WESTPORT — A New York woman stole two checks from a U.S. Postal Service mailbox — located at Playhouse Square, home to the local Post Office, police said.
Lidia Robles, 38, of Bronx, N.Y., was charged March 4 with first-degree larceny and third-degree identity theft in connection with the incident.
Police received a complaint last Oct. 27 from a person who reported that, after depositing two letters with checks in the Postal Service mailbox at 275 Post Road East, the checks apparently had been stolen, the details forged and deposited in an unrecognized bank account.
The complainant told police the checks’ amounts had not been changed — as has been the case in many other local check-theft cases — but the payee’s name was altered to read “Lidia Robles” before deposit, according to the report.
Using search warrants, digital evidence and video-surveillance footage, investigators identified Robles as the suspected thief and a warrant for her arrest was issued, police said.
On March 4, Robles turned herself in at Police Department headquarters, where she was formally charged.
She was released after posting $50,000 bond and is scheduled to be arraigned March 25 at state Superior Court in Stamford.
That same mailbox was vandalized and mail was stolen from it in 2018. I’d put important mail in the box that evening. There was no video surveillance there then. Perhaps now there is. I learned the hard way to NEVER again put mail in any sidewalk postal box.