RIVERHEAD MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO BURGLARY OF RIVERHEAD LOWE’S

(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced Terry Smith, 60, pleaded guilty to burglarizing a Riverhead Lowe’s Home Improvement Store in 2021.

“Local retail stores lose money when items are stolen from their shelves and it’s the law-abiding consumer that ends up paying for it. Businesses are forced to either raise the cost of their goods, start locking up everything on the aisles or leave communities all together,” said District Attorney Tierney. “These types of crimes have a damaging effect on our economy and local communities. We will not stand idly by and allow it. Those caught burglarizing and stealing from businesses, like this defendant, will go to jail.”

According to the investigation and the defendant’s admissions during his plea allocution, from November 10, 2021 to November 25, 2021, Smith stole several items and burglarized the Lowe’s Home Improvement Store on Old Country Road in Riverhead on three occasions.

On November 10, 2021, Smith stole numerous home improvement items including hedge trimmers, spray gun kits and a chainsaw having a value in excess of $3,000 from the store. 

The defendant was captured on surveillance video exiting the store without paying for the items, with the items in a store shopping cart.

On November 24, 2021, a Lowe’s Asset Protection Safety Manager who had viewed the surveillance video from the November 10, 2021 theft spotted Smith in the store.  The employee followed Smith throughout the store as he loaded two Dewalt power tools into a shopping cart.  On this occasion, Smith approached a store register with the items, placed the items on the register counter, but left without paying for them.

The next day, on November 25, 2021, Smith was again caught on surveillance video sometime during the evening, breaking into the Lowe’s by ramming an exterior and an interior sliding glass door with what appeared to be a steel beam and shattering them. 

Smith entered the sliding glass doors through the holes in the glass and proceeded to steal three Dewalt power tools.  The defendant was subsequently identified by the Asset Protection Safety Manager as being the same individual he observed on November 24, 2021.  Smith was located and arrested wearing the same pants he was observed wearing in the surveillance video. 

On May 16, 2023, Smith pleaded guilty before Acting Supreme Court Justice, the Honorable Richard I. Horowitz to Grand Larceny in the Third Degree, a Class D felony and Burglary in the Third Degree, a Class D felony.  He is being represented by John Halverson, Esq. and is due back in court on June 14, 2023. 

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Maria Troulakis and Alexander Bopp of the Major Crime Bureau.

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Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.

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