MONROE, CT — A Norwalk woman turned herself in on a warrant Tuesday after allegedly altering a check from the town of Monroe and trying to fraudulently cash it for $8,000 in March.
Sharon Toscano, 50, was charged with criminal attempt at larceny in the first degree and third-degree forgery and released after posting seven percent of $5,000 bond for a July 24 court date.
On March 27, the finance director for the town and the school district reported that a check was intercepted in the mail and altered to $8,000.
Police said Toscano made the check out to herself and attempted to cash it at Newtown Savings Bank, which identified the check as fraudulent and refused to complete the transaction.
Then Toscano allegedly tried to pass the check a second time, this time as a deposit into an account at a Wells Fargo Bank in Seymour. That too was denied.
Police applied for search warrants for banking information connected to the account and said the female suspect on video surveillance matched Toscano.
DUI at Century Plaza
A 22-year-old Newtown man was charged with DUI after being involved in a two-vehicle-accident in the Century Plaza parking lot at 535 Monroe Turnpike late Monday afternoon.
Police said he struck a 2007 Honda Ridgeline from behind with his 2014 Hyundai Sonata while trying to leave the shopping center around 4:30 p.m. Then he allegedly backed up and tried to go around the Honda and take off, instead hitting the vehicle again, the report said.
When officers arrived on the scene they asked both drivers to move their vehicles to parking spaces due to the heavy traffic by the entrance.
Police said the Newtown man drove over a curb, while struggling to park his Hyundai, so officers directed him to stop.
While speaking to him, police said he appeared to not be fully aware of his surroundings and lacked coordination, his eyes were bloodshot and his pupils were pinpoint. When asked to exit his vehicle, police said the driver needed to hold onto his car to stand up, and hit himself in the head with the car door as it closed.
Field sobriety tests were not performed to standard and he was arrested for DUI and released on $500 bond for a July 30 court date. For the accident, he was also cited for an unsafe start.
The other driver was a 41-year-old Monroe man.
Police: Car wasn’t stolen
A 48-year-old Stanley Road man turned himself in on a warrant Tuesday, after allegedly evading the scene of a motor vehicle accident in Bridgeport, then falsely reporting his car stolen in Monroe.
He was charged with making a false statement and false report of the theft of a motor vehicle and released after posting seven percent of $5,000 court set bond for a July 24 court date.
On June 21, police said the man reported his red 2014 Ford Focus stolen, telling officers he came home at 2:30 a.m. and later noticed it was missing from his driveway at 12:30 p.m. He said he had the keys and thought he locked the doors.
Officers checked the registration in a law enforcement data base, which found it had been involved in a motor vehicle accident in Bridgeport at 4:53 a.m., in which the driver fled the scene on foot.
Police said video surveillance footage obtained from the accident showed the driver matched the description of the resident who reported the car stolen. Officers also found no evidence of the ignition being tampered with, according to the report.
Officers and detectives later interviewed the car owner again and he confessed to being involved in the crash and fleeing, and to falsely reporting his car stolen, according to the report.
Lost power
Homeowners in the Hattertown Road area lost power early Thursday morning when a crew from Eversource Energy shut it off to make repairs.
Police said damage caused by a tree leaning on wires included a sparking transformer and high voltage wires on the ground between two pole lengths.
The damage was reported by a resident who heard a loud boom just before 2 a.m. A section of Hattertown Road was closed for about four hours during the incident.
Trespassing at the Warren house
Two New Jersey men received infractions for simple trespass when officers found them walking around the rear of the Knollwood Street property of the late paranormal researchers, Ed and Lorraine Warren, early in the morning of July 12.
Police responded to a neighborhood complaint around 3:40 a.m. and found a black Dodge Durango with New Jersey plates parked on the street. Two women inside the vehicle told officers they were there to look at the museum, then the officers found the men in the yard.
The property used to the site of the Warren’s Occult Museum, before it was closed down for a zoning violation, because the use is not allowed in residential neighborhoods.
Police noted how the property and street is clearly marked with no trespassing signs. Nevertheless, officers are often called to the property to ward off curious souls.
The Sun’s Policy on Using Names in Police Reports
Before the internet, newspapers routinely published names in the police blotter. The arrestees would be embarrassed for a few days, before most people forgot about it. They served their penalty and could move on with their lives. The issue with the article was archived in a library and could become an issue again if someone researched it.
Since the internet, the arrestees’ names can be searched online and the article will always come up. Even if the arrest was long ago and they are leading better, more productive lives, the report always looms over them.
Because of this, The Sun only uses names of people in police reports for some of the more serious crimes and incidents: murder, brutal beatings, robberies, burglaries, car thefts, thefts of thousands of dollars or more, sexual assault, pedophilia and fatal crashes.
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