MAHOPAC – Town Police in Carmel have arrested three suspects in connection with the theft of mail from mailboxes in the Mahopac area.
Police investigated when they received a call of a suspicious vehicle in the area of West Lake Boulevard shortly after midnight on Thursday, December 1.
Carmel officers located the vehicle on Route 6N in Mahopac. They conducted a traffic top and identified the driver and two passengers as the suspects.
Vitaliy Lutso, 27, of Brooklyn was driving and the passengers were identified as 29-year-old Tetiana Alive-Yolosovych of Brooklyn and 24-year-old Mykola Popadynets of Mahopac.
Police determined Lutso was driving with a suspended license and registration and had a fraudulent Delaware registration tag.
Several pieces of stolen mail from Mahopac residents were discovered in the vehicle along with stolen credit cards and some 80 stolen checks belonging to victims in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Tennessee.
All three were remanded to the Putnam County Jail.
Lutso was charged with aggravated unlicensed operation, operating with a suspended registration, operating a vehicle without insurance, possession of a forged instrument, petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Bail was set at $5,000 cash or $15,000 bond.
Alive-Volosovych was charged with petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal possession of a controlled substance.
Bail was set at $5,000 cash or $15,000 bond.
Popadynets was charged with petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property and criminal possession of a controlled substance. He was charged with being a fugitive from justice due to an active warrant from Broward County, Florida for larceny and fraud.
Bail was set at $5,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond.
The Carmel Police Department and US Postal Inspection Service are continuing their investigation and additional criminal charges are pending, police said.
