December 1, 2017
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
Two people from Clinton have pleaded guilty to a Clinton jewelry store heist and have been sentenced.
38-year-old Patrick Tyrone Conway pled guilty on November 17 and his partner, 36-year-old Crystal Joy Peralta pled guilty four days later to the burglary of Shantel Jewelers on Frisco Avenue.
Conway was charged with 2nd degree burglary received five years in the Department of Corrections with credit for time already served.
Peralta was charged with knowingly concealing stolen property. According to investigators, 20 plastic bags of various pieces of men’s and women’s jewelry, several different watches and numerous loose pieces of jewelry were hidden in their home under the kitchen stove.
Peralta was sentenced to four years in prison with all except the first sixty days suspended. She’s getting credit for time served, also.
According to a probable cause affidavit, the owner of the jewelry store said his store was broken into in the night of September 19. Video from the store shows that a subject appeared to be going to the rear of the store where entrance was made.
The owner told police that he was missing about $3-thousand to $4-thousand dollars of jewelry including several items of silver or cubit zirconium jewelry.
Peralta first told investigators that someone else had broken into the jewelry store and that she was hiding it at Conway’s residence. She later admitted that she had lied and that it was her boyfriend, Conway, that had burglarized the store.
Conway later admitted during an interview with investigators that he was the person who broke in and stole the items.
Peralta said that Conway had told her he was going to burglarize the store and that on the night it happened, she was home when Conway came home with bags of jewelry and showed it to her. She said he told her he entered through the back of the store.
Peralta said they tried to hide the jewelry in a mattress, then they took it to a set of rail road tracks but were unable to find a good hiding place, so they returned home and finally decided to hide it under the kitchen stove.
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