Police: Unique jewelry design may help in nabbing thief

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 | 9:45 a.m.

Metro Police are hoping that hip hop recording artist Nelly's custom-made jewelry is so unique and so expensive that it will be a little easier to track down and lead police to the person who stole it.

The jewelry is worth an estimated $1.2 million, according to the police reports about the Monday night theft from the star's Aladdin hotel room. Police said they were waiting for appraisals to establish the precise value.

Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Haynes Jr., was attending the NBC Radio Music Awards at the Aladdin when someone slipped into his hotel suite and stole his wallet and diamond, gold and platinium jewelry, police said.

Among the items taken was a $50,000 large custom pendant necklace that spells "Derrty," according to the police report. Also reported stolen were 11 miniature versions of the same design worth about $350 each.

The artist and his management also told police that a Nike shoe pendant worth $25,000, a platinum bracelet worth $150,000 and a platinum earring set worth $90,000 were also taken, as were diamond studded dice worth an estimated $10,000, two rings valued at $80,000 total and four watches -- two Rolexes, an Aire and a Jacob. The estimated combined value of the watches was $130,000.

Grammy winner Michelle Branch, a singer attending the awards, also discovered after the show that her room had been burglarized, according to the police report.

Branch lost $700 in cash, a credit card, cell phone, an iPod MP3 player and a titanium G-4 Macintosh computer worth about $3,000, the report notes. All told, Branch's loss was estimated to be $4,500.

Neither of the burglarized tower suite rooms -- which were a floor apart -- had been forced open, and there is the possibility that they were accidentally left ajar, police said.

Branch told police that after leaving her room with her entourage about 5:50 p.m. to attend the awards she ran back to the room to grab body lotion.

"Occasionally we do have room burglaries in Las Vegas, and sometimes it involves opportunists who see a door ajar, or they are looking for open doors or looking for stars," Metro Sgt. Tim Shalhoob said.

He said investigators are tracking down photos of the custom jewelry and "we're tracking every lead we have and exhausting it," but as of Tuesday night no arrests had been made.

Shalhoob said that the burglaries apparently happened between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Detectives are analyzing video surveillance footage to see if they can come up with a description of the person or people who committed the burglaries.

All employees were interviewed and allowed police to search them and their vehicles, Shalhoob said.

Tyri Squyres, spokeswoman for the Aladdin, said the investigation is ongoing and declined to comment further.