Man Found Guilty in Wethersfield Cigarette Heist

WETHERSFIELD, CT — A New Jersey man has been convicted for his role in a 2011 cigarette heist from a Wethersfield warehouse, a leading prosecutor said Monday.

Deirdre M. Daly, United States attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced Monday that a federal jury in New Haven has found Andrew Oreckinto, 52, of Matawan, NJ, guilty of stealing more than 8,000 cartons of cigarettes from a Wethersfield warehouse in March 2011.

The trial before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer began on Feb. 6 and the jury returned its verdict Monday morning, Daly said.

According to the evidence introduced during the trial, at approximately 7 a.m. on March 20, 2011, Wethersfield Police responded to an open garage door complaint at New Britain Candy, a business and warehouse located at 24 Maple St. in Wethersfield. The business distributes items to convenience stores in Connecticut and neighboring states, Daly said.

A glue-like substance had been forced into the front door lock causing it to be inoperable, exterior surveillance camera wires and a phone line had been cut, and alarm panels and speakers had been disabled, she said.

Approximately 8,012 cartons of cigarettes, as well as a pallet jack, were missing from the warehouse, Daly said. The stolen cigarettes had a wholesale value of approximately $300,000 and a retail value of approximately $500,000, prosecutors said.

One individual, subsequently identified as Oreckinto, was seen on video surveillance footage, Daly said.

He was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, black gloves, a black face mask, and wore a headband light around his head, Daly said.

Prior to the burglary, Oreckinto had stolen a white box truck from a business in Hartford and, the day after the burglary, the truck was found near a commercial construction site in Stamford, Daly said. The stolen pallet jack was recovered from the cargo area of the truck, she said.

Examination of the call history of Oreckinto’s prepaid phone ultimately led investigators to several other prepaid phones that had been used in multiple, commercial burglaries in Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, Daly said.

Oreckinto was previously convicted of two of the other burglaries, including a burglary that occurred at a Waldbaum’s Supermarket in Rockville Centre, NY., overnight on Dec. 31, 2010 and and Jan. 1, 20011, Daly said.

A commercial warehouse burglary in Florham Park, N.J., on April 28, 2008, during which $100,000 worth of copper was stolen, she said.

Oreckinto was sentenced to a term of imprisonment for both of these burglaries.

At the time of Oreckinto’s arrest for the New Jersey burglary, a search of his car revealed a list of licensed cigarette distributors in the State of Connecticut that had been printed from the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services web site. The list, which included the New Britain Candy warehouse in Wethersfield, also contained several handwritten notations next to many of the businesses, at least three of which also have been burglarized, Daly said.

The jury found Oreckinto guilty of one count of theft from an interstate shipment, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years. Judge Meyer scheduled sentencing for May 8, Daly said.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock