STUYVESANT TOWN — Police arrested a man for allegedly going on a package-stealing spree in Peter Copper Village, strolling from floor to floor and rooting through piles of delivery packages, according to a police report.
Tenants reported seeing a strange man at about 7:10 p.m. on Oct. 6 going through delivery packages on multiple floors, and removing items from some of the packages and stuffing them into his bag, according to NYPD.
When Peter Cooper Village security cornered the man, José Gonzalez, 47, in a corridor of 420 E. 23rd St. the alleged thief told guards he had entered the building behind a tenant but that he was there to go on a date with a man named Angel, according to a police report.
But Gonzalez’s story fell apart when security established that no such man lived in the apartment number the alleged thief provided, police said.
A search of Gonzalez’s bag revealed he was toting around two packages addressed to a tenant of the building, as well as several items of J. Crew clothing and a pair of new Nikes that he had allegedly taken from packages on the seventh and 13th floors of the building, police said.
Prosecutors charged Gonzalez with criminal trespass and criminal possession of stolen property, and a judge ordered him held on $10,000 cash bail, court records show. His next court date is Nov. 12, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Gonzales was also charged with burglary, petit larceny, and criminal possession of stolen property in connection with an Oct. 1 burglary of an apartment at 219 E. 25th St. between Second and Third avenues, according to a criminal complaint.
A lawyer for Gonzalez could not immediately be reached for comment.
