12-year-old arrested, accused of armed robbery of Juli Boeheim, wife of Syracuse coach

A 12-year-old boy was arrested and accused of robbing Juli Boeheim, wife of the Hall of Fame college basketball coach Jim Boeheim, in the parking lot of a Syracuse, New York, shopping mall, authorities said Thursday.

The victim was sitting in her car at Destiny USA on March 1 when the youngster confronted her with "an airsoft gun," stole her purse and phone and then got into a stolen car with three other men before speeding off, according to a Syracuse police statement.

The car was found on the east side of Syracuse on the same day.

The young suspect is being held at Hillbrook Detention Center, after he was booked on charges of second-degree robbery, criminal possession of a weapon and grand larceny, police said.

The boy was not identified due to his age, and it wasn't immediately clear on Thursday if he's hired or been assigned a criminal defense lawyer.

Juli Boeheim, 55, is the wife of Jim Boeheim, who has been head basketball coach at Syracuse University since 1976. Police called the victim a 55-year-old woman.

The coach revealed in an interview with a Syracuse radio station last week that his wife was robbed at gunpoint. She was not injured.

"She's definitely shook up. I mean this isn't television; it's not movies; it's real life. Somebody puts a gun in a face," Jim Boeheim said. "She's handling it well, I mean better than I probably would."

Jim Boeheim is No. 2 on the all-time list of victories by an NCAA Division I men's basketball coach. He's only topped by the retiring Mike Krzyzewski, whose Duke Blue Devils coincidentally played and defeated Boeheim’s Syracuse, 88-79, on Thursday in the Atlantic Coast Conference quarterfinals at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

The couple's two sons, Jimmy Boeheim and Buddy Boeheim, are on the Orange basketball team. Buddy Boeheim was suspended by the ACC on Wednesday after he punched Florida State's Wyatt Wilkes during Syracuse's win over the Seminoles earlier in the day.