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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 17, 1993                   TAG: 9304170311
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                                LENGTH: Short

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3 MEN INDICTED IN THEFT OF $1 MILLION IN GEMS

A federal grand jury in Virginia has indicted three New Jersey men, including a man already in prison, in the theft of more than $1 million in gems in 1990.

According to the FBI, the thefts occurred at a mall in Chesapeake and at a hotel in Henrico County, a Richmond suburb. The victims were gem couriers who were accosted at gunpoint and sprayed with a chemical repellent.

Joseph F. "Diamond Joe" Shea, Christopher R. Welsh and Joseph T. Kelly were accused by a U.S. District Court grand jury in Norfolk of crossing state lines to commit armed robbery, said Jim Watters, an FBI spokesman.

Shea, 42, already is serving a prison sentence for stealing diamonds in a 1989 Pennsylvania robbery. Welsh and Kelly were taken into custody Wednesday in Camden, N.J., where they live.

About $200,000 in jewels were taken in the May 1990 robbery in Henrico County and about $850,000 was stolen in the June 1990 incident in Chesapeake, the FBI said. - Associated Press

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