A Berkeley man is being charged with selling or receiving stolen
goods after he allegedly had ties to burglaries at about 40 AT
&
amp;T stores and authorized retailers, including a store in
Gilroy.
A Berkeley man is being charged with selling or receiving stolen goods after he allegedly had ties to burglaries at about 40 AT&T stores and authorized retailers, including a store in Gilroy.
Steven Castro, 25, who is in the custody of U.S. Department of Justice Marshals Service, faces one charge of selling or receiving goods. Investigators believe Castro sold at least $5,000 worth of stolen merchandise across a U.S. or state boundary. However, the value of the stolen property that he allegedly received and sold is likely worth far more than that, as about $30,000 worth of merchandise was stolen during one of the many burglaries at a Las Vegas store on Dec. 25.
He was allegedly involved in organizing a Jan. 28 attempted break-in at the AT&T Store in Gilroy, 8647 San Ysidro Ave., and a Dec. 28 burglary of an AT&T Store in Morgan Hill. Several other burglaries occurred at stores in Northern California as well as in stores in Oregon, Washington and Nevada.
U.S. Postal Service Inspector Kristine Kearney stated in an affidavit that she has found no evidence that Castro directly participated in any burglaries. Instead, it appears Castro helped plan the burglaries and then received the stolen cell phones from burglars, she wrote. After that, he allegedly sold them to other people.
Typically, the burglars broke into shops in strip malls next to an AT&T or cellular store and then punched through the neighboring shop’s drywall to get inside the cell phone store, Kearney wrote.
Castro allegedly sold the phones to distributors, who then sold them on Web sites such as eBay and Craigslist.
The affidavit did not mention if Castro was connected to a Nov. 24 burglary at the Gilroy AT&T Store, in which someone stole $47,145 worth of cell phones. In that crime, burglars broke into a vacant building that previously had been occupied by Quiznos and bored through drywall into Ginger’s Cafe’s restroom before working their way through a second gate of drywall into the AT&T Store, according to police.
At the time, Sgt. Jim Gillio said it appeared that the burglars had knowledge of the building’s layout either as an employee of one of the involved businesses or as a result of casing the place.
No one has ever been arrested regarding the case, and police have no suspects or leads, Gilroy Police Sgt. Wes Stanford said Thursday.
He noted that burglars attempted to get inside the Gilroy store during the Jan. 28 break-in, but never made it all the way inside the building.
However, a Dec. 28, 2008 burglary at the AT&T Store in Morgan Hill appeared to be more successful, according to the court documents.
A phone that had been dropped at a crime scene in San Leandro contained several text messages that day referring to a “special event tonight,” Kearney stated in the affidavit. A text message that day from “Stev” – who investigators believe to be Castro – stated “I tgink (sic) it is about that time before new years..Sunday night!!!”
Kearney filed a criminal complaint against Castro on Feb. 17.
Castro was assigned an attorney in the U.S. District court in San Francisco Wednesday and is scheduled to appear in front of Magistrate Judge Bernard Zimmerman April 20, when the judge will set a date for an arraignment and a preliminary hearing.
