Andy Kohut of AAY presents plaques to, from l. Dets. Matthew Dox, Joseph Mundy and Rafael Reyes.
BELLEVILLE –
Three members of the Belleville Police Department have been singled out for special credit for helping break a local theft case.
They are: Dets. Joseph Mundy, a 19-year veteran including the last eight years in the detective bureau; Matthew Dox, a 6-year officer in the bureau since November; and 4-year officer Rafael Reyes, also in the bureau since November.
At the March 25 Township Council meeting, the trio received plaques from AAY Associates, a Garden City, N.Y., security management firm, and T-Mobile in appreciation of their work.
Mundy said the case involved a theft at Uncle Bob’s Self-Storage, 125 Franklin St., reported on Nov. 18, 2013, by Andy Kohut, a retired NYPD detective who runs AAY Associates, which provides security services for T-Mobile, which has a cell-tower setup and related equipment in an upper level storage unit at Uncle Bob’s.
That unit had been tampered with during the night and someone had removed four 12-volt backup batteries, copper grounding rods and wireless equipment, all valued at more than $1,000, Mundy said.
There was no sign of forced entry to the storage unit.
Reviewing an electronic data base maintained by the storage facility to track access to storage units, the detectives discovered that the T-Mobile storage unit had been accessed, via a passkey, four times during the night, between 8:49 and 9:06 p.m.
Additionally, a review of internal surveillance video footage provided by AAY revealed a man in the storage facility elevator with a push cart containing materials covered by a tarp corresponding to the unit’s entry times recorded in the electronic log, Mundy said.
“So we came up with a suspect,” he said.
The detectives got another break when a member of Uncle Bob’s management team recognized the man caught on the surveillance tape as someone who lived a few blocks away who would often walk his dog near the facility.
And, Mundy said, detectives learned that the same man used to install equipment for T-Mobile. So, they reasoned, he would likely have familiarity with the company’s operations.
On Nov. 26, 2013, detectives arrested their suspect, Manuel Veliz, 26, of Belleville, at the suspect’s residence and charged him with burglary and theft. None of the items listed as stolen were recovered, Mundy said.
Because Veliz has a history of prior arrests on narcotics charges, detectives surmised that Veliz fenced the merchandise and used the proceeds to buy drugs.
Veliz subsequently pleaded guilty to the burglary and theft charge.
– Ron Leir
