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South Hackensack police knew that 39-year-old Christopher Pidustwa (above, left) of upstate New York was wanted on charges of participating with Robert Bodurka of Maywood in burglaries in Elmwood Park and Lodi when they grabbed him during a traffic stop on Sunday.
Bodurka, 47 (above, middle), who was released from state prison in October after serving two years for burglary and drug convictions, is charged in no fewer than nine break-ins — at a car wash, a gas station, a pizzeria and a liquor store, among other businesses — in Elmwood Park, Hasbrouck Heights, Little Ferry, Lodi, South Hackensack and Clifton.
He had accomplices in some but not all of the burglaries, authorities said.
Knowing that he was wanted, South Hackensack police stopped Pidustwa, of Livingston Manor, NY, on Sunday and took him into custody. He was carrying hypodermic needles and a syringe, for which he was charged, they said.
South Hackensack police had also arrested Bodurka and two other alleged accomplices — Thomas Sussina, 21, of Sussex and 31-year-old Ginette Lezette of Emerson — at a Wayne motel last month.
They recovered two cash registers — one stolen from a local pizzeria and the other from a Hasbrouck Heights gas station, both in smash and grabs, they said.
“That’s been the M.O.: Smash a door, grab the register and bolt,” South Hackensack Police Capt. Robert Kaiser told CLIFFVIEW PILOT at the time. “It’s usually between 1 and 4 in the morning.”
The three were feeding heroin habits that reached a collective 200 bags a day, splitting the burglary proceeds and getting high at the Airport Motel off Route 46 in South Hackensack, Kaiser said.
Immediately after the arrests, South Hackensack investigators notified other departments, and additional charges began to mount.
Bodurka remained held on $201,200 bail today in the Bergen County Jail, while Sussina remained held on $72,500 bail and Lezette and Pidustwa on $40,000 each.
Bodurka — also known as Robert Bodurke and Peter Davaney — has a rap sheet that stretches back nearly 25 years. It includes arrests for two January 2012 smash-and-grab burglaries and a third a month earlier, all in Maywood.
All were committed while Bodurka was on parole.
Police picked him up after surveillance cameras caught Bodurka smashing a Maywood liquor store’s front window with a hammer, grabbing several scratch-off lottery tickets and cigarettes and speeding off in a car he’d parked outside.
MUGSHOTS: Courtesy SOUTH HACKENSACK PD
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