Jennifer O’Leary
A Stony Brook woman has been accused of stealing seven pocketbooks from supermarket shopping carts over the past three months.
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Suffolk County police arrested Jennifer O’Leary after they said she stole a pocketbook from a 77-year-old woman at Uncle Giuseppe’s Marketplace on Route 112 in Port Jefferson Station at 2:15 p.m. Thursday.
Police said the 25-year-old woman was found to have stolen six other purses from a half dozen other supermarkets in Stony Brook, Setauket, Centereach and Port Jefferson Station since April 24.
“When the victims shopped in the produce aisle, O’Leary would wait for them to turn away from their shopping cart to steal the pocketbooks that were left in the basket,” police said in a statement.
O’Leary was charged grand larceny, forgery and criminal possession of a forged instrument.
She will be arraigned Friday at First District Court in Central Islip.
Police also warned the public not to turn their backs on their shopping carts and to fasten pocketbooks into the cart using the child straps.
