Family Theft Conspiracy Alleged After Grocery Store Ripoffs: Police

EAST HAVEN, CT — Members of an East Haven family face larceny and conspiracy charges in connection with a scheme to leave a supermarket with carts filled with unpaid items, according to a police report.

Last Saturday afternoon, police got a call from the owner of T & J Supermarket on North High Street saying she had two employees "detained" for alleged thefts that she alleged had been going on "for a few weeks."

The store owner alleged that two employees, Alexxus Marie Gambardella, 21, of North Branford, and Josephanie Bixby, 63, of East Haven, were involved in the theft of groceries by two customers, according to the police report.

Gambardella and Bixby are both cashiers at the store. And the two customers alleged to have stolen groceries are Bixby's husband, Brian Dana Bixby, 57, of East Haven, and her daughter Maria Lucia Damico, 42, of West Haven, police said.

According to the police report, the store owner, and Gambardella herself, told police how the alleged thefts went down:

Bixby and Gambardella were working the cash registers when Brian Bixby and daughter Damico came into the store and proceeded to load carts with items. The two then went to .Gambardella's checkout line, with Josephanie Bixby's working the register right next to her.

Gambardella told police that Josephanie Bixby "told her to not scan the items that Brian and Damico had in their carriages." Gambardella told cops that she "acted like she was scanning the items but did not scan them," and affixed "paid" stickers on some of the items that were not paid for. She told police that Damico paid for some items, but "half of the carriage was full of unpaid items."

Both Brian Bixby and Damico left the store with their carts full of "unpaid items" and left the parking lot.

The store owner said that what was taken was valued at around $500.

Police contacted both the husband and daughter, the former said he "did not know the items were not paid for."

A "conspiracy," police said, had Brian Bixby charged with sixth-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny, his wife Josephanie Bixby charged with conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny and Gambardella charged with conspiracy to commit sixth-degree larceny. Daughter Damico was charged with sixth-degree larceny.