Norwalk Man Accused of Stealing $3K from New Canaan Restaurant Owner

A 50- year-old Norwalk man faces misdemeanor larceny charges following accusations that he deposited a New Canaan restaurateur’s check after saying he’d torn it up.

Robert Altieri was arrested at 10:30 p.m. on March 26 and charged with third-degree larceny.

In December, an owner of Tuscan Restaurant reportedly told police that Altieri, owner of Robert’s Mechanical Services, deposited a check worth $3,000 for work done. When it didn’t clear, Tuscan is said to have issued a second check.

Altieri reportedly told Tuscan’s accountant that he’d torn up the first check. He’s accused of re-depositing it, making him $6,000 richer.

According to police, Altieri was “completely uncooperative” in making restitution to the restaurateur for the $3,000.

He was held on $3,000 bond and scheduled to appear March 27 in state Superior Court in Norwalk.

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Police say a 50-year-old Parade Hill Road resident is out $980 after she wired the money to England in a fraud scam.

According to police, the woman received a check for $1,500 from a “Global Test Marketing” that identified her as a “secret shopper.” She was told that she could deposit the check, use $300 and send another $900 to a Western Union office in London, according to Lt. Vincent DeMaio of the New Canaan Police Department.

She wired the money, then deposited the check, which bounced, he said.

“We’re getting scams at a dozen a week, ranging from this type of thing to the tax scam to the grandma scam which are all running constantly,” DeMaio said.

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A 43-year-old New York man was cited for soliciting without a permit after police found him trying to sell some of his 132 bootleg DVDs downtown.

Song Biao Xia, of Queens, NY was cited for the infraction offense at 1:40 p.m. on March 30.

Police responded to a report that the man was trying to sell the goods on Forest Street, according to DeMaio.

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New Canaan Country School reported a Dell laptop computer missing some time between March 19 and 23, police said. A teacher who’d had the $950 laptop assigned to him reportedly left it in an office adjacent to the gym before going on break, and then returned to find it missing, police said.