Shoplifters Arrested at T. J. Maxx

Two Roxbury residents will be facing charges in court after an alleged incident at the T. J. Maxx department store on Harvard Street.

Roberto D. Then, 41, of Roxbury, was arrested at 6:51 p.m. on Feb. 15, and charged with larceny under $250 and interference and obstruction of justice. Maryleidy Perez Gutierrez, 29, of Roxbury, was also arrested and charged.

According to a Brookline Police arrest report, officers were called to the store for a report of shoplifters without identification.

The officers spoke to the loss prevention officer who stated that he observed a woman remove a price tag from a belt and handed it to the man who was with her. The man then put the belt around his waist. The man then took a second belt and put it around his waist. The man then pulled his shirt over the belts and followed the woman. The loss prevention officer alleged that the woman had a few garments but couldn’t see what they were exactly.

After the loss prevention officer confronted the man and woman when they were leaving the store, he reportedly saw that the concealed items were two pink girl’s tops and a pair of blue jeans that were allegedly inside the woman’s purse.

The value of the items was about $69.

The first officer at the scene took the names and birthdates of the pair and had them checked, but dispatch didn’t have the names on file. The man, later identified as Then, told one of the officers in Spanish what his correct name and birthdate was but that one didn’t come up either.

“It was apparent that both the male subject and the female subject were willfully misleading officers from obtaining their proper identifying information during the course of our investigation,” the reporting officer alleged, “at which point they were handcuffed and placed under arrest.”

The loss prevention employee told officers that the alleged larceny was caught on video.

After being handcuffed, the two were searched and one officer found Then’s New York driver’s license while another found Gutierrez’s permanent residency card. Medication was also found in Then’s vehicle, which was towed from the scene. 

Editor’s note: The following story was derived from information supplied by the Brookline Police Department. It does not indicate a conviction.