Police: Islander charged in 35 incidents

An accident on Menantic Road that a resident called in at about 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, May 7 wound up helping police solve a mystery and less than 24 hours later resulted in the arrest of Tucker A. Ruiz, 19, of Shelter Island. He was charged with burglary in the 3rd degree, criminal mischief in the 4th, 29 counts of petit larceny and 29 counts of criminal possession of stolen property in the 5th.

Mr. Ruiz was arrested at 7 p.m. on Sunday, May 8 at his residence in Silver Beach. He was arraigned in Shelter Island Justice Court, Judge Mary-Faith Westervelt presiding. Bail was set at $20,000. Unable to post bail, he was remanded to Suffolk County’s correctional facility.

Mr. Ruiz showed up at police headquarters on Sunday afternoon at about 1:30 p.m., admitting that he had crashed his car the previous day but that “he was scared and ran” and did not report the incident.

At the time, police were investigating a series of complaints about items being stolen from vehicles over a period of several days, as well as several attempted petit larcenies. A burglary at a Center business was reported on Sunday morning, May 8, followed by an attempted burglary in the same area.

In all, over 35 complaints were received about property missing from vehicles, at locations along a corridor generally west of Route 114.

In describing his car accident, Mr. Ruiz told police he had been reaching for a cellphone charger on the floor of the passenger’s side of the car and not watching the roadway when the vehicle left the roadway and hit a tree. The car flipped over onto its side, hit a second tree, crushing the hood, and then flipped back onto all four tires.

After giving his account of the accident, he was charged with leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident and issued an appearance ticket for a later date on the Justice Court calendar.

Later, on the same day that Mr. Ruiz had reported his accident, police responded to a dispute at his residence and, according to Police Chief Jim Read, the situation police found there  led them to “determine that Mr. Ruiz was connected to the numerous complaints” and they made the arrest.

Police said this week that it was likely most of the petty larcenies were committed by Mr. Ruiz on foot. A  majority of the items reported stolen were recovered. Items include cellphones, a GPS, cameras, and iPods; prescription drugs, sunglasses, drug paraphrenalia, cash and about $1,000-worth of North and South Ferry tickets. Detective/Sergeant Jack Thilberg estimated that the value of the items recovered was approximately $5,000.

At midweek, complaints about items missing from vehicles were still being called into the police.