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Detective Lt. Shawn Kudlacik was investigating last month’s break-in and theft of $17,000 in jewelry, rare coins and credit cards when police got a call from a resident. The resident had become suspicious after a stranger came to her door and asked for a woman who’d moved out more than a month ago, Kudlacik told CLIFFVIEW PILOT.
After closing her door, the resident said, she heard the woman shouting at two men in a gray, four-door Nissan.
Using the name provided by the resident, Kudlacik found the visitor in Passaic.
He also found the Nissan.
Through the window, the lieutenant said, he spotted a Pennsylvania probation letter on the back seat for 23-year-old Richard Czarkowski, who’d been dating the woman. The stolen credit cards had been used in Pennsylvania just three days earlier, he added.
The vehicle didn’t have license plates, so Kulacik traced the VIN to what turned out to be its new owner. Czarkowski had sold the car on Nov. 1 and hopped a plane to Poland soon after, he said.
Czarkowski’s girlfriend later told Kudlacik that the woman she was looking for owed her money. After learning that she’d moved, she said, she got into an argument with Czarkowski and the other man in the Nissan, 21-year-old Joshua T. Sammarro.
Samarro was arrested yesterday and ordered held on $10,000 bail in the Bergen County Jail, charged with burglary and theft.
Similar charges are contained on a warrant for Czarkowski.
The investigation, meanwhile, was continuing.
MUGSHOT: Courtesy WALLINGTON PD
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