Suspect held in ‘one-man crime wave’
A union mason working for a construction company at the Kartrite water park site in Kiamesha Lake has been arrested on several burglary-related charges in Sullivan and Orange counties, and others as far west as Tompkins and Schuyler counties, according to authorities.
“This guy was a oneman crime wave,” Sullivan County Sheriff Michael Schiff said after the arrest of Justin Georgia, 30, of the Tompkins County village of Trumansburg.
On July 14, Sullivan County sheriff’s deputies began investigating a burglary on Thompson Road in the town of Thompson in which jewelry and two checkbooks were taken.
The investigation revealed that on July 11, a man walked into a bank in Milford, Pa., and cashed one of the stolen checks. Two days later, the same man attempted to cash another check at a bank in the village of Bloomingburg, but when the teller became suspicious, the man fled. Later that day, the man went to a bank on Route 211 in the town of Wallkill and was able to cash the stolen check.
Deputies were able to get a good picture of the perpetrator from a security camera video, and he later be identified as Georgia, authorities said.
On July 23, another burglary was reported at the same home on Thompson Road.
Based on the bank surveillance video and other information, detectives began to believe the suspect was a construction worker at the water park. Georgia was arrested there and initially was charged with felony criminal possession of stolen property, for the stolen checks, while a burglary case against him was built, authorities said.
In the meantime, he was sent to Watkins Glen, in the Finger Lakes region, where he was wanted by the Schuyler County Sheriff’s Office on an indictment charging him with two burglaries that occurred in March.
Then, on July 25, Sullivan County sheriff’s detectives executed a search warrant on Georgia’s car and found some $5,000 worth of tools that had been taken from the water park construction site and a folder containing the names, dates of birth and copies of drivers’ license and Social Security numbers belonging to some of his co-workers, leading investigators to suspect he was planning some type of identify theft.
Detectives ultimately concluded Georgia was committing the burglaries on his lunch hour and then returning to work at the construction site, authorities said. They said that in some of the cases, he drove upstate after getting off work, committed burglaries, then returned to Sullivan County later the same day.
Police in Ithaca still are investigating Georgia in connection with burglaries in that area.
On Aug. 22, Georgia was transported from the Schuyler County Jail to the Sullivan County, where he was arraigned on two counts of felony burglary and an additional charge of felony possession of stolen property. He then was sent to the Sullivan County Jail without bail pending further court action.