VLADIMIR F. KOSTYUSHKO
WESTFIELD – A city man’s contracting business was burgled but, not waiting for police to find the culprits, the victim searched for his missing property himself and, when he found it, directed police to the suspects.
City police report that a resident came to the station at 8:37 a.m. Saturday to report that ladders and other equipment he uses for his contracting business had been stolen from a Clifton Street address where he rents space.
Officer Dermot Hurley responded and reports the victim said that his ladders and aluminum platforms had been laid out near his storage trailer and were stolen.
The next day, the same victim called again and said that his trailer had been broken into and he did not know if an intruder was still inside.
Officer Sean Smith responded and found that, although nobody was inside the trailer, a window had been smashed out and the victim said that property had been stolen.
Smith reports that the stolen property reported included a generator, a brake press for bending aluminum siding valued at about $2,500, pump jacks and other tools with a total value of several thousand dollars.
The case was referred to the detective bureau but, Det. Sgt. Stephen K. Dickinson reports, in the meantime, the victim made contact with an acquaintance in West Springfield to ask him to be on the lookout for his property which might be offered for sale.
Dickinson said that, when the victim told the man what was stolen, he told the victim that he had already bought some of the missing equipment.
The buyer gave the victim a telephone number for the man who had sold the stolen property and the victim called the suspect.
He later told police that the person who answered said that he could have his property back – for a price – and the victim arranged to meet the suspect about 1:30 a.m. in a Springfield Road parking lot.
Officer Christopher Coach and James Renaudette were discretely sited in the parking lot at the appointed hour but the suspect received a telephone call from the suspect who said that he was waiting on Union Street.
When the victim and the officers went to Union Street they found a large black tractor-trailer car carrier parked on the side of the road loaded with a generator, a bicycle, portable heaters, a table saw and other items the victim recognized as his stolen property.
Inside the cab of the attached tractor, three men were found along with smaller items that the victim identified as his property. The total value of the stolen items recovered was $9,145, according to a document filed in support of a criminal complaint.
Vladimir F. Kostyushko, 30, of 52 Russellville Road, West Springfield, who was in the driver’s seat, and passengers Alexander Emciuc, 24, of 3 Sherman St., and Aleksandr Y. Vasilenko, 38, of 53 Pendexter St., Chicopee, were each arrested for receiving stolen property valued more than $250.
Detective Brian Freeman also responded to assist in the case and reports that the victim said that he believed he knew where more of his stolen property was.
Freeman accompanied the victim to a Chicopee location where four ladders and the missing brake press were recovered.
Freeman said that the victim told him that a pump jack and the aluminum platforms were the only items still not recovered.
Dickinson said yesterday afternoon that he was planning to go with the victim to a West Springfield location later in the evening in an attempt to recover more of the property.
When the three suspects appeared in Westfield District Court for arraignment Monday, Judge Philip Contant found that Kostyushko had violated the terms of his bail release from Holyoke District Court and ordered that he be held without right to bail in that case.
The case in question stems from a motor vehicle stop in Holyoke which left Kostyushko, Emciuc and a female suspect also named Kostyushko with charges of possession of a Class A drug and being present where heroin is kept.
Although Kostyushko is listed with an address of 52 Russellville Road, West Springfield, in Westfield police and court records, his address when arrested in Holyoke was reported to be at 33 Russellville Road, Westfield. No record of a Russellville Road was found in West Springfield.
Emciuc and Vasilenko were not arraigned with Kostyusko.
The clerk magistrate in the Westfield court, Carol K. Casartello, said that probable cause was not found to support the charge brought against them, receiving stolen property, so the men were released.
