A Clymer man accused in a two-day, three-county crime spree was arraigned Monday on a host of new charges that were filed last Friday. The charges against 27-year-old Joseph J. Gillo Jr. are all related to a series of crimes that began May 6th and ended with Gillo’s arrest the next day in Cameron County.
In four separate criminal filings, Gillo is charged with nine felonies, for robbery of a motor vehicle, three counts of receiving stolen property, aggravated assault by vehicle, accident causing serious bodily injury, flight to avoid apprehension, and two counts of theft. There are also seventeen misdemeanor and summary offenses.
The most serious of those offenses involve an incident in Johnstown in which he is accused of carjacking a woman’s pickup as she was pumping gas. Police say Gillo jumped into the truck and fought off the woman, driving away and dragging her through the parking lot. She was seriously injured when he ran over her abdomen and legs, causing her to have emergency surgery. Police used surveillance video to identify Gillo as the suspect, and Carrolltown police later came upon the stolen vehicle at the Sheetz store there. Gillo was inside the store at the time and when police confronted him, he fled, running back to the stolen truck and escaping.
The criminal complaint alleges that as he fled from police in Cameron County, he twice threw plastic bags out the window of his father’s pickup, which he is accused of stealing from the family’s driveway in Cherryhill Township.
Gillo is being held at the Cambria County Prison with bond set at $100,000 for one case and a combined ten percent of $150,000 for the three others. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Judge Frederick Creany next Tuesday morning.
