An ousted OCME worker reflects on the catastrophic fallout in his life and career despite beating a petit larceny rap that had him standing accused of looting a lux accessory from a swank Midtown apartment.

BY: M.L. Nestel 

Nearly three years after a city medical examiner driver faced a year in the clink for allegedly lifting a Louis Vuitton bag from a dead man’s Midtown posh sliver apartment — the acquitted man was formally sidelined by a city administrative panel, The Blotter has learned.

Trevor Rheams, now 53, beat a criminal petit larceny rap stemming from accusations dating back to Aug. 9, 2022.

After that night, Rheams was accused of swiping an $800 satchel from a corpse’s apartment in a swank building blocks away from the United Nations on First Avenue and East 39th Street in Manhattan’s ritzy Murray Hill nabe….

THE BLOTTER (TB): Why do you feel like you were the one to blame when it's possibly someone else.

TREVOR RHEAMS (TR): I guess I haven't been a team player. I haven't been, you know, one of their people. That's what messes me up so bad. That's what hurt my feelings. I've been working 60 to 80 hours a week. Mostly 80 hours a week, like, for a year, like, I've been working every day. You know, been doing double shifts every day. And I ain't never had a problem. It just hurt me. Real bad. It hurt lost a lot. I lost a lot.

TB: That's not easy when you Google your name and this thing comes up. 

TR: It’s hard. Then I got people calling me, and then on YouTube calling me ghoulish, and people threatening my life. 

TB: Yeah?

TR: Yeah, it's been. It's been crazy. 

TB: You received death threats. 

TR: Yeah, for sure. You know, people drag me for all kinds of shit.

TB: Not only have you not been found guilty but in a way losing your job — it’s almost as if you’re suspected of doing something bad. 

TR: They wanted me out. I heard that my co-worker was saying that he's one that that's in charge of everything. Now I got to take over for Mr. DePaolo. He was groomed. He's one of them people that been promoted 1,000 times during his tenure.

TB: How are you getting along these days, because you're not obviously working, are you? Are you on paid leave? 

TR: I'm waiting for some kind of insurance, I mean, unemployment or something. I'm not really doing too well.

TB: How old are you?

TR: 53. 

TB: You dedicated how many years to the OCME?

TR: 18 or 19 years. 

TB: Pension? 

TR: Yeah, well, I did have a pension. You come vested after 10, but I needed another four years. Another four years I would have had that. 

TB: Interesting. So it’s gone? Just like that?

TR: Yeah. 

TB: So it’s understood, if people accuse of taking the dead man’s Louis Vuitton bag, what is your reasoning to explain why you wouldn’t do it?

TR: First of all, when I’m working that's not even on my mind. That's number one. Number two, what I'm gonna do with a bag, you know? And to me, that's feminine. That's feminine, like, you know what I'm saying? That bag is like, feminine. 

TB: I see. 

TR: And the thing is the guy–

TB: Your partner that night?

TR: Yeah. He was days away from getting married. 

TB: Okay.

TR: I don’t have nobody. I don't need no bag. Like I said it wasn't, it looked big enough for me to what I would need. You know what I mean? 

TB: Do you remember going in that apartment and you stood to the side and everything? But did you ever remember much what happened? 

TR: When we was leaving it was a lot of stuff. So I had to move from the hallway into the living room so we can get the body out. Lots of equipment. He had a lot of equipment and stuff. We had a lot of stuff. And the place was — it kind of kept like bit of a pack rat. Even though it's a nice, it’s one of the nicest nice buildings.

TB: So it was a mess. 

TR: I mean, it was, let's say, from just the hallway probably was messed up, and then the living room – it had some things in it, but like the kitchen area look kind of clean and simple. All the stuff that the police had on the table. 

TB: Do you remember the nature of how he died? 

TR: Oh, I'm not sure. I think I'm not sure I want to say, I'm not sure I want to say, like, OD or something. 

TB: Okay.

TR: I think he was a doctor or something like that.

TB: Was he decomposed?

TR: No, no, he wasn't decomped yet. But the thing was when we came in, he was on the floor by the table in the kitchen, you know, laying there. There was blood and little fluids. When I bent down, I felt a little dizzy.

TB: Like nausea?

TR: Nah, it's a condition, but I don't have the name for it. 

TB: Vertigo? Getting the spins?

TR: Yeah. I told [sic], ‘Look, you got this, man. I can't, you know, I don't feel good.’ 

TB: Do you remember what he said in response?

TR: He said, ‘Don't worry about it. I got it.’

TB: So for the rest of the time you’re doing what?

