Newport Police Charge Man for Stealing from Cars

Newport police arrested a 41-year-old Pawtucket man who they say was caught rummaging through cars on Halsey Street Monday night and fled on foot with stolen phones, prescription drugs and cash.

Police said Lewis J. Marshall, 41, of 478 Roosevelt Ave., was seen by a woman who lives in an apartment on the street as well as several employees of Kent’s Alignment as he entered several cars.

Two employees of the alignment shop told police that they were road testing a car they had just serviced when another employee signaled that ”the white male across the street was breaking into cars,” according to a police report.

The employees began following the man, later identified as Marshall, as he ran down Halsey and Evarts Streets, then onto Malbone Road and into Malbone Estates.

The employees said they saw Marshall ditch a red bag while running on Halsey Street.

Police later found the backpack, which contained no stolen items. But when they tracked down Marshall in Malbone Estates, he reportedly was carrying two iPhones, a Samsung cell phone, two scratch tickets, more than $100 cash and a prescription bottle containing several Fluoxetine HCL pills made out to a different person.

Marshall allegedly told police that he had been “chasing ‘two black males’ and found the items ‘on the ground’ but could not give an area or time frame in which he found them,” a police report stated.

Marshall was covered in dirt and sweating profusely, police said, and he was later identified by witnesses as the suspect in a police lineup.

Using one of the stolen phones, police were able to call a victim who said that his phone and $105 cash was left in his car on Green Street and didn’t notice it was missing until his mother’s phone was called by police using his own phone.

The victim said the last time he saw the money and phone was at around 3 p.m. and police noted that the call from Halsey Street came in at 3:37 p.m.

Marshall reportedly became uncooperative and aggressive while in police custody.

He was charged with felony narcotics possession, two counts of tampering with vehicles and receiving stolen goods.

Marshall has numerous prior convictions for similar crimes, police said, and he was held overnight for arraignment Tuesday in Newport District Court.