FAIRFIELD, Conn. A West Haven man was charged with assault on an 82-year-old Fairfield resident Monday. Andrew M. Hernandez, 31, is accused of threats against and thefts from his grandmother, police say.
Fairfield Police began investigating Hernandez after receiving a tip from a concerned manager at Peoples United Bank. The banker told police that fraud investigators found $20,000 in suspicious transactions from the victims account to Hernandez, police say.
The grandmother told police that she knew about the transactions. But bank employees reported seeing Hernandez verbally intimidate the woman on the occasions when they went into the bank, according to the police report.
Hernandez allegedly shoved a shopping cart into his grandmother and threatened her during a visit to the Peoples branch inside the Kings Highway Super Stop & Shop, police say. The woman declined to press charges at the time.
The victim reported her 2002 Infiniti stolen from her driveway on May 9. At the time she told police she suspected Hernandez, but still did not want to press charges. But on Monday she found bank statements that revealed her bank account was overdrawn due to forged checks to Hernandez, according to police reports.
West Haven Police found the stolen car at Hernandezs home, police say. He was arrested and turned over to Fairfield Police Monday afternoon. He was charged with third-degree larceny, a breach of the peace, threatening and third-degree assault on an elderly person. He was held on a bond of $50,000, and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday morning.
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