TR: I’m facing the wall, with my head on my forearm. You know what I mean? I'm having, yeah, I'm having problems. And when I bent over, you know, I started feeling more dizzy. I had to try to get myself together. So that's why he did mostly everything. I just helped him strap [the body] and then move stuff out the way so we could get it out the whole place. And get it down the hallway.

TB: Don’t you want to get an answers from [sic], though? Did he ever apologize at least for how things went? 

TR: No, I never I never spoke to him. I never spoke to him, and then he was gone. And nah, I never spoke to him. I don't understand what happened. I don't understand how one event just changed my whole life. I went from working two shifts a day to they changing my time. Then they took everything away from me. They took all my access away. I couldn't touch none of the vehicles they want to put me in a room in a basement, like some kind of jail with no windows or nothing. No phone access, no nothing. They wanted me to stay there for eight hours.

TB: Like a rubber room?

TR: Yeah. 

TB: That's when you got arrested?

TR: No, no, that was after. That was after the court.

TB: Feel like it was retribution? 

TR: Yeah, you know, when you stick up for yourself, and you read the manual — they hate you. When you get hired, they give you this big ass book, and they know you're not gonna read it. So they gonna come tell you, ‘Look, you gotta go get that bucket and the sponge, and you gotta go scrub those walls, or whatever the case may be. But if you never read that book you gonna go get the book. You gonna go get that bucket, you gonna go get that. You gonna go scrub that. That's what happens when you know what's going on. You a threat, you know, they like ignorance. You know, tell us to do whatever, and we gonna do it. They brag about things like, when I say jump, you know, they say how high, right? Yeah, they, they brag on things like that, or their power, what they can make somebody do, or how they can, like, mess with you, like, fuck your overtime, your money. You know what I'm saying?

TB: Interesting.

TR: You got shit to do, because they know you they get in your business, and they know that you need this, that in the third you might need to overtime, but you're not gonna get that.

TB: So they dangle it over your head?

TR: Yeah. It's a real community in there. After everybody that's been there at least 10 years, they don't, they really don't like you. 

TB: In regard to you getting the fluids in your eyes — had you had dangerous health situations like that before?

TR: The first time ever, and all the time I ever worked there, I wasn’t hurt. That's the first time it ever happened. Ever. I pride myself on staying clean. Because the thing is, you know, you got to treat everybody like they have HIV or something like that. Yeah, everybody the same way, because there's a lot of things that's, you know, contaminated, even the air, right? It's in the air, you know, it's airborne. 

TB: You don't wear goggles?

TR: No man. Only a little facemask they gave us for the COVID. You know, that little mask. Other than that, nah, we don't. They don't give us equipment like that.

TB: I'm surprised. I mean, goggles would seem like a no-brainer—

TR: I mean nah, yeah, that would have helped me.

TB: How are you getting along nowadays?

TR: I tried to get a job, and they did a background check. That  fucked me up too. 

TB: What kind of job you trying to get? 

TR: I tried to get a couple jobs. I tried to get a job at the post office. Then I then I tried to get a job at Amazon. Then I tried to get a job at Wall Street mail room. I tried to get a job in security, yeah, my background checking. So this is technically, I mean, even though it's not a criminal offense, but it pops up.

TB: Did people rush to assume that you were in the wrong?

TR: They didn't even give me the decency to this day. They never spoke to me about it. To this day, none of them. They never asked me what happened. They never even spoke me. The first person that spoke to me was the police officer. My coworkers told me what was happening, but no supervisor, no person in charge, ever spoke to me to this day. To this day!

TB: Really? During the trial, you never had a chance to go on the record with your side? 

TR: No. Come out of my pocket, run and get a lawyer. Had to pay for that. The lawyer came in. You know how they got me out of the jail. 

TB: Had you ever been in a situation like this where you were in the presence of valuables?

TR: Yeah, for sure. I mean, look, I don't want to throw nobody under the bus. But yeah I've been in situation where, yeah, yeah, I've seen things that that's worth way more than a Louie bag. You know what I mean, right? There's money, you know? I seen, I seen, like, what, $700,000, $800,000.

TB: And you've and you've kept walking, you kept doing the job?

TR: Yes. I was doing this job at so many houses, and I can't even tell you it must have been damn near a million houses. I never stole a toothpick. I mean, goddamn like all these years, I just feel, I just feel like, why would you do that to me? You know what? I mean, yeah, you might have a relationship with these people like, shit like that from people that felt like something happened after people leave that shit for me.

TB: When was a time where you saw a lot of money? Was it a dead drug dealer or something?

TR: I've been in houses with people that are millionaires, and even billionaires. I was, I was in, what the President of [top U.S. banking institution]?

TB: Oh yeah?

TR: I mean, I've been in lot of houses. I've been in a lot of situations where people have a lot of money and when people have no money. 

