Shelton police on Tuesday charged a Bridgeport man in a string of car burglaries along the Bridgeport Avenue corridor.
Jimmie Bennett, 48, was charged with four counts each of third-degree burglary, third-degree criminal mischief, fourth-degree larceny, and sixth-degree larceny.
“The majority of the car burglaries occurred at area hotels where residents would awake to find their vehicles broken into and items missing,” Detective Richard Bango said in a prepared statement.
Bango said Bennett has “arrests pending in surrounding towns for similar incidents.”
Court records show Bennett also has burglary-related cases pending at courthouses in Bridgeport and Milford.
Bennett is scheduled to appear at Superior Court in Derby July 13, police said.
According to a prepared statement from Milford police, cops there obtained six arrest warrants for Bennett after an investigation that began in January of “a rash of car burglaries” in Shelton, Stratford, Orange, Branford, Norwalk, Wallingford, and North Haven.
“Investigation revealed these incidents occurred during the evening hours and usually at commercial establishment parking lots such as hotels, motels, and fitness centers,” Milford Police Officer Joseph Dempsey said in the prepared statement. “Evidence gathered from numerous crime scenes developed Bennett as a suspect.”
Milford and Shelton cops started surveillance on Bennett and saw him committ a motor vehicle burglary in Stratford May 27, after which Dempsey said cops followed him to a Bridgeport storage facility where he was storing stolen items.
The next day cops executed a search warrant at the storage unit and found “approximately $175,000 to $200,000 worth of stolen merchandise” inside.
