Men Who Held Queens Family Hostage Charged With Robbery: Police

RICHMOND HILL, QUEENS — The armed men who broke into a Queens home and held its residents hostage overnight Tuesday have been charged with robbery, police said.

Manhattan resident Tex Ortiz, 35, and Bronx resident Wilbert Wilson, 51, surrendered to police Wednesday after a five-hour-long standoff in Richmond Hill.

NYPD hostage negotiators managed to get the men to release the hostages — four woman and an infant — without a single shot being fired, police officials said.

The two robbers were on parole at the time of the break-in, and both had multiple arrests on their criminal record, according to the New York Daily News.

Ortiz has been arrested at least eight times over two decades on charges of sex abuse, assault, robbery and weapons possession, the Daily News reported.

Wilson has been arrested five times on drug charges, according to the Daily News. He was last released from prison in 2019.

The men broke into the Richmond Hill home in searching of money they believed they were owed by a man who lived there until he died of cancer last month, PIX11 reported. It's unclear whether the robbers knew of the man's death.

"The de-escalation skills of NYPD Emergency Service Unit cops, our negotiators, and all on scene were invaluable — saving lives and bringing a peaceful conclusion to an extremely dangerous situation," NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan wrote in a tweet.