Fitchburg man summonsed for allegedly stealing scratch tickets

LEOMINSTER » Police were dispatched to the Cumberland

Farms on Mechanic Street in January when the store’s manager reported the theft of dozens of scratch tickets and after examining security footage summonsed a Fitchburg man to court on a single charge of larceny under $1,200 by single scheme, according to police and court documents.

Police were called to the Cumberland Farms on Jan. 13 when the store manager found a discrepancy between the number of scratch tickets in the store and the amount of money that was supposed to have been taken in, police said.

The manager inspected the security footage and saw a man, later learned to be Pablo Rodriguez, 46, of Lunenburg Street, coming into the store at about midnight and then speaking at length with one of the clerks. When they were distracted, he would casually step around the counter and tear off a number of tickets before leaving, police said.

Additional footage showed Rodriguez returning to the store at about 2 a.m., this time wearing different clothes but the same bright orange shoes, chatting up the clerk until they became distracted and again reaching around the counter tearing off the tickets, police said.

The store’s manager told the officer that one of the Cumberland Farms in Fitchburg had the same thing happen and it had better quality security footage and that one of the store employee had taken down the license plate number of the car they believed the man had left in after allegedly stealing tickets from there, police said.

Fitchburg Police were contacted and asked if one of its officers could identify Rodriguez, which one officer did, police said.

The store manager in Leominster told police that after an inventory of the tickets, he found 64 had been stolen with a value of $826, police said.

Rodriguez appeared in court on Wednesday to be arraigned on the single charge, where he pleaded not guilty.

He was released on personal recognizance and ordered to stay away from the area’s Cumberland Farms stores and return to court on Aug. 4 for a pretrial hearing, according to court documents.