Red Bank police arrested a borough man early Thursday, shortly after a business burglary and less than 24 hours after three other businesses were burglarized in the same vicinity, redbankgreen has learned.
Chief Darren McConnell said patrols stopped and arrested Mario Sciacca, 35, of West Bergen Place, shortly after he was recognized on a surveillance video at a business that had been burglarized on East Newman Springs Road.
According to McConnell, during the overnight hours of Tuesday into Wednesday, three burglaries occurred – two on East Newman Springs Road and one on Maple Avenue – and one attempted break-in was reported, on West Bergen Place.
In two of the cases, the burglar smashed through glass doors; doors were forced in the other two, McConnell said. In all three burglaries, the bandit made off with start-up cash from the store till, he said.
At around 1 a.m. Thursday, police responded to an alarm activation at a business that had been broken into, also on East Newman Springs Road. Detective Joey Fields recognized the suspect, who was caught on video, as Sciacca, McConnell said.
A short while later, Patrolwoman Kristin Altimari spotted a car, which had also been caught on the video, near Sciacca’s home, where she arrested him.
Sciacca was charged with burglary and theft and ordered held on $100,000 bail. As of noon Thursday, he was still in the borough lockup awaiting transport to the Monmouth County Correctional Institution, McConnell said.
Investigators Robert Campanella and Heather Pubylski are leading an investigation to determine whether Sciacca was responsible for the prior night’s crimes, McConnell said.
redbankgreen’s archive shows that Sciacca was indicted in January, 2014 by a Monmouth County grand jury on a string of burglaries in three towns, including Red Bank, over three months. According to a spokesman for the county prosecutor’s office, Sciacca pleaded guilty one month later to one count of third-degree burglary and was sentenced to 180 days in the county jail, which he had already served, and five years probation
