Federal prosecutors have indicted two Bridgeport men in connection with the February robbery of a KAY Jewelers outlet in Clinton, Connecticut, in a case that investigators say is linked to a much larger pattern of jewelry store heists stretching across three states. U.S. Attorney David X. Sullivan and FBI New Haven Special Agent in Charge P.J. O’Brien announced the charges on Friday, unsealing an indictment returned by a grand jury in Bridgeport last month.

The Charges

The two men named in the indictment are Kelijah Richardson, 28, also known by the aliases “KeKe,” “Keek,” and “Lijh,” and Anibal Rivera, 27, known as “Go,” “Greenlight Go,” and by the social media handle “greenlightgo.1.” Both are Bridgeport residents. Each is charged with one count of interference with commerce by robbery — a federal offense commonly known as a Hobbs Act robbery, named for the 1946 statute under which it is prosecuted. A conviction carries a maximum sentence of twenty years in federal prison.

The indictment, which was returned on March 18, 2026, alleges that Richardson and Rivera robbed the KAY Outlet in Clinton on February 3, 2026, making off with merchandise valued at approximately $184,000 at retail. For context, that is a figure well above what most smash-and-grab crews clear in a single incident, and it reflects the fact that the KAY Outlet in Clinton — like many mall and outlet-center jewelry stores — typically displays a significant portion of its inventory in the cases most accessible from the sales floor.

A Pattern Stretching Across Three States

What makes this case stand out is not the single Clinton robbery but the context federal investigators are drawing around it. According to court filings and statements made in court, the FBI New Haven Violent Crimes Task Force, working with state and local partners, has been investigating at least twenty robberies, burglaries, attempted robberies, and attempted burglaries of jewelry stores and kiosks between September 2025 and February 2026. Those incidents occurred across Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts — a tri-state footprint consistent with a mobile crew working highway corridors between major metropolitan areas.

The incidents share a consistent signature. According to prosecutors, in each case the suspects entered the target wearing dark clothing, masks, and gloves; used hammers or similar tools to break open the jewelry showcases; grabbed what they could; and fled in vehicles bearing no license plates, stolen plates, or plates that had been deliberately obstructed. That playbook — simple, fast, low-tech, and designed to frustrate plate-reader cameras and identification — has become a familiar one to investigators handling the wave of “smash-and-grab” retail thefts that has preoccupied federal and state law enforcement for the past several years.

One detail in the filing sharpens the picture considerably. Rivera has been in continuous custody since February 3, 2026 — the same day as the Clinton robbery — on a separate state warrant. That warrant, according to the federal announcement, stems from an alleged robbery of approximately $259,000 in jewelry from a location in the Buckland Hills Mall in Manchester on September 17, 2025. In other words, Rivera was arrested on state charges tied to one of the earliest incidents in the alleged pattern on the very day that federal prosecutors say the Clinton robbery took place. The exact sequence of events that day — arrest, robbery, or both in some order — is not spelled out in the public announcement, but it is the kind of detail that is likely to be central to the government’s case as it proceeds.

What Happens to Each Defendant Now

The two defendants are in markedly different positions heading into trial. Richardson was arrested on a federal criminal complaint on March 9, 2026, and appeared Friday in federal court in Bridgeport, where he pleaded not guilty and was released on a $250,000 bond. Being released on bond in a federal violent-crime case is not automatic, and a quarter-million-dollar bond with release suggests a judge found he could be managed on pretrial supervision — typically involving electronic monitoring, travel restrictions, and regular check-ins with a pretrial services officer.

Rivera, by contrast, has been detained without release since the February arrest on the state warrant, and he now faces federal charges layered on top of that. Defendants in his position often see the state and federal proceedings move on separate tracks, with the cases eventually coordinated through plea negotiations or, failing that, sequential trials.

U.S. Attorney Sullivan was careful to include the standard and important caveat in his announcement: an indictment is not evidence of guilt. The charges are allegations, and each defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In federal practice, an indictment means only that a grand jury found probable cause to believe a crime was committed by the person named — a bar considerably lower than the one prosecutors will have to clear at trial.

Why It’s a Federal Case

One question a general reader might reasonably ask is why the federal government, rather than state prosecutors in Middlesex County, is handling the Clinton robbery. The answer lies in the statute being used to charge it. The Hobbs Act makes it a federal crime to obstruct, delay, or affect interstate commerce through robbery or extortion — language that courts have interpreted broadly to cover robberies of businesses that sell goods moved in interstate commerce, which is to say, nearly any retail store. Federal prosecutors tend to invoke the Hobbs Act when a robbery is part of a larger interstate pattern, when federal sentencing exposure is a useful tool for securing cooperation, or when the investigation has been run primarily by a federal task force. All three factors appear to be in play here.

The twenty-year maximum sentence is also meaningful. Most single-count jewelry robberies prosecuted in Connecticut state court would face a ceiling well below that, and the possibility of federal time is often a key reason prosecutors pursue cases of this kind through the U.S. Attorney’s Office rather than referring them back to the state.

The Broader Investigation

The federal announcement frames this indictment as part of an ongoing investigation, not a conclusion. Twenty or more incidents across three states is a considerable caseload, and the filings make clear that the FBI New Haven Violent Crimes Task Force — working with state and local partners — is still actively investigating. Additional arrests, additional indictments, and additional defendants tied to other incidents in the pattern are all real possibilities. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen L. Peck.

The announcement also situates the case within Operation Take Back America, a broad Department of Justice initiative focused on violent crime, transnational criminal organizations, and immigration enforcement. That framing is relatively new to how U.S. Attorneys’ offices package their announcements; readers should understand that the inclusion of the Operation Take Back America language reflects a Department-wide communications posture rather than any specific allegation about the defendants in this particular case, neither of whom has been charged with anything beyond the Hobbs Act robbery count described in the indictment.

For now, what is in the public record is straightforward: a grand jury has found probable cause to believe that two Bridgeport men committed an armed, organized robbery at a jewelry store in Clinton, as part of what investigators say is a much larger pattern of similar incidents across the Northeast. What is still to come — at trial, in plea negotiations, or in additional charges against additional people — is what the full picture actually looks like.

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