Police have arrested Michael Reyes, 24, and Dominique Robinson, 28, in relation to the explosion that knocked the walls off a Staten Island home early Tuesday morning. According to a police source Reyes had been stripping an empty apartment in the building of pipes—including an active gas line—and inadvertently filled the vacant apartment with gas. When Reyes allegedly returned to the apartment 40 minutes later with Robinson to "take some pipe" things went boom.
"Me and this girl went into this building to take some pipe," Reyes told cops, according to court papers. "Once I hit the pipe, the boiler exploded." Robinson, however, had a slightly different version of events saying that it was a cigarette she lit that set off the explosion.
Reyes, who was turned in by his "estranged common-law wife," is accused of second-degree burglary, two counts of fourth-degree criminal mischief, and attempted petit larceny while Robinson is being charged with second-degree criminal trespassing.
Miraculously nobody was seriously injured in the early morning explosion. The only reported injuries in the blasts were to Robinson, who burned her hand, and Reyes, who got burns on his face.
