WESTFIELD – Shoplifting incidents at the Walmart department store on Springfield Road are not unusual but, although some thieves probably successfully evade detections, many shoplifting crimes are observed by the store’s sophisticated video surveillance system and suspects are arrested.
Those suspects are arraigned in Westfield District Court where their cases are eventually adjudicated but one defendant saw an unusual outcome Monday when his charges were dismissed – because he had been indicted and arraigned in Hampden Superior Court for the same crimes.
Westfield Police Captain Michael McCabe explained that the action is significant because it contributes to the process of charging the suspect as a habitual criminal, a crime carrying a significant prison sentence.
McCabe said that to be charged as a habitual offender a perpetrator must be found guilty in three separate appearances in Superior Court.
A layperson reviewing the record of Robert Berube, 50, of 273 Shelburne Line Road, Colrain, might think that he is obviously a habitual criminal.
His most recently offense alleges that he stole property valued more than $250 from Walmart on five separate occasions during a ten-day period.
In setting bail in that case, Judge Philip A. Contant noted “Def (sic) has (a) 14 page adult record of convictions going back to 1984 … (with) more than 100 adult entries.”
He went on to say that “(the) vast majority of cases are larceny type cases.”
Det. Scott Phelon, who filed the current case, reported to the court that “The defendant is being charged with 11 felonies in this case. He has 160 adult hits on his BOP (Board of Probation record). He currently has 6 open cases (5 different courts in MA).”
Phelon filed the 11 charges as a result of five trips Berube allegedly made to the store where he is alleged to have stolen four computers, five drills, three baby monitors, a computer monitor and a head set.
Five additional charges, for possession of burglarious tools, resulted from the fact that Berube allegedly used “a key or similar device” to defeat security devices which had been attached to the merchandise.
The eleventh new charge, malicious destruction of property valued more than $250, is the result of Berube allegedly cutting two holes in a wall of the garden section of the store so that he could pass merchandise through the insubstantial wall of the garden addition for later pickup.
Berube currently is being held at the Hampden County House of Correction in Ludlow pending action in superior court on a case stemming from a 2012 larceny at the Westfield Home Depot.
In that case, investigated by Det. Brian Freeman, Berube allegedly stole a generator valued at about $1,000 from the store but locked his keys inside his truck while he was inside the store.
Ironically, a loss prevention employee arriving for work at the store saw Berube wriggling into his truck via the rear window and stopped to offer assistance, not knowing that the generator in the bed of the truck had been stolen.
Freeman said that an assistant district attorney has told him that, once Berube is convicted in his newest case, he will be charged as a habitual offender.
