Police last week arrested a 45-year-old Hamden woman by warrant in connection with the theft of a $5,990 leather jacket and $848 Polo ID handbag from the Ralph Lauren store in January, court records show.
Employees at the Elm Street business didn’t realize at first that the items had been stolen on Jan. 7, but they came up missing nearly two months later during a review of inventory, according to an affidavit from Officer Bryan Connolly that forms the major part of an arrest warrant application signed July 27 by state Superior Court judge Gary White.
Security footage from the day in question “showed a white female with a slim build standing behind a table and stealing the aforementioned jacket by concealing it in her large bag after she had tried it on,” Connolly said in the arrest warrant application, obtained by NewCanaanite.com.
The arrest warrant application continued: “Concurrently, there were two males (one black/one white) inside the store, as well, who appeared to be distracting store associates. The female suspect then walked toward the front of the store and grabbed the Polo ID bag before exiting quickly at 1505 hours.”
She had entered the store just four minutes earlier, the application said.
The woman was “wearing a long, brown coat, jeans and dark boots,” it said.
“When she took off her coat inside the store, she could be seen wearing a white top, black cardigan and she had a lanyard with what appeared to be an ID card around her neck,” the arrest warrant application said. “While walking throughout the store, the female suspect was seen holding a black object that was the size and shape of a cell phone.”
The footage from security cameras outside the store had already been erased, so police weren’t able to track the woman back to her car. Police did share an image of her “via law enforcement information sharing resources” and through facial recognition identified the suspect, the application said. The woman had five active re-arrest warrants out from four different jurisdictions around the state stemming from larceny charges for stealing from retail stores in North Haven, Wallingford, Orange and Hamden, the application said.
Police obtained a search and seizure warrant for the suspect’s call detail and cellphone records, which placed her in New Canaan at the time of the theft on Elm Street, it said.
Police also found a past mugshot from Florida that looked like the suspect, and in a booking photo from a March arrest in North Haven she was wearing the same glasses on top of her head that could be seen in the Ralph Lauren security footage, according to the arrest warrant application.
Working with police from other Connecticut towns, obtaining corroborating cellphone location data and studying profiles on Facebook and Instagram, New Canaan Police also were able to identify the two other men who’d entered Ralph Lauren around the same time as the thieving Hamden woman, the application said. While in the store, one of the men could be seen “seeking assistance from a store employee,” while the other “was seen browsing merchandise and quickly began speaking with a store employee who was standing near [the suspect],” the application said. That second man was speaking with a store employee when the suspect stole the jacket, and both men were still in the store when she left, it said.
At 11 a.m. on Sept. 24, Connecticut State Police notified New Canaan Police that they had the woman in custody on the active arrest warrant.
The woman was charged with third-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit third-degree larceny, both felony offenses. She remains in custody on $100,000 bond and now is scheduled for arraignment Nov. 10, according to Connecticut Judicial Branch records.
Excellent police work!