Woman, 19, Charged with Larceny and 5 Different Motor Vehicle Violations

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Darien Police SUV on Road

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When a police officer noticed a car without a front license plate on Tokeneke Road, it turned out that the 19-year-old woman driving it didn’t have much of the other necessary paperwork either, according to police.

Police also said:

  • There was no registration.
  • The woman didn’t have a driver’s license.
  • Or insurance.
  • She hadn’t gotten a set of license plates from the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
  • And the license plate that the officer did see was stolen.

Darien police described the incident with this account (including accusations not proven in court):

A Darien police officer monitoring traffic near the intersection of Tokeneke Road and Rainbow Circle at 12:35 p.m. on Friday, April 8, saw a white car pass by without a front license plate — and the rear plate was registered with a red car. And that license plate was reported stolen.

The officer stopped the car near the intersection of Cliff Avenue and Tokeneke Road.

The driver, Denisha Thomas, 19, of Stamford, told the officer that she’d didn’t have a driver’s license, but she was able to show the officer a Connecticut state I.D. card. She said she had just bought the car that day and was driving it home (although she was going in the opposite direction from Stamford).

She said that, no, the vehicle wasn’t registered or insured. She showed the police officer the title, which had a different name on it, although it appeared that the owner had signed it for a sale. All the buyer’s information had been left blank. Thomas had neither a bill of sale nor an odometer statement from the seller.

The officer smelled a strong odor of marijuana smoke when speaking with Thomas and asked her if she had any marijuana in the car. Thomas said, no, she had smoked it all. A search of the car found numerous cigar wrappers for cigars commonly used to smoke with marijuana and a large bag of emptied-out cigar tobacco. Cigarette paper used for marijuana cigarettes was also in the car. But no marijuana.

During the search, police also found a March 20 infraction ticket from New Haven police charging the driver with driving an unregistered car, failure to obey a traffic signal and driving without a driver’s license.

Thomas then said that she’d actually bought the car a month ago. She’d parked the car, and, that day, her brother had just picked it up and delivered it to her. The license plate was already on the car, and she didn’t know where it came from.

She was arrested.

Darien police confirmed with police in New Haven that the license plate was still considered stolen. It had been reported stolen in New Haven on March 23.

Police in Darien also tried to contact the owner of the vehicle — a 1996 Mercury Sable — but weren’t able to make contact.

Thomas was charged with sixth-degree larceny, driving without a license (second offense), failure to display a (proper) license plate, driving without insurance, driving an unregistered motor vehicle and misuse of a license plate.

Since Thomas didn’t have a history of previous arrests, she was released on a promise to appear April 19 in state Superior Court in Stamford. The car was towed and the license plate turned over to the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

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