Hartford woman sentenced for thefts

A Hartford woman, who with friends stole $100,000 in luxury goods during a yearlong grab and go spree at high end retailers across the Northeast, was sentenced to 1 ½ years in prison in U.S. District Court Wednesday.

Paige James, 28, was charged with seven others from in and around Hartford with interstate theft for bolting out of high end retailers from New York to New Hampshire with arm loads of designer items and racing away from store security and police in rented cars with phony license plates.

At one point, federal prosecutors said James, with some of the others, was robbing stores around the region every few days. In November 2019, she hit a Polo Ralph Lauren store in Merrimack, N.H. for $8,000 in clothing and other items on Monday; a Burberry’s in Wrentham, Mass. for $5,000 on Tuesday and a Balenciaga in Woodbury, N.Y., for another $5,000 on Wednesday.

Federal authorities said James and the others would walk into retailers like normal shoppers, grab goods and race out side where an accomplice waited in a getaway car. Back in Hartford they are accused of selling whatever they stole at a discount on street corners or across the Internet.

“This was an organized scheme carried out by a network of individuals who not only committed more than fifty “grab and go” robberies, but used rental cars and fraudulent license plates to evade law enforcement and then sold the stolen goods on social media as well as on the street,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a court filing. “The defendant took part in at least twenty-eight of these thefts, with losses totaling over $90,000. Also of note is that the members of this conspiracy deliberately exploited the COVID-19 pandemic by taking advantage of the limited law enforcement resources available as a result of the crisis.”

James has a long criminal record and has served time in prison before for theft.

Her lawyer, Trent Lalima told judge Vanessa Bryant that she had a tragic childhood. Of her eight half-siblings, four are adults and have criminal records including multiple convictions. One of the few stable relatives in her life, an uncle, was shot to death in 2018, Lalima said.

Even federal prosecutors expressed some sympathy for James’ upbringing.

“While her difficult upbringing does not excuse her unlawful behavior, the Government is sympathetic to the challenges she has faced and acknowledges that the defendant’s history is worthy of the Court’s consideration when it fashions its sentence,” prosecutor Margaret M. Donovan wrote in a court filing.

Charged with James are Jahill Parrott, Andres Barclet, Aysia Ryan, William Tisdol, Jordan Braithwaite, Janezia Miller and Tashanique Blizzard.

While James was being sentenced, another prosecution involving six young Hartford women and another high end retailer was moving through federal court. The seven are accused of concocting a convoluted scheme by which they took advantage of the loophole in the Victoria’s Secret return policy and used it to steal thousands from L Brands, the chain’s parent company.

The woman are accused of shoplifting merchandise from Victoria’s Secret stores in Connecticut and Massachusetts. They are accused of returning the stolen merchandise through a store policy of “No Original Receipt” return, which allowed them to obtain gift cards for Victoria’s Secret in the value of the stolen merchandise..

The women are next accused of redeeming the gift cards at Victoria’s Secret stores for merchandise that exceeded the value of the gift card, charging the excess to a debit card. Then they allegedly returned the merchandise they bought, refunding the grand total to the debit card.

L Brands claims it lost more than $100,000 to the scheme over a year beginning in October 2018.

Those charged in the scheme are Debran Moore, Shamonique Mackey, Daijah Fagan, Tamijah Hunter, Sharnice Jackson, Imani Aitcheson and Leonna Jones.