Hampden eviction leads to arrests, recovery of stolen cars

Police sent to evict some renters in Hampden on Tuesday ended up solving three missing car cases.

Hampden police Officer Joseph Burke said he went to a Main Road North apartment Tuesday at about 10:30 a.m. with Sgt. Scott Webber and Officer Joseph Devine to assist the landlord in evicting three squatters.

When Burke learned that some of the evictees had auto theft histories, he asked them about a 1995 Honda Accord that was missing from a Main Road North address Monday. Burke said a woman there told him where the car was in Bangor.

As Burke, Webber and Devine were waiting on the street after phoning Bangor police with the information, they saw the stolen car drive by. Webber jumped in his cruiser and stopped the car a half-mile down the road; he arrested the driver and front passenger, both juveniles, for unauthorized use of property.

At the apartment, a woman told Burke that an Accord being used by a friend to help the evictees move was also stolen. Officer Devine arrested the driver, Brian Wheeler, 18, of Bangor, for unauthorized use of property and operating after suspension, and held him because he was in violation of probation. He had allegedly taken the car from a Langley Street address in Bangor on Monday.

One of the evictees told Burke that another man at the apartment, Mike Acosta, 21, of Bangor, had been bragging that he had showed the two boys how to steal cars. Burke said Acosta admitted having been in the car and that he knew it was stolen. Burke summoned Acosta for unauthorized use of property.

Bangor police Officer Shawn Green also summoned the youths for unauthorized use of property in the case of an Accord reported missing Sunday.

Burke said the boys were released to their parents’ custody.