Teenager Charged – Again – with Preying on His Grandmother's Elderly Neighbors

A young man who has been living with his grandmother in a Wauwatosa senior housing center has been charged for the second time in less than three months with allegedly ripping off his elderly neighbors.

Justin Jay Korth, 19, was arrested Tuesday and charged Friday with burglary and felony bail jumping after he admitted he had entered a residence at Courtyard Apartments, 12250 W. North Ave., and stolen jewelry.

He had been charged in early January with stealing a bank ATM card from another elderly resident and using it to buy drugs. That theft came to light when he was arrested for felony possession of narcotics in December.

Infirm victim has a suspect in mind

Tuesday's victim, a 74-year-old woman, told Wauwatosa police she had left her apartment in her wheelchair at midnight to pick up her mail and had left her door unlocked. When she returned, she said, she found her bedroom door open and her collection of jewelry rifled.

She told police she suspected Korth, who had been living with her neighbor in recent months. Police went to the apartment to find the teenager but met up with his grandmother and then his sister, who told police her brother had run away when he saw squad cars.

Police asked them to call him and ask him to return. He did, and soon admitted witnessing the burglary but blamed it on a friend who had stopped by to sell him two doses of Suboxone, a drug intended to treat opiate addiction.

Korth told officers he had gone outside to meet his friend, and as they came back inside they had seen the elderly woman wheeling down the hallway. He said his friend had tried her door, found it open and went in and stole her jewelry.

Police arrested Korth for being party to the crime, then located the 'friend,' a 23-year-old West Allis man.

Drug dealer tells a different story

When they arrived at his address, they found him in the driveway working on a car and began to question him. But when informed he was going to be arrested, he resisted and had to be taken to the ground.

Officers asked if he had any sharp objects and he said, “Yes” – the three hypodermic syringes in his heroin “rig.” He told officers he had a heroin addiction and a prescription for Suboxone to treat it, but said he frequently sells the drug rather than using it.

When police interviewed him about the burglary, though, he was able to give evidence that he had not entered Courtyard Apartments – he had just turned over the drugs, taken Korth's $10 and left. He had actually returned home before the burglary even occurred.

Police then challenged Korth's story, and he eventually admitted he was trying to implicate his friend to ease his own case. He said he had entered the elderly woman's apartment on his own.

He told officers where to find the jewelry – 13 pieces of inexpensive costume jewelry of no more than sentimental value to the owner – hidden under his grandmother’s couch.

Charges pile up for young man who was given a chance

The jewelry was returned to its owner, and Korth's grandmother suggested that he was no longer welcome to stay with her – probably no longer an option, anyway.

Korth had been awaiting a March 28 arraignment on the earlier charge of stealing and using a bank card – technically, misappropriation of another's identification to obtain money, a Class F felony punishable by up to a $25,000 fine and 12 years and six months in prison.

But he had been recommended for a "drug free" sentencing program that would have kept him out of prison if he stayed clean.

More of such leniency is unlikely to be offered, now that he is also facing a burglary charge, another Class F felony, and admitted to continuing drug use.

The bail-jumping and narcotics charges are also felonies, carrying sentences of up to six years and up to three years, six months, respectively.