Police report big strides in burglary probes

BANGOR – With more than $30,000 in stolen tools, machinery and ATVs as a backdrop, authorities said Wednesday they are winding down their investigations into one burglary ring and making significant headway in shutting down a second ring.

Bombarded with reports of daytime home and garage burglaries – more than 100 were reported to state police and the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department since August – authorities including Old Town police and the U.S. Attorney’s Violent Crimes Task Force joined forces to combat the common problem.

“It’s one of the biggest [burglary cases] we’ve seen in quite a while,” said Detective William Flagg of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department. ” It’s substantial.”

The burglary ring also reached into Piscataquis County, where last Friday authorities recovered two pickup trucks full of stolen items taken during burglaries in recent weeks. The arrests and pending investigation are expected to make a huge dent in the number of burglaries in the region.

“They, together, have worked diligently and as a result we feel that the amount of burglaries we have is going to be dramatically curtailed,” said Glenn Ross, chief deputy of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department.

Two brothers, Francis Sprague Jr., 19, and Steven Robichaud, 28, already have been charged with two burglaries in Old Town in what officials described as a big break in the case.

The two were arrested last Thursday after they loaded a garden tractor and mower attachment into a pickup truck and were headed back into the garage for more. Their activity caught the attention of an off-duty Bangor police officer who was in the area. It also set off an internal alarm that alerted the homeowner at work.

Flagg said that well before their arrests, Sprague and Robichaud had been the focus of the investigations.

In the wake of the arrests, on Sunday authorities searched a home on Robichaud Road in Levant where the two men were staying. What they recovered was on display in the wash bay at the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department on Wednesday.

It was a near-hardware store of stolen items, from hand-held drills to a drill press, tools, toolboxes and tool chests as well as a riding lawnmower and two ATVs.

“As you can see [the joint investigation] yielded quite a reward,” said Maine State Police Trooper Seth Edwards. Authorities acknowledged that what they were showing reporters was only part of what had been stolen.

The police said they will be forwarding the results of their investigations to the Penobscot County District Attorney’s Office for review for additional charges.

Meanwhile, Ross said significant progress has been made in the investigation of a second burglary ring not connected with Sprague or Robichaud. Ross said they are expecting further developments in the near future, although he and detectives involved in the investigation declined to be more specific on possible suspects and motives, including whether the burglaries were drug-related.

Although they operated independently, the burglars in both rings broke into homes and garages during daylight, officials said.

With the recovered items inventoried, police turned their attention to finding out who owns the equipment that hasn’t been claimed yet. Edwards and other officials said people can do their part to quicken the return of stolen items by making sure that they keep records of the serial numbers and descriptions of their possessions, as well as marking them discreetly.

In addition, police are asking that anyone whose house or garage had been burglarized contact the Maine State Police at 866-2122 or the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department at 945-4636 to see if their possessions are among the unidentified recovered items.