A person with extra legal instances on his document than most individuals have vacation decorations is accused of pulling off ten shoplifting raids in twelve days on the identical Goal retailer in Lincoln Park, a rapid-fire streak that prosecutors say netted greater than $1,200 in merchandise.
Kenneth Smith, 58, of Westchester, is charged with working a unbroken monetary crime enterprise after investigators linked him to the lightning-quick thefts on the firm’s 555 West Webster Avenue location, all caught on video.
Prosecutors say the crime spree started on August 30, whereas Smith was on probation for a shoplifting case and simply three days after the state dropped yet one more theft case as a result of the sufferer didn’t seem in court docket. The raids, officers mentioned, appeared nearly mechanical:
- August 30: A two-minute raid for comforters and sheets price $196.
- August 31: At 8:25 a.m., one other two-minute sweep netted $206 in Dove physique wash. That evening, a four-minute spin stripped the cabinets of $247 in physique wash and males’s t-shirts.
- September 2: Two minutes, $112 in bedding.
- September 3: Two minutes, $66 in bedding.
- September 4: Two minutes, $88 in Dove cleaning soap.
- September 5: $94 in bedding.
- September 8: Bedding, socks, and t-shirts valued at $161.
- September 9: Stuffed baggage with 5 extra units of sheets price $134.
- September 10: Hygiene merchandise, males’s underwear, t-shirts, and mattress sheets price $206.
Working a unbroken monetary crime enterprise is a Class 1 felony that may be filed when somebody is accused of committing at the least three thefts inside eighteen months for the aim of reselling the products. Police say Smith knocked out 10 in lower than two weeks.
Decide Ankur Srivastava ordered him detained for violating probation.
Smith’s court docket file exhibits 51 separate legal instances filed in opposition to him in Prepare dinner County since 1988 and at the least 11 felony convictions, together with drug dealing, housebreaking, possessing a stolen car, repeated shoplifting, a 2019 escape from digital monitoring, and a 2024 shoplifting conviction that ended with a four-year jail sentence.
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