Woman Used Daughter, 11, To Shoplift At Woodbridge Center: Cops

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — A woman has been charged with using her 11-year-old daughter to help her shoplift from the J.C. Penney at the Woodbridge Center Mall, police say.

There are often arrests for shoplifting at the Woodbridge Center Mall, but this is the first time in recent years a child has been involved: Police say Maria Garcia De Rodriguez, 45, of Perth Amboy, instructed her 11-year-old daughter to hide under a table in the store while she took clothing off the shelves and handed them to her. The girl would place the items in J.C. Penney shopping bags, and emerge from under the table and give them to her mother.

A loss-prevention officer said he watched on CCTV cameras this past Tuesday, Jan. 16, as the mother-daughter duo repeated this several times throughout the store. When store security stopped them walking out of the J.C. Penney at 3 p.m. Tuesday, they had more than $1,234 worth of unpaid-for sneakers, shirts and blankets inside the bags, security said.

Woodbridge police were called in and the 11-year-old girl was very upset and hysterically crying when she and her mother were questioned by police. The young girl was picked up by a family member and De Rodriguez was arrested, taken to Woodbridge police headquarters in the back of a patrol car and charged with shoplifting, endangering the welfare of a child and using a juvenile to commit a crime.

Photo of the Woodbridge Center Mall taken by Carly Baldwin/Patch