A Near West Side man, convicted seven times for burglary, is back in jail today, caught red-handed walking down a Lakeview street with a stolen TV, cops say.
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| Maldonado | Chicago Police Dept |
54-year-old Samuel Maldonado was arrested just after 1 o’clock Saturday afternoon in the 4300 block of North Clark Street.
Police were in the area after a woman reported seeing someone break into her neighbor’s garden apartment in the 1400 block of West Hutchinson. Maldonado was stopped five minutes later with a TV set on the corner of Clark and Berteau, according to authorities.
Maldonado was taken into custody after being identified as the person who unlawfully entered the residence, according to Officer Christine Calace of the police department’s Office of Communications.
Maldonado—who was paroled in early March after serving two years of a four-year sentence for theft—is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail.
About 20 minutes before the basement break-in a man was seen breaking into another home in the 1400 block of West Irving Park Road. A neighbor on that block stopped the burglar and reclaimed a TV that he had taken from the victim’s home, police said.
The Irving Park burglar was described as a 50-year-old Hispanic man wearing a gray shirt who entered through a window.
Maldonado has a lengthy prison record dating back to the 1980’s, according to state records. Before his most recent theft sentence, he was sent to prison for:
• 10 years for burglary in 2009
• 6 years for burglary in 2006
• 8 years for burglary in 2002
• 6 years for burglary in 1999
• 6 years for burglary in 1996
• 4 years for narcotics in 1987
• 4 years for burglary in 1987
• 4 years for attempted burglary in 1987
Needless to say, he has a way of committing burglaries after being released early from prison for burglary.
