Two men and a woman, all from Waterbury, drove to supermarkets around the state, stealing food that included steaks and lobsters, Darien police said.
Maybe they liked surf ‘n’ turf.
Police gave this further account, including accusations not proven in court:
At 3:34 p.m. on Monday, April 29, a Stop & Shop employee told a police officer that a man, later identified as Joseph Macdonald, had loaded a shopping cart full of merchandise and then left the store, saying he had left his wallet in his vehicle.
Arrest photos from Darien P.D.
ARRESTED: From left, Joseph Macdonald, who was in the store; Janet Laperriere, a passenger in the car; and Joseph Pellot, the driver. Each was charged in a case involving an alleged theft from a supermarket.
(The police account is a bit confusing: It says Macdonald attempted a larceny, but doesn’t say whether he took the merchandise out of the store, or whether he tried to do so and was stopped. It also doesn’t say how a store employee became concerned enough to notify a police officer if nothing was stolen. The police account also says that Macdonald and the two others were each charged with larceny, not attempted larceny.)
After being alerted by the store employee, the officer saw a black Mercedes approach the man in the parking lot of the supermarket at Goodwives Shopping Center, 25 Old Kings Hwy. North. A woman was a passenger in the vehicle.
An officer in the area also saw the vehicle and found that the license plate on it belonged to a different vehicle.
That officer spoke with the driver, Joseph Pellot, 36, of Oakville Avenue in Waterbury. He told the officer that he was hired to drive passengers to the store. Police determined he was hired to drive two passengers to numerous stores throughout the state so that they could shoplift. Pellot said there were numerous groceries in the trunk, including the steaks and lobsters. (Pellot’s account contradicts Macdonald’s explanation when he left the supermarket that he left his wallet in his car.)
Macdonald, the man who left the store, was stopped and identified Macdonald, 45, lives on Highland Avenue in Waterbury. The female was identified as Janet Laperriere, 35, who also lives on the same street, about seven tenths of a mile from Macdonald, according to Google Maps.
A Stop & Shop manager provided police with a receipt of the items stolen (police gave no indication of how groceries presumably intended to become loot were at some point rung up at a cash register). The receipt showed a total of $661.82.
All three suspects were taken to Darien Police Headquarters.
Macdonald, who went into the store, was charged with fifth-degee larceny, sixth-degree larceny, possession of a controlled substance as a first offense and use of drug paraphernalia — according to police. According to the The Connecticut Judicial Branch website, he isn’t charged with sixth-degree larceny but is charged with attempt to commit sixth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit fifth-degree larceny. It’s possible that a prosecutor changed the charges.
The woman, Laperriere, received the exact same charges. The police announcement said nothing about drugs being in the possession of any of the three or or drug paraphernalia being used by any of them, but each of the three face identical drug-related charges.
Police found Macdonald had an active arrest warrant from another police agency. He was turned over to that agency. The Connecticut Judicial Branch website shows 14 separate sets of charges for either a “Joseph Macdonald” (six sets of charges) or “Joseph F. Macdonald” (nine sets, including the Darien charges) with each having the same birth year.
Whether there’s one, two or many people with that common first and last name and with that birth year is unclear — but he or most of them are charged with larceny and some with drug possession and are scheduled to appear in various courts in the central and western parts of the state.
The bond for the woman, Laperriere, was was set at $500, and she was released after paying 7% of it ($35).
Pellot, the driver, was given a different set of charges from the other two: possession of a controlled substance as a first offense, use of drug paraphernalia, fifth-degree larceny, improper use of a license plate, driving an unregistered motor vehicle and driving a motor vehicle without insurance.
The bond for Pellot was was set at $250, and he was released after putting up 7% of it ($17.50).
All three were scheduled to appear May 9 in state Superior Court in Stamford.