Trail of trashed pizza boxes leads to delivery-holdup arrests

It continues: the high stakes roulette between pizza-delivery robbers and police reconnaissance operations.

The latest was a two-fer, police arresting a couple of men who allegedly held up a pizza guy at gunpoint during a late-night delivery to Dorchester on Aug. 24.

The stickup unraveled like a curled-up calzone. Seems two days after he'd been robbed, the delivery guy was riding on Olney Street near the scene of the crime when he spotted pizza boxes from the Dudley Square shop where he worked in trash barrels outside a home.

As he pulled out his camera phone, a man allegedly said to the 49-year-old driver: "Too late for you, old man."

To which the driver replied: "Too late for you. I took a picture."

The mouthy man took off. So did the driver, who flagged down police. He told the cops that he had just spotted one of the reputed assailants who had ripped him off. The booty: $1,000, a $149 cellphone, a $65 watch, plus the pizzas and some sodas. The driver had reported the incident right after it happened.

Police went to Olney Street and arrested the Winslow brothers, Jermaine, 19, and Tony Lee, 23. Both pleaded not guilty to charges that include armed robbery, and are scheduled to return to court Sept. 30.

From the Olney Street home, police reported recovering a pump shotgun and ammunition, cellphones, and a watch.

They also seized a wheelchair that, according to police, was used by a female accomplice to lure the pizza driver closer to the house, by saying: "I am sorry, I can't move, can you bring the food?"

RIC KAHN