Tri-Town Client Nabbed For Robbing Staffer

A client of Tri-Town Community Action Agency on Hartford Avenue faces a charge of larceny under $500 after say a surveillance camera inside the facility recorded him taking money from an employee's purse.

Ptlm. Adam Parkinson reported that on Mar. 22 at about 2:45 p.m., he responded to the agency for a report of theft. Kathleen Russo, a staffer at Tri-Town, said that she had left her purse, containing $435 in cash, unattended on her desk while she helped a client.

Russo said that she was away from the desk for about two to three minutes, and found it "disheveled and clearly had been rifled through" when she returned, Parkinson reported.

According to Parkinson, Russo identified Timothy Robie, also a client of Windsor House, a homeless shelter in Johnston, as a possible suspect in the theft.

Russo could only provide Robie's name and telephone number under patient confidentiality laws, Parkinson reported.

At about 5 p.m. that day, Det. Richard Almonte ordered Robie to leave the agency after another staffer there complanied that Robie had been "hanging around all day" — but Almonte "had no knowledge Mr. Robie had been a suspect in the reported larceny," Parkinson wrote in his report.

The next day at about 11:45 a.m., Parkinson reported that he and Almonte reviewed the agency's surveillance footage that showed Robie enter Russo's office, close the door, and leave about a minute later. Almonte recognized Robie as the person he'd dispersed from the agency the night before, Parkinson reported.

Officers drafted an arrest warrant for Robie, whom Parkinson found in the parking lot at the CVS Pharmacy on Atwood Avenue just before 4 p.m. that same day.

Parkinson reported that Robie agreed to go to police headquarters for an interview on the larceny investigation.

While at the police station, Robie "refused to complete" a statement in writing because of his medical conditions, according to Det. Thomas Dwyer's report.

Dwyer reported that he then contacted a case worker at Windsor House, who went to the station and confirmed Robie's medical issues.

Robie was arraigned before Justice of the Peace Christopher Millea and released until a scheduled Apr. 4 hearing in Third District Court, Warwick.