Oct 21, 2009 7:11 pm US/Eastern
'County Worker' Burglary Spree Rattles Long Island
One Man Claims To Be What He's Not To Distract You, While The Other Looks To Clean Out Your Valuables
Reporting
Lou Young
NORTH BELLMORE, N.Y. (CBS) ―
There's a disturbing new burglary pattern emerging on Long Island.
A man claiming to be a county worker is distracting elderly residents while an accomplice goes for the valuables.
The crew hit twice Tuesday -- once in Massapequa, and once in North Bellmore.
"He wanted me to go downstairs, which would've been further away from the bedroom, but I said 'no, we can get to the back up here,'" Joyce Kronenberg said.
Kronenberg didn't know she was dealing with a burglar. She led the man with the official looking hat through her home to the back deck so he could "inspect" the neighbor's trees. She realized too late something was wrong.
"I said 'I want to see your ID' and he didn't have one. He said 'I'll go get it,'" Kronenberg said.
He left and never came back, which is when the Kronenbergs discovered someone else had been in their bedroom and ransacked her jewelry box while the fake county worker had them occupied in the backyard.
She's a little rattled; he's taking it in stride.
"I was in the war four years. You need a lot to frighten a guy like me," Lawrence Kronenberg said.
The Kronenbergs raised three kids in that house. They've lived in this quiet well-manicured neighborhood for the past 47 years. It is literally something that can happen anywhere.
"It's what we call a distraction/deception type burglary and about four months ago we had a very similar type of occurrence in about four different places," said Lt. Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police Department. "Back then it was New Hyde Park, Westbury and East Meadow. Now we have two other communities on the South Shore and it appears another one on the North."
Smith said it's possible all the burglaries are connected.
Nassau County cops are looking for a 5-foot-8 white male in his late 40s or early 50s, with a thin build and possibly a mustache. On Tuesday he was dressed in a dark baseball cap with the word "County" on it, and a denim jacket.
The bottom line is county employees don't make these kind of inspections on private property and if they come to your door and they don't have ID, they don't get inside.
Nassau police also said the burglars hit in broad daylight and victims frequently don't realize what's happened until hours later.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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