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Store employees got the plate number, though.
A Wayne dispatcher directed Officers Cory Deak and Bruce Conklin to 39-year-old Matthew Powell’s home, where they found him, his 2000 Chevy Prizm and nearly $100 worth of stolen items, Detective Capt. Laurence Martin said.
The perishable merchandise was returned to the Trader Joe’s on Hamburg Turnpike.
Powell, meanwhile, was processed at headquarters and released pending a hearing on receiving stolen property charges.
“We would like to point out if not for the forward thinking of our emergency 9-1-1 dispatchers and fast response by the officers, the store would have suffered retail loss,” Martin said.
Powell made news in October 2015 after State Police charged him with stealing a woman’s pocketbook as she sat on the lawn during a Marilyn Manson show at PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel three months earlier.
Powell and a female accomplice were caught on surveillance video using a gift card that was in the stolen bag at a store in Fairfield.
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