TB: I imagine jewelry and other collectibles are within grasp too.

TR: I went to this jeweler's house, and the safe was wide open.  All the jewelry right there, you know. A double homicide, and they, they recovered, what $100,000 you know, and it was right there in front of me. That was one when I was just surrounded by money.

TB: Shows you kept it professional. 

TR: This thing is very personal, and it had been personal for a long time. Because these people, they go out to each other's houses, go to the bars, you know, they hang out and shit. They go out of town together. They do, like the these people got houses in Maryland right, all these other places, and they invite the people to come over and all this shit. It's a real country club. And I'm not a part of it. I never been a part of it, and that's why I never moved up or nothing like that. Everybody that's a part of that club got numerous, numerous promotions, if you look into it, just is numerous promotions in a very short amount of time.

TB: Seems hard to deal with the way you describe it.

TR: You know what, man, I'm gonna tell you like this: where I'm from, where I grew up at in the projects, you know, the people there, they work and they have jobs. But I was like an eye opener. Nobody never work with the dead people. Nobody did a medical examiner thing. I was the first one from where I’m from. So I gave people, you know, motivation. I gave certain people, like open motivation. When they see me, like, damn, no, they all scared to do it. They’d say, ‘Oh, wow. How can you do this?’ But then through the years, ‘Damn, how long have you been there? It’s been 10 years!? Or when it was 15, you know, like they really proud. And now other people now, three, four people from my neighborhood now got jobs with the Medical Examiner. 

TB: So you consider yourself a bit of a trailblazer then.

TR: Right. I don't got time. Oh, I got grandkids. I gotta set examples. I don't got time to suffer setbacks.

TB: You know public housing project did you grow up?

TR: Astoria Houses. 27th Avenue, First Street in Holly's point. People over there, too. They know me. Everybody called me ‘The Coroner’.

TB: I’m laughing, but that’s a good nickname.

TR: Yeah, they don't mess with me. I go to work. Get up everyday. It's a hard job, man. I hear them as I pass by: ‘Yo, that man, he's a working man.’ They don't mess with me. They'll never mess with my family.

-30-

A INQUISITOR WAS feeling extra curious and also criminally opportunistic. 

The perp, 27, allegedly approached a 26-year-old man riding an e-bike along St. Nicholas Avenue off West 173rd Street back at around 9 p.m. on Oct. 11. 

“Are you following me,” he asked the biker. 

The reverse psychology was followed with thuggery. 

The suspect pulled out a black pistol and demanded the man he suspected of trailing him to forfeit his e-bike. 

Its owner complied and got off the bike and surrendered it. 

Cops mobilized. 

By 2 a.m. the next day cops found their man who matched the thief’s description. 

They stopped him and found the same perp packing an imitation gun. 

And even though the piece could barely harm an ant — the suspect was still charged with robbery with a firearm and grand larceny from a person.

THE SILVER-TONGUED MC Eiht once said it best: “I gots to get mine, so I'm a take yours.”

And for one 30-year-old desperado — he saw a man on a train with a a phone and decided it was his. 

The perp allegedly hopped on the F train heading to Manhattan sometime around 4:30 p.m.

A 25-year-old straphanger was holding his phone when the suspect approached him and demanded it. 

“Give me my phone,” he allegedly told the man. “You have my cell phone.”

The shakedown was initially dismissed with the two arguing back-and-forth about the gizmo. 

As the train rumbled into the West 4th Street station — the phone owner exited to step aboard an uptown E train. 

But the cell phone shitstarter followed him. 

The victim got off on the 53rd Street/Lexington Avenue station. And when he did the suspect allegedly engaged him again, demanding he hand over the device. 

He slugged the man and yanked the mobile from his clutches.

By this point, cops were engaged and pulled off the cell phone fleecer.

Asked why the perp targeted him, the victim explained that the phone was his and that the the mugger was a complete stranger. 

The attacker was brought up on robbery, assault, and harassment.

THE CROOK WAS skimming from within.

Until the heat caught on.

A 46-year-old perp and her cohorn were daylighting as suits for the IC Wholesale Inc. and then marauding as inside guys and gals — fencing stolen wares.

Their shenanigans believed to have begun on Jan. 2, 2025 was up nearly two years later on the night of July 24.

That’s when the authorities swooped in on the biz where the suspects were working and exposed them for side-hustling the inventory of brand spanking new iPhones, Samsung cell phones, iPads, AirPods, and other goods for personal gain.

They determined the suspects were selling them outside the warehouse grounds and doctoring the company’s inventory logs to mask the grift.

In sum, authorities estimate the suspects lined their pockets to the tune of $166,210.

