Police: Hoyt Street Man Burglarizes Neighbor Three Times

When a resident on Hoyt Street found a back door window pane broken about a year ago, he called police but never found anything missing.

About six or eight months ago, a basement window at his house was broken. He didn’t report that to police because he thought children had done it, and he didn’t discover anything missing.

And in mid-December 2014, he returned home and found a basement window was broken. Again, he found nothing missing. Until he saw fraudulent charges appearing on a credit card statement. When he looked in his second-floor office, he found that someone had gone through documents in a box: He was missing a Chase JP Morgan credit card and checkbooks from Peoples and Wells Fargo banks.

On Monday, Darien police made an arrest in the case, charging the man’s neighbor, Christopher Malizia, 48, of 142 Hoyt St. with all three burglaries, plus another one — in which jewelry worth $20,000 was stolen from a house on Lynn Court.

Darien police gave this account (made up of accusations not proven in court) of what happened:

Police investigating the Hoyt Street burglary decided to ask residents of the neighborhood if they’d noticed anything suspicious. Malizia answered the door at his home and told police that his place, too, had been burglarized. Someone had broken the basement window to get in, he said.

Malizia said he didn’t believe anything had been taken and didn’t want an investigation, at least at that point, because he wasn’t feeling well. Nor did he want to make out a report for police at that point.

Police went to stores in Stamford and Norwalk where the credit cards and checks had been used. At a CVS store at 281 Connecticut Ave. in Norwalk, there was a fraudulent $200 charge, and two $400 charges at two CVS stores in Norwalk. At one on Hope Street in Stamford, there was a $204.95 charge. Also in Stamford, there was a $5.49 charge at Food Bag and another $9 charge at a Shell gas station. Both businesses are on Hope Street.

There was surveillance video available that police saw at some of the CVS stores. Police looking at the video thought the person fraudulently using the checks and credit cards looked like Malizia. Police had gotten a good look at Malizia when they spoke with him.

Police applied for and received a search warrant for Malizia’s home that day — Dec. 26. When they arrived to search the house, they spoke to Malizia, who admitted to the burglary.

Police also found a watch that had been pawned by an associate of Malizia’s, but that they were able to recover. Malizia’s neighbor had reported it stolen in one of the burglaries, and the victim confirmed that the watch was his. Malizia admitted to police that he had stolen it.

Malizia also admitted to committing a burglary on Lynn Court. On July 28, the home had been entered through an unlocked window while the victims were away for the weekend.

Police applied for and received an arrest warrant for Malizia, who turned himself in to police on Monday morning after they told him about it. Malizia was charged with fourth-degree larceny, four counts of third-degree burglary and seven counts of credit card theft. He was initially held on $50,000 bond and that day was taken to state Superior Court in Stamford for arraignment.

The Connecticut Judicial Branch Website had no information as of early Tuesday afternoon about what happened in court.