Jersey City man with 86 prior arrests facing new shoplifting charge

JERSEY CITY -- A 47-year-old Jersey City man with 86 prior arrests made his first court appearance today on a Hoboken shoplifting charge.

Jerry Williams, of the 200 block of Arlington Avenue, appeared in Central Judicial Processing court in Jersey City this afternoon via video link from Hudson County jail in Kearny.

Williams is charged with stealing toiletries and hair grooming products with a value of more than $400 from the CVS store on Clinton Street Friday, the criminal complaint says.

Court officials said Williams has 86 prior arrests, 50 disorderly persons convictions and 10 criminal convictions.

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t stealing them for his own use.

Shoplifted items like that along with items like disposable razors and razor refills, makeup, paper products, laundry products, even baby food and formula and believe it or not, even expensive meats, are often sold at “seedy” flea markets and swap meets, sometimes across state lines from where they were stolen. Some items also end up for sale on eBay or Craigslist.

The seller often employs “boosters”, i.e. “professional” shoplifters, many of whom are drug addicts, to steal the items for them. Sometimes store employees are recruited. The “boosters” steal the items and then sell them to the seller for pennies on the dollar for quick cash to feed their drug habits. The seller in turn “re-sells” the items cheap, well below the retail price, but still at a large profit since they paid very little for the stolen items, for much less than they could even buy them at wholesale.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dlWdUrrFPU

And OK – yes I do think the SWAT team footage was a bit of an overkill but then again…..

https://www.fbi.gov/pittsburgh/press-releases/2014/beaver-county-man-found-guilty-of-merchandise-stolen-in-pennsylvania-at-ohio-flea-market

You would be surprised how often this happens.

Back in the late ‘80’s I was an assistant manager for a grocery store chain. I was working the night shift one night right before Christmas and about a ½ before closing one of the stock clerks alerted me to some suspicious activity. We had been alerted by the local police and the local retailers assoc. of a ring of shoplifters who had been stealing meats and health and beauty items – their MO was to line their grocery cart with large boxes or packs of paper towels to make a “hidden well” in the middle and they would then go to the meat counter and place all sorts of very expensive cuts of meat in the middle - steaks, roasts, etc. or to the H&B aisle and load their cart with H&B items.

They would then either try to get the grocery cart into the back room of the grocery store or try to get to the restroom, where they would stuff the meat or other items inside their pants or under heavy coats or they would try to wheel the grocery cart past the checkout lanes without being noticed and make a quick dash out the front door to a waiting and running car.

I got several stock clerks together - I and one other clerk followed them and not stealthy - I wanted them to know they were being followed and watched - I stationed one at each exit and at each door to the backroom. I also instructed all the cashiers to be on the lookout if they tried to get past their lane. I also told them if push came to shove, not to try to physically restrain them but just to make their presence and the fact we were on to them known.

When these shoplifters figured out they couldn’t easily get out of the store with stolen merchandise they went through the checkout lane and tried to pay for the merchandise with an out of state personal (and rather suspicious looking )check and of course with no ID, which of course was denied. So they left the cart and everything in it at the checkout and quickly walked/ran out to a running car that was waiting for them in the pickup lane. I followed them and managed to write down the plate number (out of state tags BTW) and gave it and their description and the make and model of the car to the police who had already been called but hadn’t arrived before they sped off. Of course the cops couldn’t do much of anything since we’d prevented them from stealing anything, but they thanked us for the information as it matched similar reports from other stores.

And FWIW, this was a white couple, probably in their mid to late 30’s and they had 3 kids with them ranging in age in my guess from 10 to 5 years old. And they were not abnormal looking or disheveled looking and probably would have gone unnoticed if not for a very bright and observant employee. And while it was December, it was not a particularly cold night but the couple and their kids were wearing very bulky coats and clothing.

The cop told me this “family” was part of a ring that had recently come into the area and that they used the kids to help them steal, placing items under their coats. And he told me that they were very unlikely to be stealing the meat because they were poor and hungry but were either druggies and would sell what they shoplifted for quick cash to buy drugs with and or they were “Travellers”, i.e. “gypsies”. Sad -sad for the kids that is. The cop also told me that some local flea markets had recently been raided for stolen merchandise including one vendor who was selling meat out of a cooler with the store labels removed.

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