WESTFIELD – A city man has been held in lieu of $500 cash bail after allegedly stealing medications in a brazen strong-arm robbery.
A Montgomery Street resident reported to police recently that an acquaintance, a friend-of-a-friend, stole her medication as he had done in the past.
Det. Anthony Tsatsos reports that the woman said that the man, Cory J. French, 31, of 36 Longwood Ave., Holyoke, came to her apartment Dec. 7 and demanded her prescription pain medication.
The woman, who reportedly suffers from a chronic illness, said she told French that she did not have any pills but the man, Tsatsos reports, “went to her bedroom, took her safe from under her bed and said ‘Open the safe or I will take the key from your neck and open it myself’.”
The victim, who said that she is afraid of French, opened the safe and the man took all of her pills.
She told Tsatsos that French then said “you know not to say anything. You know what happens if you do.”
The victim said that the man had done the same thing three times previously and “has told her that he would come to her house and make her regret getting him into trouble” if she reported the theft.
Tsatsos reports that his investigation found that French had checked into the Fowler unit at Noble Hospital and requested that a warrant be issued.
When French was discharged from the hospital Monday, Tsatsos and a uniformed officer were waiting and he was taken into custody.
French was arraigned yesterday in Westfield District Court before Judge William O’Grady on charges of breaking and entering in the daytime with intent to commit a felony while putting a person in fear, larceny from a building and intimidating a witness.
French was held in lieu of $500 cash bail pending a Jan. 14 hearing.