On Aug. 12, cuffs and charges were formalized for grand larceny 2 (more than $50k), grand larceny 2 (retail goods scheme), criminal possession of stolen property (more than $50k), and falsifying business records.

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SHE COULDN’T MIND her Ps and Qs.

A 32-year-old hurled hateful insults at a transgender woman and then tried to whack her with a makeshift weapon.

The not so lady-like goon charged at the trans woman back at around 3 p.m. on Sept. 14 while she was walking on Williams and Sutter Avenues.

The woman first ripped a chain off the victim’s neck.

But that was only temporary.

The trans woman snatched the chain back.

But that only provoked the assailant to get fired up, grousing slurs and then stuffing a glass bottle into a sock and swinging it at the victim again and again.

Adding insults to the near injury brought on by the bottle in a sock — the suspect drew up her clothes to reveal her breasts.

That gotcha effort earned her an exposure charge together with menacing as a hate crime with a weapon, aggravated harassment (as a hate crime based on race or religion, and weapons possession.

IF ONLY HE could explain what happened. 

A motorist accused of mowing down a man walking in a parking lot outside the Chase Center appeared to justify the incident. 

On the morning of Oct. 4, the 33-year-old was reportedly driving a Toyota in the lot on Meridian Road (just outside the tennis center). 

The bearded suspect with the cropped hairdo, is described in the complaint as wearing a black jersey. 

He had somehow gained entry onto the lot without a pass. 

And he steered his car toward a man walking around the premises and slammed into him.

The driver then took off leaving his human roadkill suffering from chest and knee wounds. 

But the maniac’s plate was captured and run down by investigators. 

When they showed up at his doorstep, the suspect was pressed about his potential involvement in the car versus human crash. 

And at that time there was much he wanted to impart. 

He allegedly answered, “I will come in to tell my Side of the story.”

It’s unclear if he ever did. 

But one thing is clear: authorities moved to charge the chatty chump with assault and leaving the scene of an incident without reporting/personal injury.

THE FAMILY FEUD turned nearly terminal. 

A 26-year-old unstable one targeted her cousin and grandfather in two separate attacks. 

On the morning of Aug. 9, the woman’s first attack occurred inside her cousin’s home located on 73rd Street off 57th Avenue. 

Authorities say the perp showed up and took a glass bottle and was spotted on CCTV “smashing a hole in her apartment door with a glass bottle.”

The maniac also confronted her grandfather who was in the building and growled, “I will kill you!” while whacking his front door with a glass bottle causing a hole, the criminal complaint details. 

Overnight on Sept. 3, the suspect returned. 

This time she took hold of several items in the home and launched them down a flight of stairs. 

The projectiles included a blue vase that she tossed and smashed a window. 

The family turned to the law and they took the woman into custody and brought charges of criminal mischief (damage property), endangering the welfare of a child, and harassment raps.

THE GNAT-BRAINED DUNCE thought he could tool around in someone else’s scooter sans a helmet or plates. 

That scheme backfired. 

Quickly. 

Cops spotted the suspect freebirding on a stolen gray 2024 Fly Wing Zne along Corson and Westervelt Avenues at around 3 a.m. on April 19. 

Once stopped, arresting officers took the slippery on into custody and charged him with possession of stolen property, unauthorized use of a vehicle, and (would you believe it!) motorcycle helmets violation.

A PERV ACCOSTED a spa worker.

On the nigh tof May 16, cops say the creep was inside Chelsea Wellness Spa located on 25th Street and grabbed a 21-year-old woman’s breasts then went on to “perform a lewd act” on her.

A MAN WAS jumped by a group of subway hopping hoodlums.

Cops say the perps ganged up on a 34-year-old man on MacDougal Street early evening on Oct. 3.

After roughing him up — they snatched three alcoholic drinks from him.

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Saif Khan: I just saw like 800 Rickeys.

Michael Peter: If I find him , I will give him back for free

EnthusiasticRaspberry9076: Check Wing Wah

Tyler Dosil: sica Maldonado when did you lose him? I got a Pigeon a couple of months back that looks very similar to him and that lands on people's shoulders. He was rescued from the Howard Beach area ozone Park area in July

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SON OF DECEASED: [The] procession got cut off by this guy on Richmond Road. He was all agitated like we were inconveniencing him, cut us off & then stayed in the procession with his hazards on!!!

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-30-

*When perusing The Blotter, know that arrests do not constitute guilt, and all suspects are innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, the reported items are merely a snapshot of a criminal matter – what is known at the time of publishing. In most cases, the persons arrested for breaking the law haven’t been convicted (yet). It’s also possible that the charges brought against them may be reduced or even withdrawn.

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