PHOTO: Queens DA Richard Brown said that an East Elmhurst man stands accused of being a borough Grinch after allegedly stealing delivered packages from doorsteps just a couple days before Christmas. Photo Courtesy of seuss.wikia.com
An East Elmhurst man has been charged in four separate incidents with stealing packages after they had been delivered to the doorsteps of borough residents just three days before Christmas, according to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown.
Frank Garcia, 26, was arraigned last Wednesday on a criminal complaint charging him with four counts of petit larceny and four counts of fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property. He posted the $5,000 cash or bond bail on Tuesday and was released, according to court and City Department of Correction records.
According to the charges, Garcia was seen walking down 47th Street in Astoria last Tuesday afternoon and removing packages that had been left on doorsteps by mail delivery services and placing the packages on a blue push cart. In reviewing surveillance video of the lobby of Garcia’s building, Brown said, police allegedly observed Garcia enter the building with a blue push cart containing several packages. Police allegedly recovered the blue cart and an assortment of packages containing ten curtains, two bottles of lotion, a pair of pants, a purse, a Bluetooth speaker and a bottle of soap. At the time of his arrest, Garcia allegedly told 114th Precinct cops that he took the packages because he was out of work and it was Christmas.
“When people place mail orders, they do not expect their delivered packages to be brazenly stolen off their doorstep by somebody acting like the Dr. Seuss’ character in the book, ‘How The Grinch Stole Christmas!’, as the defendant is accused of doing in this case—even though he had no way of knowing what the packages contained,” Brown said. “What the defendant now knows is that he faces the prospect of being incarcerated for his alleged actions.”
If convicted, Garcia faces up to a year in jail.
