Police: Man robbed grocery store twice

TORRINGTON — A former city resident was arrested and charged with robbing the La Cuencanita grocery store on Main Street on two occasions. The arrests were made with the help of the public, according to the Torrington Police Department.

Jorge Pascacio, 43, of Thirty St., Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested March 28 and charged with two counts of first-degree robbery, according to court records.

According to an affidavit seeking a warrant for his arrest, the La Cuencanita grocery store on Main Street was robbed twice — once in December 2014 and again in January 2015 — by a man wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, according to the store owner.

During both incidents, the man brandished a knife at the person manning the counter, then took cash from the register and left. On both occasions, the suspect apparently threw items involved in the robberies — two phones the first time, the knife the second — over the bridge on Main Street toward the Naugatuck River.

An image from video surveillance footage from the neighboring Walgreens was shared with newspapers after the January 2015 incident, according to the affidavit.

An individual contacted police in April 2015, saying that they had seen the picture in the paper, and that it appeared to be Pascacio, who had lived on High Street in Torrington until recently. Police investigated, found another individual that corroborated that Pascacio was the individual pictured, and were told that he was currently living in New York.

A Suffolk County Police detective attempted to locate Pascacio at his last known address in Copiague, but was unsuccessful.

In August 2015, Torrington police were notified that Pascacio’s Facebook account was active, according to the affidavit.

“(An individual) sent a few screen shots from Pascacio’s Facebook. One screen shot shows (Pascacio) on the side of a road, leaning against the hood of a black Mercedes Benz with a New York license plate,” said Detective Madelyn Farfan in the affidavit.

The license plate number was checked, and came back to an Amityville, N.Y. address less than a mile from the address in Copiague.

Other images from the account were traced back to the same Copiague address, but he could not be immediately located.

According to Torrington police, Pascacio was found by the U.S. Marshal Violent Offender Task Force in Brooklyn on Feb. 16, charged in New York on unrelated cases, and extradited. He was arrested by city police March 28.

Pascacio was arraigned March 29 in Superior Court in Torrington. Judge Paul A. Matasavage set his bond at $500,000 cash or surety and the case was transferred to Part A proceedings, where more serious matters are adjudicated.

Pascacio is next scheduled to appear in court April 10, according to court records.

Pascacio