Crime & Safety

Scales of Justice Weigh Against Serial Salad Thief

Police think at first that store managers are being a bit petty, but it turns out woman had been cheating on her diet for some time.

A New Berlin woman's salad days are behind her at Metro Market, where she had been giving weight-loss a new meaning.

At 12:10 p.m. March 13, the 47-year-old woman was cited for retail theft after she was seen “manipulating the scale” while buying a salad at the store at 17630 Blue Mound Rd.

The suspect was seen dishing up at the salad bar and then going to a self-checkout, where engaged in an act of "weight tampering." She didn't set the entire container down but held it by the edge and just touched it to the scale, recording "a fraction" of the full cost.

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She was detained and police were called. An officer was a bit incredulous that the company wanted to prosecute but soon learned the crime was no small croutons.

It turned out she was paying with her store card, which was reviewed, and it turned out she had pulled the caper nine times before, defrauding the store for $60.93 while getting her lunch for prices ranging from about 50 to 75 cents.

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In other recent incidents:

March 11

At 7:31 a.m., the service manager at Mike Juneau's Brookfield Buick GMC, 13000 W. Capitol Dr., reported that some time over the weekend someone had entered a 2013 Yukon Denali SUV and, after disconnecting the battery, had cleanly removed the steering wheel, along with its air bag. The thief also removed the cover to the center console. The loss was estimated at $2,000.

March 13

At 9:53 a.m., the pharmacy manager at the Pick ‘n Save at 17295 W. Capitol Dr. reported that a man thought to be in his early 20s had managed to fill a fraudulent prescription for 240 Oxycodone tablets. The store provided police with surveillance video showing the suspect, and they are investigating. Detectives have collected other examples of the same scripts used in other frauds.

At 11:14 a.m., a 19-year-old Milwaukee woman was arrested for theft from Old Navy at Brookfield Square after Brookfield police learned her identity and picked her up at her home. She had been seen in the store with another woman, and they made off with "a lot" of baby and toddler clothes, store management said. They got away, but mall security got the license plate, all they could prove, owner of vehicle with several priors. Officers went to the listed address and got a positive ID through her description from people who knew her, and learned that the suspect had moved. Then they learned that she had just been arrested for theft in Wauwatosa, and she was picked out of a photo lineup there. The woman had other prior theft arrests in Brookfield, Wauwatosa and Greenfield so she was held on state charges.


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