TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Police have arrested as 12-year-old boy who is accused of robbing the wife of Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim at gunpoint outside a New York mall earlier this month, according to The Post-Standard.
Police said Juli Boeheim was sitting in her car in the parking lot by the Cheesecake Factory at Destiny USA on March 1 when the 12-year-old came up to her window, pointed an air gun at her and reached into her car to grab her purse.
Police said the teen was with three men, and they drove away from the mall in a stolen car.
Police found the vehicle days later and the child was arrested.
Boeheim is married to Jim Boeheim, who coaches the Syracuse men’s basketball team.
“She’s definitely shook up. I mean, this isn’t television. It’s not movies. It’s real life,” her husband said Wednesday afternoon on Brent Axe’s radio show. “Somebody puts a gun in your face. She’s handling it well, better than I probably would or most people, I think. But it’s not easy. She’s a little shook but I think she’s doing much better than could be expected.”
The couple founded the Jim and Juli Boeheim Foundation, which, according to their LinkedIn page. “strives to enrich the lives of children in need in the Central New York community.”
“I think the thing that helped her was it was a kid,” Jim Boeheim said. “If it was an older Florida man it probably would have (thoughts trailed off). Her main thought was, ‘let’s help this kid.’ That’s what she does, we do with our foundation. Try to help these kids. That was the first thing she said, ‘I feel like I want to help this kid.’ But that’s the way she thinks. That’s who she is. She tries to help people.”
