State Police arrested four men in connection with stealing goods valued in the thousands from nearly 20 homes over the past several months.
Charged with second-degree burglary on Thursday were Adam Shaw, 20; Mike Butler, 20; and Ellsworth Shaw, 25, all living at the same residence on Route 7, Richmondville; and Christopher Pietrowski, 19, of Carlisle.
Ellsworth Shaw was also charged with tampering with physical evidence. All of the charges are felonies.
State Police Investigator George Bird said the burglaries occurred at mostly seasonal residences in Richmondville, Seward, Carlisle and Summit over a period of three or four months.
Three of those burglaries, in the Summit/Rossman Hill area, were reported to the Schoharie County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff John Bates said.
“Quite honestly, it was good police work” broke the case, Investigator Bird said, crediting Troopers Jason Seaman, Robert LaPorte and Timothy Preston with the arrests.
Talking with neighbors and following up other information led the troopers to the four men.
The troopers were interviewing the Shaws and Mr. Butler when they spotted some of the stolen items and found “that the individual subjects were involved with the thefts,” he said.
After obtaining a search warrant, State Police recovered “thousands of dollars of stolen property,” Investigator Bird said.
Most of the items taken were hunting equipment, he added.
The four took “everything from long rifles to assault rifles, hundreds of dollars in ammunition,” other weapons, camping equipment, range finders and more, Investigator Bird said.
And the thefts weren’t limited to hunting and camping gear. Also included were VCRs, electronic games and similar items.
“From one household, they took a chess set,” Investigator Bird said. “Basically, it was anything that caught their eye.”
He said there was no indication of what the four intended to do with the goods.
“It started with looking for copper and scrap metal, then went to stealing copper and just snowballed from there,” Investigator Bird said.
Ellsworth Shaw was charged with the second felony of tampering with physical evidence for attempting to hide the stolen property, the Investigator said.
Ellsworth Shaw, Mr. Butler and Mr. Pietrowski were remanded to the Schoharie County Jail on $50,000 cash bail, $100,000 bond, and Mr. Pietrowski was later released on bail.
Adam Shaw was released on his own recognizance, Investigator Bird said.
The four arrested are not connected with the burglaries of businesses in a several-county area, he added. Nor are they linked to the burglaries of about 20 Jefferson homes that State Police solved in December.
“We’ve been quite successful closing out residential burglaries,” Investigator Bird said, “but we have no strong leads on the commercial ones.”
Not all the paper work had made its way to Schoharie County District Attorney Jim Sacket, but Investigator Bird said there would probably be felony hearings on the case.