Warrant: Eyeglasses Thief Foiled by Instagram Post

A Connecticut woman arrested last month for stealing $560 glasses from an Elm Street shop helped investigators by wearing them in an Instagram post that she put up the following day, court documents show.

According to an arrest warrant application obtained through a public records request, security footage at Eyes on Elm showed the 56-year-old Old Saybrook woman grabbing the Ahlem-brand eyeglasses from a shelf at 4:48 p.m. on July 24 (a Wednesday).

“The female turns away from the camera holding the glasses and is no longer holding them when she turns to face the camera,” according to an arrest warrant application written by New Canaan Police Officer Erica Morey. “You can see a white female, with dark brown hair, wearing a black dress, and holding a bag from the store Pennyweights.”

At Pennyweights, the woman had paid with a credit card with her name on it. 

The following day, July 25, she posted a photo of herself on her blue-checked Instagram account and the owner of Eyes on Elm “confirmed that those were the glasses that were stolen” and that the woman in the photo “was the woman in Eyes on Elm,” the arrest warrant application said.

The Instagram post appears to still be up. In it, the arrested woman can be seen sitting in what she calls an art studio, and says “Glasses by [account],” tagging what appears to be a man’s IG account.

Police said in a report that they charged her with fifth-degree larceny, taking the woman into custody on the arrest warrant at state Superior Court in Stamford on Dec. 17. (According to Connecticut Judicial Branch records, Greenwich Police had arrested the same woman for sixth-degree larceny in March.)

She has been released on a promise to appear Feb. 26 on both charges, court records show. She has not yet pleaded.