WESTFIELD – A local heroin addict is facing charges both in Westfield District Court and Connecticut after a city detective cleared a series of air conditioner thefts on North Road.
Det. Brian Freeman reports, in a document filed in Westfield District Court, that he investigated a series of crimes in which large central air conditioning units on North Road were ravaged and valuable parts stolen to be sold as scrap.
Freeman’s report indicates that, in four incidents, air conditioning systems at the Hampton Ponds Association, Boun Appetit restaurant and Word of Grace church valued at more than $27,000 were destroyed so that electric motors and copper and aluminum tubing could be sold for hundreds of dollars to a Chicopee salvage yard.
Freeman reports that the first of the crimes occurred Aug. 9, 2013, at the Hampton Ponds Association building at 829 North Road when an air conditioning unit valued at more than $1,000 was “torn apart” and copper was stolen.
A few days later, on Aug. 21, the owner of the Buon Appetit restaurant located at 856 North Road reported that two central air conditioners valued at $12,000 were stolen.
During his investigation, Freeman was able to identify a suspect but was unable to gather any evidence against the man nor was he able to pinpoint his location learning only that he lived at a Pequot Pond Road address.
A few days before Christmas, a representative of the Word of Grace Church at 848 North Road reported to Freeman that two air conditioning units valued at $4,000 had been stolen from outside the church.
On Dec. 28, the same victim reported that a third unit, valued at $10,000, had also been stolen.
Freeman reports that his investigation determined that the previously identified suspect, Sean O’Malley, had sold electric motors and copper and aluminum coils to a Chicopee scrap dealer for $194.48 and had made several other transactions which the dealer said matched the description of items stolen.
Freeman reports he reasoned that, since all the crime scenes were next to each other on North Road and since that area was the only place in the city were such crimes were occurring, he “focused on finding Sean O’Malley on Pequot Point Road which is in walking distance of the three buildings.”
Freeman also found that O’Malley was the subject of an extraditable warrant issued in Connecticut for four charges of larceny of property valued more than $250 and four charges of malicious destruction of property.
Freeman’s investigation revealed that O’Malley has a sister who lives at a Pequot Point address and he reports that, when he and Detective Daniel Gustafson sought the man at her address, he was found alone in the house.
Freeman said that O’Malley initially claimed to have acquired the property he sold to the scrap dealer at a Connecticut job site but soon abandoned that position and admitted that he had stolen from the local businesses although he said that he had not known that his most recent theft was from a church.
At the station, O’Malley, 34, of 76 Pequot Point Road, was booked for four charges of larceny of property valued more than $250, four charges of vandalizing property and as a fugitive from justice.
After he was advised of his Miranda rights, O’Malley agreed to a further interview and explained that in each of the four thefts he went on foot to the business and “took the units apart while he was there and then walked the parts of value across North Road and threw them over the guardrail.”
He told Freeman that on the mornings after the thefts he collected the stolen items and used his sister’s vehicle to take them to Chicopee where he sold them to the scrap dealer.
Freeman reports “O’Malley claimed that he committed these crimes to supplement his unemployment checks and to support his heroin habit.”
O’Malley was arraigned on the Massachusetts charges Thursday in Westfield District Court before Judge Rita Koenigs.
Citing O’Malley’s “present drug dependency” and the Connecticut warrant, Koenigs set bail for O’Malley at $2,500.
He was held pending a Jan. 30 hearing.
