New Canaan Police on Oct. 31 arrested a 22-year-old Bronx, N.Y. man by warrant in connection with the theft of payroll checks from a newly opened restaurant last year.
On June 6, 2024, Officer Nicole Vartuli met with the manager of Blackbird on Elm Street regarding 22 checks that had been stolen in March, with six of them already cashed, according to court documents obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request.
Vartuli learned from the manager that 22 physical payroll checks totaling about $17,000 had been stolen, with the six cashed checks totaling about $7,250, according to an arrest warrant application filed by Vartuli and signed by a state Superior Court judge.
The restaurant’s automated payroll checks were supposed to be “hand-delivered to an employee on site” on March 29, the manager told police, but “it was possible that nobody was there to receive the payroll … and they were left outside.”
Vartuli examined the checks and found that “each check endorsement had the employee’s signatures forged above the suspect’s signature,” the arrest warrant application said.
The manager, after noticing that “the stolen checks were being cashed on different dates,” decided to stop payment on the remaining 16, the application said. In May, Blackbird received word from its payroll provider that the checks were confirmed delivered by a courier company.
Vartuli met with the manager at Bank of America in New Canaan to help identify where the three checks endorsed by the suspect had been deposited. The BoA account showed the owner as the 22-year-old Bronx man.
Vartuli “went to Bank of America in New Canaan to obtain further information on what identification documents” the man had used to open a checking account and found it was done with a Dominican Republic passport with an expiration date of October 2026, the affidavit said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that the passport was valid and belonged to the man, though he had overstayed a non-immigrant B1/B2 [tourist] visa in the United States.
Police charged him with third-degree larceny, third-degree forgery and conspiracy to commit second-degree larceny.
New Canaan Police took custody of the Bronx man at Rikers Island Correctional Facility. He was released on $50,000 bond and scheduled to appear Nov. 13 in state Superior Court.