Troopers Report Night Theft, Illegal ID Use, Drug Arrest
SKIPPACK PA – Summer temperatures, with the exception of an occasional heat wave, are comfortable now. Daylight savings time stretches out the evenings. Car owners drop their guard, and the thieves come out. The summertime crime of opportunity – stealing items that are in plain view from inside parked, and often unlocked, motor vehicles – is again hitting its stride.
One of the latest incidents, reported Tuesday (July 13, 2021) by Pennsylvania State Police at the Troop K barracks in Skippack, left as its victim a 40-year-old woman living on Anvil Drive in Worcester Township.
An unknown individual went to her home during early morning hours, reportedly at 2:18 a.m., and opened the unlocked passenger side door of her Chevrolet. The items taken?: A $2 bottle of nail polish, and a $10 phone charger. A surveillance camera caught the act on available footage, but neighboring residents were unable to provide witness testimony.
The June 13 crime is unsolved and remains under investigation.
Also Tuesday, troopers reported these separate and unrelated incidents:
Drug-related arrest
Troopers said they arrested a 29-year-old male resident of Elverson PA during a June 27 traffic stop at 11:58 a.m. on U.S. Route 422 West in Lower Providence Township and charged him with possessing drugs with the intent to sell or distribute them.
The man, who at the time was driving a 2001 Toyota van, was stopped from traffic violations, the barracks’ public information release indicated. During the course of their investigation into them, troopers alleged they found the man “in possession of raw fentanyl and related packaging for sale.”
Charges were filed in the Collegeville court of Magisterial District Justice Cathleen Kelly Rebar, they added.
Identity theft investigation
A 34-year-old male resident of Red Barn Lane in Salford Township on Monday (July 12) was another victim of identity theft for the purpose of potentially filing for Pennsylvania unemployment compensation, troopers said.
An unknown individual used the victim’s name and personal identity information to allegedly steal his benefits, they added. The victim is currently employed, and it was his company’s human resources manager who alerted him that someone, apparently other than himself, had submitted an unemployment claim a week earlier.
No claimant identity was available, and so far no funds have been withdrawn against the claim, state police noted. Their collected information on the case has already been supplied to the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Labor and Industry for follow up.
Photo by Raymond Wambsgans via Flickr, cropped by The Post and used under a Creative Commons license
