LUKE. N. BUSHEY
WESTFIELD – The criminal career of Luke Bushey is on hold after his encounter with Judge Rita S. Koenigs in Westfield District Court who ordered him held in lieu of $1,000 cash bail after he was arraigned on a charge of larceny from an 83-year-old victim.
Bushey, 21, is apparently homeless but, according to Westfield Det. Brian Freeman, uses his grandmother’s address, 62 Danek Drive, in his dealings with the Registry of Motor vehicles and often stays there, too.
Bushey has considerable experience with the legal system and currently has five cases pending in district court.
“He doesn’t have much of an adult history” Freeman said, “I only found four things.”
In ordering bail, Koenigs wrote “Victim is 83 (years) old. (Defendant) tricked her into leaving her (apartment), using her walker. He then went into her (apartment) and stole from her pocketbook.”
Freeman explained that the victim lives in one of the city’s senior housing complexes and is a neighbor of Bushey’s grandmother. The detective said that Bushey told the woman that he had seen mail for her in the central laundry room and, when she asked him to get it for her, said that he wouldn’t touch anybody else’s mail.
“He is quick on his feet” Freeman said.
Allegedly, after the woman hobbled away from her apartment with her walker, Bushey entered her apartment and stole from her purse.
The victim’s wallet was later found on Franklin Street and her change purse, which had contained $20, was found in her apartment in a place she could not reach. The wallet was missing $50 in cash and a checkbook.
Freeman said that Bushey did not know how to write out a check so he told a friend that his grandmother had signed a check for him but he needed her help to fill it out.
Bushy enlisted the woman’s support, Freeman said, by promising to pay her money he owed her from the proceeds of the check but Freeman said he was able to trick the young woman and avoided paying her after she cashed the check which she had made payable to herself.
Once he learned how to write a check, Bushey completed a second check, payable to himself, which he cashed in a transaction recorded by the bank’s security cameras.
And Bushey was “quick on his feet” during another recent larceny he has been charged with.
In that case, Bushey allegedly visited a Mainline Drive gym and spoke with the owner about signing up. After a tour of the facility, Bushey asked the owner if he could use the bathroom and was directed to the locker room. When he did not emerge after about 15 minutes, the owner checked and found Bushey apparently adjusting his shoelaces but was called away.
When the owner checked again, about 15 minutes later, he saw Bushy with a hand in a locker but he quickly asked the owner if he was dressed appropriately for the gym and fumbled with buttons on his shirt as if he was going to hang it in the locker.
Bushey, who had said that he was waiting for his girlfriend to bring his wallet to the gym so he could pay for a membership, left the gym before a member reported that his wallet, which he had left with his clothing in the locker Bushey and been seen in, was missing.
Freeman and Officer Stephen Gonglik found Bushey on Tuesday and, during his transport to the station, he mentioned in conversation that he has a five bag per day heroin habit and pays $6 per bag for the drug in Holyoke.
He was arrested for the charges stemming from the wallet and checks stolen from the woman’s home – breaking and entering, larceny and two charges of uttering a false check. While he was being booked on those charges, Bushey denied complicity in the theft from the gym.
Bushey apparently preys on those closer to him too.
Freeman said that he filed charges against Bushey in August for theft from a woman who fed him daily at her home in Colonial Pine Acres.
In that case, Freeman reports that the victim said that Bushey “came to her home to eat as he does almost every day”, but, when his hostess came downstairs after leaving him alone for a few minutes, he appeared to be nervous and did not linger after dinner as was his habit.
The woman later found that gold jewelry valued at about $500 which belonged to her son was missing from a kitchen cabinet and she told Freeman that Bushey the only person other than herself who knew where the gold was and had access to it.
Freeman said that the victim had been warned by Bushey’s mother that he was stealing everything he could to support his habit. Bushey’s mother reportedly told the victim that her son had grabbed his grandmother’s purse from her hands to steal from it.
Freeman said Bushey’s grandmother has declined to speak of that alleged incident.
Luke Bushey is seen on a bank’s security video at a teller’s window as he allegedly cashes a check stolen from his grandmother’s neighbor.
His sister, however, has been willing to complain that Bushey stole from her.
She said that her brother came to see her at her home in Colonial Pine Acres on the day she cashed a check. After he left, she said $140 was found to be missing and said that her brother was the only person who had had access to the money.
Freeman said that, in that case, Bushey agreed to come to the station for an interview.
In that interview, Freeman said, a voice stress analysis indicated that he “appeared to be being deceptive” when he answered direct questions about the missing money and he was charged for that theft too.
Bushey is scheduled to return to court on Oct. 25 for a hearing relative to the Danek Drive theft but should be there before that, on Oct. 12, when he is scheduled to be arraigned on the larceny charge at Colonial Pine Acres.
Bushey was not arrested for the larceny charge from Mainline Drive or for the Powder Mill Village theft but criminal complaints were filed. Arraignment dates for those offenses have apparently not been scheduled.
A charge for unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle resulting from a July 18 traffic stop by a traffic enforcement officer is also pending.
If Bushey is convicted of the charges for which he has been arraigned – breaking and entering a building in the daytime with intent to commit a felony, two charges of uttering falsely endorsed promissory notes and larceny of property valued less than $250 – he is facing a possible sentence of as much as two years in jail or, if the case is heard in Superior Court, as much at 10 years in state prison for each of three of the four charges.
