none of whom had any connection to him.

Search warrants were granted of Vendetti’s businesses and residence after Combs revealed she had also been shoplifting for him for several years. He was found to have sold a large amount of stolen merchandise online, principally on eBay, but also on Craig’s List.

The boxes full of stolen items found in Vendetti’s apartment above his bar included breast pumps, cross stitch and needlepoint kits, electric toothbrushes and replacement heads, Crest Whitestrips, computer memory sticks and flash drives, pet supplements and pet DNA tests,, razors, razor blades and replacement razor heads, tool sets, vacuum cleaners, binoculars, batteries, plumbing fixtures, and KitchenAid mixers.

Vendetti had a large number of “boosters” who had pilfered the products primarily from large retailers such as Home Depot, Target, and Walmart which he then sold online, generally at 50¢ on the dollar for retail value. He paid his lackeys 25¢, while he himself made a 25% profit off the retail value.

Investigators determined that from at least 2004 to his arrest in November 2010, Vendetti’s illicit enterprise netted nearly $700,000 worth of stolen merchandise, from which he is believed to have made perhaps as much as $40,000-$50,000 a month.

Rico Vendetti

Rico Vendetti was charged in federal court with multiple offenses including felony murder, interstate transportation of stolen property, and racketeering, the latter charge being levied using the RICO Statute (Racketeer and Corrupt Organizations Act), most generally applied in prosecuting organized crime members (i.e. the Mafia.) He was also charged with assault, burglary, and theft in state court.

Shortly after his arrest, Vendetti was additionally charged with attempting to obstruct justice after trying to have a phony witness submit a false affidavit.

Rico Is Charged With RICO

Arlene Combs was also indicted on racketeering, burglary, theft, and assault charges. In December 2014, she and Vendetti each accepted deals of pleading guilty to one count of racketeering. Both were sentenced to twenty years in federal prison in 2016. The Federal Bureau of Prisons website says each becomes eligible for release in 2027: Combs on February 23, Vendetti on June 18.

 

Vendetti And Combs Accept Plea Deals

Robbers Donald Griffin and Albert Parsons each also received twenty years in federal prison for committing a violent crime in the aid of racketeering. Juan Javier, prosecuted as an adult though he was only seventeen-years-old at the time, was convicted of First Degree Attempted Burglary and given seven years in state prison.

Five other people were also convicted for crimes connected with Rico Vendetti’s online criminal enterprise.

Terry Stewart received four years and seven months in federal prison for racketeering. Dayon Shaver and Brandon Meade were each convicted of conspiring to traffic in stolen goods across state lines. Shaver was given three years and ten months in federal prison while Meade was granted time-served after serving nine months.

Two other persons, whom I found listed only as T. Williams and T. Sauerbrier, were given sentences in state prison: Williams getting one year for petit larceny while Sauerbrier received three-and-a-half years for Second Degree Attempted Burglary.

I could not find pictures of any of these individuals.

Homer Marciniak had compiled an itemized typewritten listing of his between three-hundred to four-hundred comic books primarily encompassing the “Golden Age” of 1938-56. The bulk of his treasured collection were of war and superhero issues including several rare singles sought by collectors, such as the first appearances of Batwoman, Captain America, the Human Torch, and the Submariner as well as Action Comics #58 from 1943, a war propaganda floppy featuring Superman selling war bonds and war stamps.

Comic book expert Gary Colabuono values Homer Marciniak’s stolen comic books between $30,000-$100,000, depending on their condition.

 

Some Of The Classic Comics Copped

None of the approximately 21,000 comics seized from Rico Vendetti were from Homer Marciniak’s collection, nor were any found in the western New York comic book stores or pawn shops.  Arlene Combs says that in addition to his not having paid her and her cohorts in full for the robbery, Vendetti had told her he had destroyed the comics as he had deemed them “too hot” to sell due to the publicity the case had received.

Some sources including American Greed, say none of the comics have been found, but others say some, though not the especially valuable ones, have been confirmed as either having been listed on or to have been sold on eBay.

Homer Marciniak had hoped to leave his beloved comic books, which he had started collecting as a child, to his nephews and that they would later give them to their children. Because of the greed of people he did not know, he, in addition to losing his life, lost the chance to pass his most treasured possession to those he loved.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/154525834/homer-e-marciniak

Homer’s Hopes Are Dashed

Sources:

• American Greed
• Buffalo News
• Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York)
• Orleans Hub
• Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
• United States Attorney’s Office West District of New York