Gym Membership Opened Locker Doors to Robbery

A parolee was arrested for robbing a number of gyms last year. The Staten Island Advance says Murray Bradford was sentenced to 3 1/2 to seven years in prison for robbing gyms on S.I. as well as in Manhattan and Queens, "picking lockers clean of at least $20,000." Bradford joined a New York Sports Club in the Bronx and used the membership to access gyms all around the city. He "allegedly pried open the lockers and took cash and credit cards, before hooking up with fellow Bronxite Angel Nieves, 32, who drove Bradford to the nearest CVS store or Best Buy to spend the loot." One purchase, courtesy of a credit card stolen from the NYSC club in the Travis section of Staten Island was a $3,700 flat screen TV. Gym thefts are familiar to Bradford: The Advance says his "thick rap sheet dates to 1979, when he was convicted of breaking into a locker at a Jack LaLanne gym in the Bronx" and the Daily News noted last year that Bradford had served a sentence for gym robberies before this latest round.